Mathis Akengin - Passage des Fleurs

When you're good at everything, it's hard to stick to one style.

Good and precocious. Piano at the conservatoire at 6 years old. Plays in a band at 12 years old.
At 21 years old, already a very solid experience, which allows him to easily join Dead Chic and to find his place behind the 2 leaders.

Today, at 27 years old, he is releasing Passage des Fleurs, his debut solo album, which bears the name of an alley in Istanbul where his grandfather used to go. A Turkish grandfather who does not speak French, while Mathis does not speak Turkish. The eponymous song tells this story: the communication that people who don't speak the same language but who love each other can have despite everything.

Being a central theme, this non-verbal communication is also very much attached to its main instrument. First and foremost, we have a piano album. The instrumental pieces are numerous, they open and close the album and ensure the connections – and therefore the homogeneity. Playing on the high keys with mastery, crossing his hands ("Voltige"), improvising.
A monstrous technique, then, but also and above all a crazy intentionality! An expressiveness that turns the table upside down. And our minds with it. Ideas, creativity, risk-taking. Everything I love about an artist. And on top of that, he sings well – in English, French and Turkish – and loves to dance, imposing his tall figure, his fingers that move all the time and a face like no other. I bet he'll make movies one day. We are not there yet. For the moment, this fan of Agnes Obel and Patrick Watson is at the crossroads of classical music (not to scare people let’s rather speak of neo-classical), pop and oriental ("L’Illusionniste"). And even jazzy on occasion.
Always on the edge, sometimes unpredictable, the compositions invite us to wiggle (amazing "First Floor"), to enter into a waltz ("Mute Love", "Passage des Fleurs"), or to stagger with the pitching and tossing on a winter sea ("Mer d'Hiver").
Also played by the artist, a little guitar, bass and ukulele flesh out the work. Percussion instruments are just him tapping on his pots and pans or on his piano, skilfully sampled. A few guests, voices or instruments, complete the picture. And Damien Félix is never far away.

After playing at the Inouïs du Printemps de Bourges and at the Eurockéennes, the now more Besançon than Byzantine man is already thinking about the 2nd album. When you're good at everything, it's hard to stick to one album.