EM GUIDE — Interview with Le Motel, conducted at Meakusma 2024

Le Motel „It’s very important for me at least to be always out of my comfort zone“

Fabien Leclercq on the beach

Interviews on a Saturday afternoon are a tough call – simply because it`s Bundesliga time. I guess artists like Le Motel, who are not really soccer fans themselves can´t understand the subtile anxiety that plagues one when the favorite team is playing right when the interview is scheduled.

Well, firstly, as an author you shouldn’t be so self-centered as to impose the story on yourself, and secondly, Le Motel made a believable effort to convey sympathy for my tension.

In the end it did not help, my team, VFB Stuttgart, conceded the equalizer by Mainz 05 in the last minute of stoppage time…

 

Anyway, enough with my idiosyncratic lead-up.

Let´s instead talk about Le Motel, a true world traveller in the name of music, who´s discography shows great enthusiasm for worldwide cultures. Le Motel worked in the past among others with artists from Nigeria, China, Ghana, Spain, Kenya, and of course also collaborates with fellow Belgium artists like the musicians Roméo Elvis, Yellow Straps and Veence Hanao or visual artists Antoine De Schuyter.

His breakthrough record „Oka“ was released 2015 on the New Zealand label Cosmic Compositions and was picked by none other than Gilles Peterson as record of the week on his BBC 6 show. That said, Le Motel will release a new album in February 2025, in collaboration with Vietnamese artists and poets.

Later, after my team stupidly and unnecessarily had lost two points, Le Motel played a wild Le Motel Set on the outdoor soundsystem stage of Meakusma.

 

Fabien, what is your relationship with the Meakusma festival? Have you been here before?

Fabien Leclercq: Yeah, I’ve been here 2019, as a visitor. I have very good memories on that edition. I wanted to come back in the years to follow, but I was very unlucky, all editions in between I was playing somewhere else.
So finally I am back – and very happy to play for the first time at Meakusma. A big honor for me.

Missing out on things because of other bookings – the big artist traumata.

Yeah, even if I wasn’t playing, I would be here every year.

As you are based in Brussels, what’s your perspective on the positioning of the festival and the importance of the festival for the cultural landscape of Belgium?

I think Meakusma is very positive for the local scene, because the festival team takes a lot of effort in presenting new emerging projects. They really give artists a chance and put some light on new projects, even projects that are not yet totally defined or finished in the sense that the album is recored or they played shows before.

I think on a worldwide scale the festival is of high importance. When I speak to other artists from different countries, I can feel that everybody knows the festival. Meakusma puts Belgium on the map.
For example, in 2019, they invited Ben UFO, a DJ that really inspires me since a very long time. And he told me, that Meakusma is one of his favorite festivals in the world. They gave him a carte blanche for the whole day – he invited a lot of people from the UK, especially from the Bristol scene, who play a lot of club music usually, but this time they only played experimental or ambient music.

I attended the „Ben UFO edition“ you talk about. It was quite something.
If you give artists such a freedom, they tell others about your festival.

That´s why most artists stay longer at Meakusma, some even the whole festival – and some also come the year after. I already met artists from different countries who are not even playing this edition. They came just to enjoy the festival because other people told them to come or they made so good experiences here.

So you feel it’s also a good possibility for meeting new people from all over the world?

Definitely. It’s only people who are really into music here and who are really open minded. I always meet a lot of interesting people that I did not met before and that become friends after.
I’m running the label Maloca Records, so the festival is very interesting for me as a label owner to discover new artists and to meet other artists. Honestly, it’s the festival with the most innovative lineup for me; I don’t know a lot of names on the lineup, which is not very common.

Same goes for me.

And I really enjoy this. Just today I discovered a lot of very interesting artists that I barely knew. I just went randomly in a room and it was super nice.

 Fabien Leclercq

The international line-up of Meakusma also fits your own interest in music from all over the world. Your biography tells the story of a world traveller. Have you been that curious from the beginning on?

Every time I had the opportunity to go somewhere, even if it wasn’t to play or to make a big show, I take the chance and try to stay as long as possible and really connect with the local scene.
For example, I went to China this year and I stayed a month to connect and collaborate with different artists – and make connections for my label.
I always try to mix music, traveling, connection.

