Eric Chenaux - Dancing among words and thoughts

The Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist Eric Chenaux, long associated with Montréal's Constellation Records, will play on August 17th and 18th at 10:30 in the morning at the Piedicavallo Festival 2024, waking up the audience with his special blend of jazz, soul and folk. We reached him by e-mail ahead of this double appearance to get some pointers for listening to his music. Chenaux thus took us by the hand into his world.

Hi Eric, thank you so much for granting us this interview, it's a great pleasure for OndaRock! I'd like to start not from a moment in time, but from a moment in space. What kind of setting feels familiar to you for practicing and composing your music? Do you live downtown or outside the city? Do you have a home studio, or do you go to a rehearsal space?

Hi M. Teresa, it's a pleasure.

Thank you for the interview and for the questions.

I don't know specifically what kind of atmosphere I need.

It would be wonderful to have a clear idea of that.

Maybe one day I'll know.

For now I can try to describe the atmosphere of the place where I play.

I'm not sure if it's a necessity, but I always keep in focus my love for certain things:

It's a room just off the kitchen.

It's about 70 square meters.

It's part of a farmhouse,

where pigs used to be kept.

Thick stone walls, floors in chestnut and oak wood.

There's a loft.

So there are two floors.

Two woods.

Five large windows and two glass doors, one of which leads to the courtyard out front.

The other leads to the garden out back and to a large magnolia tree.

It's heated with wood in autumn, winter and early spring.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

I haven't done any soundproofing, so the sound bounces around a bit, which is quite pleasant for the human voice.

The lower, sharper, tighter sounds tend to bounce.

I can spend a lot of time in this room, and I certainly have.

I don't spend too much time composing. Which isn't really true.

I suppose we'll talk about that later.

See, I read all the questions before starting

and I apologize to the reader if this might seem discouraging.

I spend a lot of time listening to and playing music.

I play a lot of music that I don't write.

Music written by other people.

I love doing that.

What a gift music can be.

And when I play music that I believe I wrote myself, well,

it feels similar.

I suppose by this point it might have become obvious that I don't live in the city.

I live in the wooded region of Corrèze, in south-central France.

I live there with Mariette, a wonderfully wild ceramicist, a dog named Blinky Palermo and three horses: Gibelle, Fanny and Mykhos.

There are plenty more, lots of spiders and the like, but for now let's set aside what has no name.

Or maybe this could just go on forever.

I also use my studio to dry herbs, spices and hot peppers from the garden.

It's really nice to have a piece of the garden in the studio.

Do you think of your music more in terms of songwriting or in terms of performance? In your practice, how does improvisation inform both activities?

Once again, I'm not sure I can define the terms of how I think about my music.

That doesn't seem like a very generous way to start answering a question, so I'll try much harder than I have so far.

When I compose, I think I'm thinking about a lot of things that have to do with songwriting.

I'm sure it's the same for other people, but I often get the sense that I'm dragging other concerns into songwriting.

Interests that develop over time and come from many different sources:

Cinema (I'm thinking of Alice Rohrwacher, of territory and public space).

Contemporary experimental music, a lot of chamber music.

Naturally there are certain writers, theorists, of both fiction and non-fiction, who come to mind when I think about music and composition.

I listen to a lot of music that couldn't be considered songwriting.

At least not yet.

And that music offers me ways of thinking about duration, form, repetition, counterpoint and contrast.

I have to admit that, even though it's wonderful to have finished writing something I believe could be enjoyable to play and pleasing to the ear,

well, it's not my favorite musical activity.

I like playing guitar and singing.

I can't just be there.

This is impossible to imagine.

My compositions try to have the most minimal compositional structure possible, so that details can emerge from improvisation.

I'm a terrible arranger.

So I look for the details in other ways.

Everyone improvising.

It might be reassuring to call all of this performance.

That even the compositional act becomes a performative act.

On OndaRock we've regularly reviewed your work since “Dull Lights” (Constellation/Wide, 2006). Over time, listening to your records, it seems that, metaphorically, the music constantly enacts a kind of “dance” between opposing elements, sounds and genres, which you manage to blend and unify. When you start composing music for a new record, do you feel driven by different energies? Does your approach change each time? If something changes, what changes?

I certainly appreciate the generosity OndaRock has shown toward my music a great deal.

