INTLX #3：ONE LICK LESS (Paris 巴黎)
~* mutant blues & hybrid forms *~
旁边儿国际交流系列第三集：异型蓝调和混合音程变种

By , 2012年 7月 13日

《 看中文采访 》

The third installment of pangbianr’s new show booking initiative INTLX — INTernationaL noise eXchange — is upon us. Featured this time is One Lick Less, the two-piece mutant blues hybrid from Paris, France. It was established as the solo project of Julien Bancilhon, who was initially inspired by the freewheeling, finger-picked guitar work of legendary American axe improviser John Fahey. On the recommendation of his good friend Zaza, Julien has toured China once a year since 2010, travel-ready homemade lapsteel guitar in tow. With the addition of percussionist Basile Ferriot to temper and expand Julien’s rhythmically unorthodox compositions — plus a brand new steel guitar of Julien’s own design — One Lick Less returns to China for another summer tour.

Read an interview with Julien and Basile below, then check them live on Friday July 20 at XP and/or Saturday August 4 at What Bar:

pangbianr: First can you give a brief introduction of yourself and One Lick Less? How long have you been playing music? OLL was originally a solo project and now you are playing as a duo. How has the band evolved over time?

Julien Bancilhon: I started playing that kind of music not so long ago when I discovered the fingerpicking style and especially John Fahey. I had been improvising for quite a while in a duo called Red Horn Cannibals that started as a noise project with my friend Benjamin Renard (aka Ben Fox). We slowly drifted from a very experimental style to a more doom rock as well as folk influenced guitar duo.

In parallel I had songs that I had composed quite long ago and I decided to develop them in a solo project that friends were pushing me to start.

Basile and me were the following the same kind of music and had friends in common. He suggested should start something after attending a gig of that constantly moving solo project. It took a long time until we really found a sound that suit us and we hesitated at first, between electric or acoustic. We clearly found something very electric and it makes it even more interesting for us now when we come back to acoustic.

Basile Ferriot: Most of the songs we are playing are first composed by Julien (riffs, vocals and lyrics). When he played alone, he didn’t need to have very precise the structures. When we started playing together, we had to arrange things up more tightly, in order to be able to follow each other; being a drummer, I started to get more involved in the rhythmic and structural aspects of the compositions, bringing ideas about how some of the unusual time signatures could be expanded and played with for example.

pbr: Most international bands don’t view China as an obvious place to tour, yet you’re coming back for your third trip. How did you originally become interested in China? What were your experiences on your first two trips? What do you expect for this tour?

JB: This is a funny question, because I don’t really think that the “international” adjective suits us, first of all because we don’t have any media coverage outside of France; we have been to Finland, I have been to Asia but it was always self financed, self organized (with the help of a few people of course).

Just like other countries, the destinations were related to friendships. I have a very good friend who lives in China, and she introduced me to people who could give me a hand for concerts. It is very reassuring to know that in many places in the world, and even in China which seemed so far away at first, you’ll find the same music lovers and the same “geeks” who allow great things to happen without especially asking anyone for money.

Beyond friendship, China happened to be so welcoming that I’ve been coming for three years now. I just expect it to be as good as the last times, I’ll be happy to meet the people I know and meet new ones…

BF: Being my first time there and following Julien’s envy to come back in China together, I don’t have any precise expectations, others than playing the best we can, meeting a lot of people and discover the country.

pbr: You play a unique assortment of self-made or self-modified instruments. Can you go into more detail about your instrumentation?

JB: As I started the solo project, the Red Horn Cannibals were looking for an other kind of sound. I got the Idea from Benjamin Renard to start building my own lapsteel. Helped by him, for the electronic part, I built a gigantic 6 + 8 stings lapsteel guitar made out of cheap kitchen wood that was so heavy and large that it soon got really complicated to carry around. I decided to build a smaller one for my first trip to china. This time also I should be coming with a brand new one that is being finished in this month. Building those instruments (I’m building the 5th now have already ideas for the 6th) opens a lot of possibilities and I use it as a way of exploring sound.

BF: My drum set is pretty minimal but not so unusual. The only special thing is that I play a floor tom both as a tom and a bass drum, with a pedal hitting from below. I like the idea of a very compact set up (plus, it’s easier to travel with it in the Paris public transports).

pbr: OLL’s music is rather complex and layered, and would seem at home being labeled either “experimental rock” or “post-rock”. I know labels like this only go so far, but how do you describe your music?

JB: I like to say, that I play blues because this is all I can do. I was seduced by the lap steel because it is like playing guitar with only one finger. And if I tend to compose unusually structured songs, it is because it has always been too complicated for me to count (even up to four) when I play music. But playing with Basile has helped me a lot in systematizing what I used to be unaware of…

BF: Our music is basically blues and folk, but we try to keep it open and incorporate all the music we like: noise, prog, rock, jazz, ethnic…A friend of us labelled OLL “Mutant Blues”, I think it’s a nice term for our music, and we’ve been using it for some time now.

One Lick Less plays on Friday, July 20 at XP with Glow Curve and on Saturday, August 4 at What Bar with Chui Wan. Visit their bandcamp page for full China tour dates.