You’ve also travelled to South America for projects in the past, and more recently Vietnam. Do you feel your working process adapts to the local circumstances? Are you working differently each country?

The places and the people definitely change me and my processes. I see those field recording trips more and more as collaborative projects.
For example now I’m working on my next album. I started it in Vietnam, like one year and a half ago. This is a very collaborative album with Vietnamese musicians, poets, spoken word artists. The way I work becomes more and more a community thing, it´s rather a collective thing than an electronic music project.

Is the plan to bring projects like the next album back to the so to speak source, to Vietnam?

I worked with a lot of artists there, but I also involved Vietnamese artists in Belgium which make it easier. Of course the goal is to come back to Vietnam and also play with the artists who participated the project in Vietnam.

I get the impression you are in general a community orientated artist. As you are based in Brussels. How would you describe the current state of your everyday community there?

I can’t complain, I think we are very lucky for such a small country and city. Brussels is very exciting for me, especially now we have Kiosk Radio, a very community based radio. We also have also a lot of nice festivals – this helps making connections between the different scenes, also different generations, different cultures. Because Brussels is such a beautiful mix of music and different people with different backgrounds. So many great projects tare coming right now from Brussels, live shows happening, its a super inspiring city. I travel a lot but it really feels like home and I like to come back and see that so many things are happening.

Fabien Leclercq (Photo: Pierre Ten)

Fabien, what do you search in music? What does music need to get your attention – question goes for both, your own and the music of other artists?

I always been fascinated about things that you can’t really describe and you can’t put a label on, things that are really hybrid.
I really like it, when I’m not sure, what I’m listening to, when people are mixing music they like with something from their background, and when hey don’t really give a shit.
My label Maloca feels like a worldwide community to me, it’s really about this blending of organic and electronic sounds, this blend of different genres that are not supposed to be mixed together.
For example Howie Lee, an artist from China, he mixes very traditional music and Tibetan music recently with very weird experimental music. This makes him very unique. I really like that kind of blurry space in music.

All that said, is this also the reason why your biography is full of disruptions. You seem to enjoy taking breaks when things get to established. Like doing a soundtrack instead of the next 12-inch, or going into a collaboration instead of staying solid on your let´s say career path in that moment?

That’s an interesting question.
I think it’s very important for me at least to be always out of my comfort zone.
Yes, I did a lot of collaborative projects, sometimes I did two or three albums with some of the artists I collaborate with, but when it became too established (and we know exactly where we are going to next, or maybe if a record label came and said, „okay now it’s working, we want more tracks like this“), this is indeed the moment I change the path usually and go to something else. Because it’s very nourishing to find collaborators and to try to make something that’s not your music also not their music – something very different. Also I like to change music partners and be in an open relationship.

At one point you chose Belgian hip-hop artists who are quite successful as collaborators. What was the motivation therefor? Are these projects also artistically stimulating or are they more likely jobs?

No, it’s mostly always about friendships. I’m not really coming from hiphop anyway, I started with electronic music, so I was bringing my other influences and mixing them with hiphop.
The hiphop artist I worked mostly with, Roméo Elvis, he started experimenting on some of his tracks – so we decided to make an album together based this spirit of experimentation. We were both very surprised how well this blend worked. We did collaborate for a few years. Super exciting times – but at some point I wanted to to go back to my first love: electronic music

As we talk so much about past your biography and former projects, are there artists that had a big impact on you? Like shaping you as role models? Not just in a musical way, also regards the way they handle their careers?

A band that really influenced me was Boards of Canada – funnily a band that always goes into the same direction. So, to chose a more innovative career, „Kid A“ by Radiohead was super mind-blowing for me, I like the way Thom Yorke handles all his projects, he does not really care what the people think. People were asking him to play Karma Police but he was playing Idioteque and everything in it’s right place.

It’s funny you mentioned them, because I interviewed the Greenwood brothers twice. In one interview we just ended up listening to music together on my laptop as they didn´t fee like talking about their music. This was the time of all that incredible clicks´n´cuts music by acts like SND. I remember the readers were super pissed afterwards, cause they wanted to hear Radiohead stories. But I felt the interview told so much more about who they are as artists, humans. I honestly never like Radiohead before, but after this conversations i started to understand them better and found my way into their music, not all but some.

