Julien Ribot has always loved both music and image. At
the end of the nineties he was a professional illustrator.
He had always composed from his early years on for his own
pleasure and out of a natural need related to his being a
man of many ideas…
The triggering event was the meeting
with a Japanese pop star seeking new songs for her new LP.
He wrote her two songs and met a few people in the small
French pop world. As the buzz around his mysterious personality
increased, Julien Ribot gave up his job in order to devote
himself entirely to music. He released his first LP Hôtel
Bocchi at the end of 2001. On top of having Françoiz
Breut’s participation, he was surrounded on some tracks
by Dionysos or Katrine, who helped him enjoy a pleasant succès
d’estime.
As a pianist and a singer he has been influenced
(among others) by Mike Garson (one of Bowie’s musicians)
and Gérard Jouannest (who worked with French singer
Jacques Brel). He also drew his inspiration for his second
LP from
graphic worlds belonging to David Lynch, Roland Topor or
Tim Burton. It was called La Métamorphose de Caspar
Dix and came out in 2004. This album proved his ability to
build
a rich and sophisticated world around a dreamlike story served
by sensitive and creative pop music.
He is back today with VEGA, a record he wrote between Paris,
Berlin, Copenhagen, Rome and Florence...
Without being a
concept album, this new release is fully coherent and builds
up again a subtle and captivating atmosphere. The artist
describes a quest for identity and inner peace throughout
the fourteen tracks of the LP which stand for joyful or sad – but
always edifying - personal experiences.
His most personal record was made with a new team of musicians
and here Ribot stands out as a solo artist able to create
a world of his own. The recording of this album provoked
some enriching experiences like the recording of the strings
in London or the meeting with Mieko Miyazaki, who has fallen
in love with Julien’s project. She is one of the most
popular koto players worldwide and her instrument enlightens
Le rêve de Tokyo. To finish, the presence of Julien
Ribot’s partner in life, Annabelle, should also be
underlined. She cosigns two titles (La nuit and Les jardins
de Boboli) and sings them in duet.
No one is as talented as Julien Ribot is when it comes
to creating original worlds, yet he uses very simple
ideas. La
chambre renversée is
a good example of his inspiration. An artist (Daniel
Spoerri) who covers
tables with every day
objects before sticking them on the wall pleased Julien
to the utmost. He saw in it an inversion of perspective
which
can be summed up as follows: everything is possible
in the imagination! A rather naïve idea that the artist claims.
Julien Ribot is a cunning composer who wrote a heady gimmick
of flute creating something close to the sound of fanfare
in the listener’s ear and which plays a major role
in making this first single a charming and efficient one.
As far as the lyrics are concerned, without getting into
any of the details of the simple poetry of La chambre renversée,
it must be said that the “top of the great alphabet” where
the bedroom happens to land on is directly inspired by The
Alphabet, David Lynch’s first short length film, which
is a sort of painting that comes to life that fascinates
Julien Ribot. By the way, he is currently using his own talent
as a graphic artist in order to illustrate this song with
an animated video clip made with his own drawings. It will
soon enable us to see Julien Ribot’s special
talent for twisting ideas and perspectives so as to
create a matchless
universe. |
