Interview with Jazz Lambaux

Sometimes a jester. Sometimes a storyteller. Sometimes a polkadot cloaked buffoon screaming into a megaphone. I first encountered Paris-based singer songwriter, Jazz Lambaux’s mesmerizingly frazzled bagpipe driven tunes in a neurotic late-night frenzy, scouring the deep corners of the internet, listening to just about anything with a pretty album cover and interesting title that RateYourMusic would generously plop down in front of me. The day’s dawn broke, the horizon opened up before me, and Jazz’s 2023 EP Paranoid appeared, a delicate two track bundle: one side detailing the oh-so familiar feelings of unplaced anxieties over stuttering electronics and woodwind interludes, one side delivering a dreamily child-like dance track with pitched up infantile vocals as a sonic world whirred and crashed down below.

This is not the kind of music you can casually put on the aux. Take this as a warning: turning up your friend’s JBL speaker at a houseparty to play rambunctious piped-up ballads may get you scoffed at (even by your most uppity niche friends). No, Jazz Lambaux’s work is best experienced live and fittingly so the artist’s touring stampcard is extensive, playing alongside scene legends like A.G. Cook, John Zorn, and Oklou. Last summer, Jazz made his Amsterdam debut, performing at Garage Noord by the graces of Subbacultcha and Seedlink+.
Gracing the downstairs stage, Jazz’s music entered like an ancient unearthed musical prophecy us rounded-ear-club dwellers weren’t supposed to hear, somehow these frequencies cleansed Garage Noord’s smoke filled atmosphere. Entranced by the electro-folk almost country adjacent banger “America”, micro-bang dawning strangers came together, linking arm in arm, turning round’n round, in what I can only describe to you as a sweaty hipster swing dance promenade. 

Through Jazz’s absurdist, slightly medieval-coded world, the artist holds up the essence of  pop music to the light exposing its deepest origin: the folk, the people. Whether in his recorded music or radio plays, Jazz’s lyricism straddles the line between tongue-in-cheek satire whilst conjuring dreamily illustrative worlds.With bars like “Why are we loosing?/Jerkin in and off in a basement/ Now we can′t live in this city/ Cause we can’t live in a box/ I′m puking all my money on the floor/ I love you till we die in a war” Jazz pokes fun at the late-stage capitalism disillusionment that we can swing dance, laugh, and maybe cry to with a foolish crown atop our heads.

Coming down from the successful run of Jazz’s largely sold out unplugged tour with breton piper Enora Morice and new age emo screamer 300SkullsandCounting, we invited the up and coming fool to sit down from his antics to discuss folklore, tour life, inspirations and all things fooling around.

Gabi: How did the Jazz Lambaux project come about?

Jazz: Just me in my room writing music on my computer with midi bagpipes.

I like that about the pipes, that it can summon very ancient and sacred stuff but it can also just be a beautiful weird alien instrument.

 

G: Can you share a bit about the role of folklore in your work?

J: It’s hard to say. I wouldn’t claim it’s there; I know some people hear it in my music, but also that some people don’t really. I guess it’s there and it’s not. Enora Morice grew up in it, I didn’t. The bagpipes definitely carry something inherently tied to folklore, but it’s also not just that. I like that about the pipes, that it can summon very ancient and sacred stuff but it can also just be a beautiful weird alien instrument.

G: What does it mean to be a fool?

J: I have no idea.

G: Most recent non-musical inspiration?

J: Montclair, New Jersey and the few mystical creatures that live(d) there.

G: How did your collaborations with 300SkullsandCounting come about?

J: I went to see a show last minute in Montreuil (near Paris) at Les Instants Chavirés, and saw him play his set, his back turned to the audience with a green pineapple t-shirt and a pink mic. 

I was smiling the whole time and thought he was some kind of music soulmate honestly. I wrote to him the next day to say bravo, and two weeks later I wrote a song called War and I asked him to scream on it. He did it very quick (though he had to wait for his parents to leave because his mum doesn’t like to hear him scream) and then we shot a video for it in Paris a few weeks later at the exact same place I saw him the first time. And shooting this video, I thought this needs to be an unplugged band, and voilà :).

G:I caught your unplugged show in Amsterdam. How did you find performing fully acoustic compared to your normal electric shows?

J: Oh crazy you were there!! I loved this whole tour so much, because the idea of playing without a sound system was so scary, but in the end it created a very special vibe each night. It’s hard to explain but it’s like a mix of excitement, frustration and emotion in the room, it’s really cool.

G: Could you share a cherished memory from the unplugged tour?

J: Barcelona scary funny modern day medieval high drunk crowd.

I was smiling the whole time and thought he was some kind of music soulmate honestly.

 G: Mantra you live by?

J: Miami.

G: Sounds or textures you have been drawn to recently?

J: Resonator guitar, megaphone alarm sound and crowd booing.

G: Favourite recent musical find?

J: Kim David Bots  and Yuri Umemoto.

G: An activity that complements listening to Jazz Lambaux?

J: Fooling around.

G: What are you curious about exploring next?

J: April Fool’s Day.

Explore Jazz’s latest fooling adventures, a compilation of unplugged music for the day of the fool here.

All photos courtesy of the artist.