Thom Yorke or also Aphex Twin are food examples for artists that keep searching for the new sound.

You do not only collaborate with other musicians, you also work close with visual artists, graphic designers.

I am thinking beyond the music, because I feel that the visual aspects of releases and the live shows are as important as the records. I’m a graphic designer myself, I started studying graphic design and I I’ve always been into art and digital arts, I co-organized a festival called Les Garages Numériques in Brussels, a mix of exhibition, art installation and live shows.
I usually think about the visual aspects very early in projects, I always like to make video clips and artworks for each track. I think this comes from the Soundcloud era, for every track I was putting on I needed to find the perfect cover back then. And of course I grew up with vinyl, i still love digging through stores. As a teenager, I was first attracted by the visual art and then by the music.There are so many amazing record covers by artists like Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada….

What’s the act you are most interested to see this year at Meakusma?

I need to see my list, because it’s hard to pick one.

You made a list?

I did a very serious list for each day.
Okay: Honour

(I´m sneeking into his phone)
Oh, did not just make a list, you wrote descriptions to each act there.

Yeah, I put some informations in more to remember it better.
So tomorrow, Gaia Tones.

I’m a huge fan of the Belgian artist Maxime Denuc.

I fell in a hole at his installation.

What?

There are some holes behind the installation – and somehow they forgot to put a sign there, like saying, „no walking area“. Well, it was dark and I fell into this hole yesterday.

Oh shit.

It went okay, but I was like, maybe light would not be a bad idea, right?
It felt like falling into a grave.

I def wanna see the installation by Maxime Denuc, his current album is one of my favorites right now
I think it’s also a good example of how surprising Meakusma as a festival can be. It’s not a sculpture, it’s not a live show, it’s like something in between.

What’s up next, Fabien?

I’m working on music for films and fashion shows. And as said before, my album in collaboration with these Vietnamese artists will be published in February. It will not just be an album, it will be an art exhibition. The album will be presented as a six or eight channel installation with videos and photos. So the album is going to be only available as a 360 presentation.
We will also do prints of a poem by one of the Vietnamese artists.

And as you just mentioned also fashion shows. Like with local designers from Brussels or…?

Not for now, I’m working on the music for Bottega Veneta in Milan. I’m working with them since a few years now. It’s a very collaborative process with Matthieu Blazy the artistic director, and the Image and music director Pierre Debusschere. I really enjoy it because they have very strong taste in music and it’s always very challenging.
It’s like making music for a movie basically.

 

Is it just music by you or also other music?

Sometimes I compose everything, sometime they license music by other artist, like Ennio Morricone, James Blake, or Beethoven. It really depends on the collection. It’s like building a narrative with your music and other artist music in 15 minutes.

Thank you for your time and words, Fabien. And now lets switch on my phone and see how my team is doing….

… and here comes a brand new Le Motel track and video: “Serenade of the Seas” – with some background infos

One month before Covid announcement, the venezuelian / french artist Marion Ellena started working on the construction of a cruise ship in Saint-Nazaire (France). At night, when the site was empty and all the workers had left, she captured the empty spaces of the ship. She felt like a ghost wandering everywhere and nowhere at the same time, in a collapsed post-capitalist world functioning without human presence. After few years of discussions and artistic connections, the belgian music producer Le Motel sent her his track « Serenade of the Seas », and somehow, it felt like the perfect soundtrack.

« Serenade of the Seas » is out on Lapsus compilation VINT alongside 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗼𝗽, 𝗞𝗼𝗱𝗲𝟵, 𝗦𝘂𝘇𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗶, μ-𝗭𝗶𝗾, 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗼 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗹, 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗱, 𝗟𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗢𝗳 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘀, 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗿, 𝗣𝗲́𝗽𝗲, 𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗚𝗨𝗜𝗟𝗔𝗥, 𝗚𝗔𝗭𝗭𝗜, 𝗞𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗹, 𝗻𝗮𝗲𝗺𝗶, 𝗡𝘂𝗲𝗲𝗻, 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝗵.   

 

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EM GuideThis article is brought to you as part of the EM GUIDE project – an initiative dedicated to empowering independent music magazines and strengthen the underground music scene in Europe. Read more about the project at emgui.de

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

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