旁边儿国际噪音交流第三集缤纷而至！ 本次参与的乐队是来自法国巴黎的异性蓝调加混合音程变种乐队One Lick Less。成员之一Julien Bancilhon, 曾饱受美国即兴指弹吉他大师John Fahey的影响。在他的好朋友ZAZA的推荐和帮助下，他从2010年开始，以个人计划的名义成功地完成了在中国的两次巡演。这次他随同鼓手Basile Ferriot，加上一把崭新的改装琴，One Lick Less踏上了第三次中国巡演的路程。

接下来是对他们二人的简短采访，另外千万不要错过 7月20日 星期五在XP俱乐部 / 8月4日星期六在老what的精彩演出！

旁边儿：首先，你能给自己和One Lick Less做一个简短的介绍吗？ 玩音乐的时间大概多久？OLL 以前是一个独奏计划，现在是你和一个鼓手。乐队在这个过程中具体有怎样的变化?

Julien Bancilhon: 我开始玩这种音乐是在我尝试使用指弹吉他手法，特别是听了John Fashey之后不久。然后我和我朋友Benjamin Renard (aka Ben fox) 一起弄了Red Horn Cannibals 噪音计划二人组，我们一起即兴玩了好一阵。然而紧接着，我们从比较实验的风格逐渐转变为一种更加偏向死亡摇滚，兼具吉他民谣氛围。

与此同时，我找到了我很久以前写的一些歌，身边的朋友们一直鼓励我捡起这些歌，用它们做点有意思的东西，所以我才决定把歌曲融进个人独奏计划里。

Basile和我都喜欢类似的音乐，并且有很多共同的朋友。他提出我应该在独奏计划的演出间隙，两个人一起弄个新的组合。当时花费了我们好长时间才找到一种适合我们的但同时依旧犹豫不决的发声方式。这种犹豫不决体现在电子和不插电之间，我们总是在电子氛围中找到很多我们想要的感觉，但是当我们回到不插电的时候，一切又变的更有趣。

Basile Ferriot: 所有我们演奏的歌都是Julien写的。当他独自演奏的时候，他不需要任何精准的结构。当我们一起演奏时，为了能使彼此能互相相应，我们需要把东西安排的更紧凑；作为一个鼓手，我会更轻松地在歌曲的节奏和结构下找到自己的位置，所以这样也能给他一个结构上的提醒。

旁边儿：大多数国际乐队并不把中国作为一个他们必要的巡演地点，但是你已经来来回回到这里三次了。最初你是怎么对中国感兴趣的？前两次来这有什么见闻？对这次巡演又有什么期待？

JB: 这个问题挺有意思的，因为我觉得所谓“国际”乐队的头衔跟我们挺八杆子打不着的。首先因为我们在法国之外没有任何的媒体覆盖；我们去过芬兰，也去过亚洲，但是都是自费，自己联系人帮忙组织。

去每个国家都一样，目的地的建立往往都因为有坚实友谊的存在作为前提。我有一个好朋友住在中国，通过他我认识了一些能帮助我们演出的人。无论相隔多远，当你遇到那些和你有共同音乐喜好、共同狂热理想，并乐于帮助你在这里施展拳脚，而且从来不求回报的人的时候，心里都是充满慰藉的。

除了友谊，三次来中国，每次都让我觉得自己是受欢迎的。 对于这次的有什么期望，我想我并不奢求更多，只是期待能和上次一样开心就好，并且很高兴见到我认识的老朋友，更期待结识新朋友。

BF: 这将是我第一次造访中国，对于他多次往来中国，我羡慕不已。我没有任何特别的期望，只是觉得尽我们最大的努力去演，认识很多有意思的朋友，同时好好领略一下这个大国的风采。

旁边儿：你所使用的可谓是一个DIY乐器的集合体，你能多跟我们聊一聊关于制作乐器的细节？

JB: 就在我开始个人计划的时候，Red Horn Cannibals当时正在尝试寻找另一种声音。我从Benjamin Renard那里得到了有趣的想法——制作一个平放在腿上弹奏的吉他。在他的帮助下，电子部分，我用厨房里的隔断板制作了一个巨大的6+8弦的，可以平放在我腿上弹奏的琴，但是不足之处是它很重，拿着它到处走会费我不少劲，所以在第一次来中国的时候，我又做了一个小一点儿的。这次我当然应该带上这个月马上做好的新琴上路。做这些琴（我已经开始做第五个了，第六个已经有了想法）给我的创作带来无穷无尽的可能性，并且也拓宽了我搜寻各种声音的途径。

BF: 我的鼓很极简，但是没那么奇怪。唯一特殊的地方是我在通鼓下安一个脚踏，所以通鼓有时候也作为底鼓使用。我喜欢比较简洁的布局，而且也便于携带。

旁边儿：OLL的音乐听上去比较多层繁复，似乎你们的风格标签是“实验摇滚”或者“后摇”，我知道这种风格的定义往往太程式化了，想知道你们自己是怎么诠释自己的音乐的？

JB: 我想说，我玩蓝调是因为我只会玩蓝调。改装这种琴的想法之所以如此吸引我，是因为同样是弹吉他，但我可以用一个手指来演奏。而且往往我自己写的歌，都没什么结构，因为我确实对这玩意不在行，但是Basile在这方便帮助我很多。

BF: 我们的音乐是根植于蓝调和民谣，但是我们尝试保持开放，并与我们喜欢的其他音乐类型保持联系：噪音，前卫摇滚，爵士，民族音乐……我们的一个朋友叫我们“异形蓝调”，我觉得还算比较准确，所以如果需要标签的话，我们就用这个。

One Lick Less 7月20日周五在小萍演跟Glow Curve和8月4日周六在老what跟吹万演出。

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