A couple of months since its official release on Flantier Records, Skate Pizza Records and En Attendant Records, the recent EP from Toulouse, France based noise drum and bass duo NUIT BLEUE join us for their new music video premiere and special commentary on each and every track from the release.
Formed in 2020, right before the COVID lockdown, the duo released their first EP in May 2022. Drawing from their experiences, views and emotions, the gritty songs have been infused with a political content, explained in details in their special first-hand commentary below.
The band runs their own fanzine at nuit666bleue.noblogs.org, where they post various publications dear to their hearts and minds, translated to French and collected to engage their readers and listeners. Feel free to reach out and drop them a line via [email protected].
Acknowledging the fact that music serves as a great way to meet new people and spend moments of special importance with others, NUIT BLEUE like to invite friends to take part and participate at their shows. “The idea is to invite people that did not take part in the composition process so they can bring their own personal touch to it.” – they admit.
“We particularly like doing this because it allows us to live moments with people we like. This means a lot to us, without mentionning that it’s really awesome to be able to change our performance each time, depending on who comes with us. The presence or not of people changes the performance itself and which memory of it people will keep in mind.”
“For example, we play a lot of shows with Cicuta. He has a great rap project, Ortolani e le verdure. We will be touring with him in Italy in 2023. By the way, if someone wants to book us, we would be glad, contact us.”
“When we were touring in the Basque Country with Anarres and Tendresse Violence, someone shot a video of one concert? At this show we had two guests: a friend from Toulouse’s collective Zook’ook that came to rap, and another friend that sings in Grief and plays guitar in Anarres. We are recording a new EP where other people are featured. The demo of this is ready if some people want to help us release this project, we are open to propositions.”
Another dear aspect for the band is to play as much as we can in places that support social and political initiatives.
“It allows us to meet wonderful people.” – they admit. “We want to try to experience this places instead of juste going through them without knowing their problems. It makes us questionning our role. Are we just playing music ?”
Words by the band / Translation by Hzl.
“With this piece we wanted to talk about our activities and releases we’ve done, hoping that it moves you in one way or another.” – comments the band.
“We wanted to translate with our lyrics that organizing struggles, in emancipating political perspectives while doing and listening to music is the best thing to do now and here.”
Coupons court – Let’s cut short their discourses:
Coupons court, à leurs discours – Leurs gants de fer sur nos rêves de velours
Ni premiers, ni derniers – Coupons la cordeLet’s cut short their discourses – their iron gloves on our velvet dreams
Neither firsts, nor lasts – let’s cut the cord
This song is about the refusal to consider as valid and legitimate the people elected by a system imposed upon us and that we reject. For us, this is not about being the good or bad student in this system but simply to cut every connection with their way of thinking.
Quand viendra l’hiver, On aura plus de rebours, plus de discours
Quand viendra l’hiver, On comptera nos morts, Alors coupons court, essayons d’abord, Et que vienne l’hiverWhen winter will come, there’ll be no time left, no discourse, when winter’ll come, we’ll count our deaths, let’s cut short, try first, and let’s come the winter
This part refers to the ability (or incapacity) of the system to actually bring changes. Adressing this question from an ecological perspective, this is a crying inability and it demonstrates the total incompetence of institutions, politicians, organisations when it comes to challenging this critical issue. But is there some interest for them ? Do they want to do so ? Winter can refer to several things. We can think of the nuclear winter, the one we very often see in post-apocalyptic movies. But it is also the fairly defeatist point of view whereby we are heading to unpredictable consequences and unprecedented difficulties.
Métropole
On this song, our friend Ethel directed a video clip in the suburban train RER B of Paris (watch the video above).
Les métropoles ~ Leurs barrières ~ Leurs gestes
Metropolises, their barriers, their gestures
This song is about the metropolis, and more specifically the influence they have on us. Here, we consider the fact that the cities where we live (Paris, Toulouse, Barcelona) shape our and behaviours. The way a city is built and “renovated” model our reality.
Cerner les gens ~ Ranger les gens
Define people, classify people
House numbers were implemented in order to make the cadastre (land register) understandable and to make sure that social control could be executed effectively. It is an example of city structuring for the control of the population. We can mention the fast growing advent of facial recognition. It is currently tested in Paris subway, but it already allows to recognize forms of “wandering” or other behaviours considered to be marginal in the metropolis, or that do not fit into its brand identity. Computerisation first and foremost means social control.
Devant les Ecrans dans le Néant
In front of the screen, in the void
Screens allow the majority of domestic habits to entertain people in an individual way, without disturbing the surrounding environment – neighbours for example. In this way there are no big waves, everyone can get back from work, entertain themselves in their own manner and then go back to work.
Watching netflix with our headphones on we don’t even hear the neighbours downstairs being kicked out for being unable to pay their rent.
Having said that, we do not want to deny the very various uses of computers in our realities. This article was written entirely via this tool… Nonetheless the contradiction that could emerge from this statement is not limiting our agency that much.
D’individus En identités Tout classifier Tout stratifier
From individuals to identities, classify it all, stratify it all
To classify people, it is necessary to rely on determined characteristics so it can be efficient and with uniform categories. This classification is materialized by the geographical of the population in the metropolises, but also by gender, by race, by nationality, by last name, by class, and more.