I'm one of those people who reads all the reviews, interviews and articles, so I'm familiar with OndaRock's work.

It's a pleasure to talk about dance.

A wild, psychedelic form of listening.

I love dancing.

And when I listen to music, and something starts to happen,

it feels like I'm dancing.

The way I listen recalls dancing

and when the way I play echoes the way I listen

(which is what I mean when I say something starts to happen)

the performance seems to become a dance.

And if I can stretch the analogy even further, it feels like I have many dance partners, some of whom are space and sound, while others are human, that is, the audience.

When the audience feels like a dance partner, something is happening.

I heard what you said about combining different elements.

Like a lot of people I have a sense of humor, and it's probably better if I don't let it go to waste.

Well, there are many ways to talk about this subject.

I realize that guitar and voice can have a relationship of juxtaposition when you listen to this music.

The song is a place where voice and guitar can feel and encounter melody, tempo and rhythm differently.

They don't have to agree on everything.

Maybe I like to think that they agree to share the space,

And that they enjoy sharing that space without even having to agree on what that space is.

An encounter with difference.

The music I love embraces this, and it's nice to think that this welcoming extends to the listener, further multiplying the ways of entering the space of the song or the music.

If the music isn't entirely sure what it is, then it doesn't tell the listener how to approach it.

There are many things in the world that don't explain themselves

or that don't dictate the way and quality of how we encounter them, and music is one of those things.

It's in good company, isn't it?

My approach to composition is less interesting than that.

Still, I don't tackle it head-on.

I don't try to compose a song directly.

Maybe I've done that at times, and maybe I'll do it again.

But for the most part it's a matter of layering.

The nails aren't struck and driven straight into the ground.

Often it starts with a melody, which reaches toward harmony (maybe!), then goes back to melody, then to harmony again, then to rhythm, then back to melody, and then lyrics start to emerge, which I write in collaboration with Ryan Driver.

A collaboration I really love.

I hope and imagine he feels the same way.

We don't express ourselves.

Well, of course we do.

Curiosity is a form of expression, and we express it.

Curiosity about how we can approach language again.

How language can shape thoughts and feelings we didn't know before.

I discover a lot more from the lyrics than they discover from me.

I don't know why I think I know it.

And things change.

Are you influenced by other art forms? Film, visual arts, literature, theatre…

I'm not sure I can pinpoint exactly what influences me, but if I had to guess, I'd say I'm influenced by every form of everything.

I say that without having the slightest idea what "everything" (everything) actually is.

What a shameless answer.

Even if it's true.

Of course, film, literature, theatre and the visual arts are all forms I'm aware of, and they've all played a part in shaping my music.

There are lines that run through the different forms.

Maybe, just for now, let's call it the “why this matters” (why this matters) of a concept, an idea or a problem.

We can find “why this matters” lines running through different activities.

It's a lovely, wild thing to spend time thinking about.

And it can genuinely change you.

You can fall in love with a sound, or even with a style.

I think that's wonderful.

And that falling in love can have all sorts of effects.

It can produce an endless number of things.

But running beneath all of that, under the surface, is what I love.

The “why this matters” lets us speak across many different forms of thought and art.

And how we encounter them.

And how they invite and respond to an encounter.

“Why this matters” is about what something does, rather than what it is, or what it means.

The “why it matters” is the worlds of what's happening.

“Delights of My Life” (Constellation, 2024) takes the form of a trio (with Ryan Driver, a longtime collaborator of yours). How did the collaboration develop, and why a trio now?

I'll try a straightforward answer.

I'm not sure I've behaved so well up to now.

Let's shift the situation a little.

I felt a strong urge to share the process of making music with other people.

After many years of working, mostly alone, I felt ready for more social involvement, a practice that could open the door to others.

I've been playing with Driver (Wurlitzer) for over 25 years, and he's one of my all-time favorite musicians.

I mean that seriously.

It's true.

His musical practice is full of wonder, surrealism, and a wide range of ways to be amazed and to be surreal.

Isn't it about time we turned that word into a verb?

To surreal?

To surrealize?

I like them both.

I first heard the music of Philippe Melanson (electronic percussion) in the band Bernice, which I love enormously.

It was in a video of Bernice playing live in Chicago.

His body and the sound he produced, moving and swaying, pierced right through me.

