Story
We were in the garden. Together. All this sun, all this green. Everything blossoming around us – spring in Paris. Strong coffee, cables in the grass and a bunch of cheap mics. A beat up lap top. Julien was strumming on his old, fucked up guitar. I was singing into a handheld mic, still in my kimono p.j.’s. That’s how it all started. – Lea
But, really, it started the day they met. They met on stage. At a gig in Paris. Mildly hungover and a pinch sceptical of the other. Hungry! The way seasoned musicians are hungry before they hit the stage with someone new. That night, when Lea opened her mouth and wrapped her voice around the bass line – it happened. Everybody who was there could testify to it! It rippled through the space and hung between the musicians and the audience – between the two of them. Like incense smoke. Almost tangible. Call it an energy, call it a spark, chemistry – whatever! That thing was there, and it was magick!
They blinked a couple of times and, one day, they rolled out of bed as lovers. Soon after, as a couple. And, as they got to know each other better, they realised, rather quickly, that this thing, this love, this shared thirst for life, was, in fact, music. Because, life, when you really tune into it, is a resonance; it’s a vibration at a cellular level. So, it really was a no brainer, to translate this thing into sound. To put it down on tape. Which is exactly what they did.
We packed our car with Tetris-precision. Some clothes, comfy Swiss blankets, pillows. Nine different bass guitars, a few different mics. Synths, tons of cables, a little plant that we got in Berlin, and more cables. Effects pedals, a laptop… We drove to Bretagne. We rented a little cottage, and we made this record! – Julien
The record doesn’t have a title, per se, because the project name was enough to capture what the two of them were after. et . Nu stands for a volcanic explosion. Hot lava rock. Molten. Energy. Golden. It also implies standing in the nude, ie. a sensual / sexual connection to life. Simplicity and honesty, which, of course, are the key ingredients of great art.
et . nu is a bass and voice record, as in: all the sounds which you hear, unless they were made using household appliances – like a vacuum cleaner or a coffee machine – were, in fact, played on an electric bass (or a synth bass) or sung.* Hence, as a whole, this is a record as a document of a couple falling in love created using their choice instruments. And, it aint your typical baby-baby-lovey-dovey type of record, either. Of course, there are songs like that on here, because no record about love is complete without them. But, what makes this LP unique is that it’s a high-definition, 3-dimensional rendering of a grown up type of love. As it unfolds. So, you get to witness a couple negotiating space and, essentially, creating the architecture for a life to be spent together. You get vivid snapshots of a home being built. Not only the brick and mortar type, but a family, with a child. And, of course, “a home” as in the space to be occupied in each other. You also catch a glimpse of what it took to get there. All residual fears and expectations had to be dealt with head on. Clocks reset and drives wiped clean! Because, this is the only way in which two individuals, each one with a long, winding past can meet each other in “the nude.” To go all in. To surrender.
*The only exceptions are Corsica, where Julien plays guitar and Eel where Billy Martin plays the drums.