Guts is a french producer, known for his ability to bring together music into bodies of work that perfectly create an aesthetic that is pure and bliss. His works are broad and cover hip hop, soul, Rnb and jazz all finding themselves sitting in a place of relaxation and sunshine. His beach series compilations are summer on wax and he only seems to be getting better. We had a chat with the artist about his works and what is to come.
How’s life at the moment?
I left Paris in 2007 (the release year of my first solo LP “le bienheureux”) to join my father in Ibiza (Baleares, spain). I fell in love with this island, it became my paradise, the place where I’m in peace. That’s exactly the kind of place I was looking to live with a cool life with good weather. With tranquillity. My life in Ibiza is really far from the stereotypical picture of the island, the clubs, the parties. I’m fully connected with the nature, the beach, the sea.
What inspires you to do to what you do?
My inspiration is an emotional and vital need to express myself through music. That's what gives meaning to my life and that's what I do best. My culture is hip hop, I come from this movement, this culture and through this music I widened my artistic field and I went experimented jazz, soul, funk, african music, west indies music
The artwork for all your releases is an aesthetic dream. The uniformity and consistency of characters and colours is really great. Who is the artist that does these?
The artist with whom I work for the covers is called Mambo. he comes from graphiti / street art. I’m collaborating with him for ten years, since the album "Freedom". It corresponds completely to the image that I want to drive! A suggestive, artistic image that brings me back to my first love of hip hop and street art. Mambo is like me, rather discreet, I have always been reluctant to put my face on the covers, to show me, it was better to collaborate with a visual artist to communicate on my name and my music.
How do the artwork’s come together? Do you provide direction for the characters or is it all the control of the artist?
For each album, I make a brief to Mambo, then we discussed and exchanged on the content. From this exchange, Mambo will create a visual concept and develop my avatar to find the illustration that illustrates the concept of the album.
One body of works of yours that I am particularly captured by is the ‘Beach Diggin’ Series. The fusion of hip hop, soul and jazz perfectly creates feelings of warmth and relaxation. Can you tell us a bit about what lead to this?
The beach digging series are compilations of the old tracks we dug with Mambo. It's an idea that took shape when discussing with Mambo. The initial idea was to choose titles that correlate with well-being, imagine making love on these titles, chilling on the beach or on the couch. have a feeling of well being.
What is your ideal notion of relaxing?
Hard to answer… to be connected with your interior, your breathing, and the external elements, the wind, the sun, the environment ... your interior.
Most memorable gig tales?
There was quite a lot… years ago we had an important show at Eurosonic festival in the North of Nederlands, the band was gathered except Leron Thomas, singer and trumpet player of the band who was stucked in London. It was snowing hard in Groningen and he took an ultimate plane to Amsterdam to come to the concert, without knowing if he would arrive on time. We decided to start the show without him, we played the intro of "Brand new revolution" and 5 seconds before his verse, he jumped on stage, took the microphone and started to sing. It was unreal !!
What can we expect next from you?
I just released the compilation "Straight from the decks" and I also created Pura vida sounds, my label within Heavenly Sweetness, on which I will release EP and album from artists that I love. Also continuing to create albums, maybe more intimate, less collective than the previous albums. . And why not, continue to release compilations
Any plans to come to Australia? We would love to put a show on for you if you do
Exactly, it might be scheduled for March 2020. I have never been to Australia and I dream to come to see you !! My booker has just proposed a possible tour in March