L’unique vécu ; Voie rapide Tout desservir, Rien rencontrer
Unique life experience, fast lane, Serve it all, meet nothing
Asphalt roads take up a lot of room in the territories. Cars are efficient only because there are highways between cities. Planes are efficient only because there are airports in the cities. Mega container ships carrying up to 20 000 containers are possible only when ports adapt their capacity. All these ways of moving, going as fast as possible from a metropolis to another, have real consequences : making unliveable the spaces that make these movements possible. To live directly on an highway is not pleasant, as much as camping in an airport sucks. Poor people are the ones who live next to the highway or the airport (in the projects, in the ghetto, or in jail).
Ces institutions dépassées, Qui nous oppressent Que l’on rejette
Nous blessent encore, Nous marquent encoreThese out-of-date institutions, that oppress us, that we reject
Still hurt us, still impress us
No matter how hard we try to escape these structures that shape our lives – physically but also mentally – we can not do it. Further even, we could question the will to extract ourselves from it.
Even if this might hurts us, we live through these institutions (State, city management, school… ) perhaps we feed them, in spite of our good intentions.
Death to the managers:
Beau portrait fait vendre ; Deviens beau portrait
Nice portrait sells, become nice portraitDu mensonge comme seule passion
Lie is the only passionLa compétition comme seule relation
Competition the only relationAinsi conforme toutes ambitions
then your ambitions are conformed…..En business plan…..
to a business plan,Nos seuls critères de pensée sont efficacité et rentabilité
only reflexion criteria is efficiency and rentabilityElles sont chiffrées et formatées
quatified and formatedPar comparaison et par projection
by comparison and by projectionFeu des appels à projets
fire to the calls for proposalsMort aux Gestionnaires x2
death to the managers x 2
In this song we speak about representation.
Representation is diverse, it can be the image we want to give about what we do or what we are. This is what we allow through media, or what we perform during a show or during different social interactions. Through this text, you get what we accept to show from us.
For example, people make position statements for the purpose of matching with some spheres or market share’s codes. In particular when there’s this twist that happens when things are first done for themselves – like making music that moves us with people we like and with whom we want to share moments – and the moment where music is done to please an audience and to sell.
The same applies to the academic world, where one’s initial approach can be a selfless interest for the field of study. For example, one can study geology and minerals but, with the perversion of years of studies, will end up doing a thesis about a very particular technique of tunnel drilling, while the initial interest of the student was an interest in mountains and their mineral parts.
We mention here the example of two worlds, academic and “cultural” (the music’s ) because they have a living base. Living because the goal is to be shared among a community and is meant to evolve through lived experiences. Unlike the dead worlds, belonging to management. These worlds are meant to develop plans that control the society’s life without the managers living under the yoke of their own plans.
If we take the example of the worlds we consider living, it is because we like them and because we belong to them in a certain way. What we mean with this song is that there are things that we cherish in these worlds and precisely for this reason we have to be cautious towards the slippery slope that currently takes place. For example, the will to do researches for technological outputs or produce music meant to be commercial.
Terroriste:
“Listen, I am not and I never was a communist, but what you think that a communist is, this, I am. And I think we also could say more, we are not and we will never be terrorists, but what you think, maybe, that a terrorist is, this, we are. ” Giorgio Agamben
Those last twenty years the state has broadened more and more the behaviors and political positions that it considers as dangerous to the point that it can destabilize the society. “Terrorist” means “using terror to ideoligical, political or religious ends”. First a word that designated a doctrine for the power in place, the definition then switched and designates a mode of operation against the power / state since the end of the 18th century.
Some yellow vest are “terrorists”, small drug dealers are “criminal conspiracy”, a car stealing crew are now “organized gang”…
Behind terrorist and communist there are a lot of different deifinitions.
The quote from Agamben briefly demonstrates how there a lot between what we assert ( if only we want to assert anything), what we are and how the others name us. And the state use “dangerous” words and categories to create a separation between potential accomplices and support and so called “terrorists”, based on fear.
Brûle la BAC:
Burn the anti-crime brigade
The message in simple : death to this institution, violent in all it’s aspects. We don’t say that there are good and bad cops, we only say that these ones may be the worst.
People in uniforms tend to disappear behind it, they become the representation of it, the guardians, those whitout whom keeping the order is not possible. Police is threatening, BAC is terrifiing. It kills, maims, traumatizes and it’s because we fear it that we stop ourselves to revolt. There’s nothing to save in law enforcement. Fire to all the police and all their prisons.
Alto como un pino tonto como un pepino:
As tall as a pine, dumb as a cucumber:
Is this song, we can hear the sample of a child describing her disdain of Disney. Thanks to her. According to her, Mickey is a creation meant to control the world, that would be broadcasted in animated cartoons after devastating the world so we still think he is kind. And, indeed, what a norm producer Walt Disney’s world actually is. This sample continues the thoughts of Mort aux gestionnaires, applied to what we instill to children from an early age, waving social models that they should follow and must not question.