And Phil and Ryan are friends and both live in Toronto.

And they play a lot of music together.

So, when it came to thinking about a trio, it seemed like a perfect collection of angles.

We really had an enormous amount of fun rehearsing and recording this music.

Ryan, Philippe and I spent two wonderful weeks here in Le Pouget, eating, talking, listening and making music.

Which musicians are you listening to? Any new records?

I love lists.

I'll look at my streaming channel and my Bandcamp page and list the latest things.

I want to tell the truth.

Some of these might be new right now.

Caetano Veloso

Sizzla

Gholamhossein Banan

Georgia Anne Muldrow

David Behrman

Jon Hassell

Barry Lipman

Sun Ra

King Tubby

Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru

Rafael Torel

Chico Mello

Richard Teitelbaum

Leoni Leoni

Jurg Frey

Bourrasque

You played on “Canzoni perdute” by Marisa Terzi (Frittflacc, 2017) – how did this collaboration come about, and what was it like playing for her? What's your relationship with Italian song of the past? Is there an album, or even just a single song, that you feel particularly attached to?

The collaboration came about through a mutual friend, Jacopo Leone, who lives between Catania and Paris.

Right now I'm thinking mostly of Paris, but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure I remember the story correctly, but, let's see, we've all become pretty inclined to believe whatever we read in the press these days, so I don't see any harm in giving the story a nice twist.

Jacopo was studying architecture in Milan.

This happened decades ago.

And he was working as a waiter in what I now imagine to be a good restaurant.

One evening a large group of artists/musicians came into the restaurant,

including Marisa Terzi and her husband (I don't remember his name, but he was a well-known composer).

I'm not sure if Jacopo was waiting on their table, but he was certainly present at an encounter that would change his imagination a great deal (his life included).

From what I recall hearing, Marisa's husband asked her to sing a song for the restaurant, or for the table.

And she did.

There are details of this story I now feel less comfortable sharing.

Let's just say the situation was complicated.

By all accounts (and I only have one version, but it's a good one, so I'll use the plural)

it was an extraordinarily beautiful and heartrending encounter with the song and with public space.

Jacopo told himself that one day he would make something with or for her.

A man of his word, Mr. Leone.

Let's jump ahead a few decades, and we made a record, with all the musicians chosen by Jacopo.

And now another restaurant.

And I know it was beautiful because I was there, and it was one of my favorite restaurants in Paris.

We celebrated the end of the recording at Le Boulangerie, near Menilmontant,

I believe it was in the 20th arrondissement.

That night nobody asked Marisa to sing.

But she got up to thank all the musicians and Jacopo, and when she got to me,

I was sitting right across from her,

she pointed at me and said “and you” and then went on to imitate the sound of my guitar, and it was a surprisingly accurate and hilarious impression of my guitar's overall sound.

It's possible she was teasing me.

You know, something ridiculous at a light dinner hour.

But my way of playing guitar is certainly worthy of ridicule.

If something is.

I think it was like: "Waon, woan, wah-waon".

Well, it sounded like it was imitating something stupidly bending and melting at the same time.

As things tend to happen.

I think about Marisa Terzi a lot.

Extraordinary lady.

I can't wait to hear you play live in the morning for two sets at the Piedicavallo Festival 2024.  Are you thinking of something special for the live shows?

Oh. You'll see.

Great.

I already feel amazing about this festival.

I've played so many shows in Italy that were, let's say,

lunar or solar.

Or both!

Either at dawn or at sunset.

So I feel like a seasoned pro.

And as an old pro, what I mean is that I feel comfortable not really knowing anything at all.

I won't really be able to think about the music until I'm in the space and have a sense of the potential atmosphere.

Thinking about playing music so that people can wake up is a wonderful opportunity to meditate on lots of lovely things.

What would be one of them?

Well, maybe, when you've woken up and seemingly decided to just lie there, maybe you fall back asleep, maybe you don't, but without getting up and pulling yourself out of bed.

We can encounter a lot of things during that exceptional time zone.

I hope I'm not getting in the way of the joy one can feel during such a state.

Thanks again, Teresa, and I can't wait to meet you in person!

– Eric Chenaux, August 7, 2024, Condat-sur-Ganaveix

Special thanks to Giuliano Delli Paoli for helping with some of the questions, and to Gloria Capobianco for support with the translation

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