LIL FISH
by Mister Mime
22nd June 2021
French music producer and beatmaker LIL FISH is somewhat a different kind of fish in the vast sea of electronic musicians. With 3 albums and several remixes under his belt, the artist is attuned to creating organic trip-hop inspired tunes with a surrealistic touch that comes from his love for nature. For me, the music of his latest album ‘Organic conjures up visions of exploring a forest, a feeling of adventure, and being lost and found at the same time. Give this a listen and discover for yourself the untold stories that your soul seeks to tell.
MM: Why did you decide to call yourself ‘LIL FISH’?
LIL FISH: There are a few reasons for this name. First, I like the idea that we are all small fish swimming around in this big sea. But all the small fish together can easily eat the big fish…that’s an image I really like. Also, my second passion after music is subaquatic life. It’s like another world for us humans. We don’t know that much about it. I find it fascinating.
MM: Can you tell us a bit about your musical background and how your journey began?
LIL FISH: When I was a kid, maybe around 12 years old, I used to listen to many styles of music: from hip hop to electronic music, rock’n’roll from the 70’s to metal. I’m a huge fan of Pink Floyd. At the time I clearly remember my father and uncle listening to some Prodigy and Chemical Brothers tunes. That was a huge thing in my life! My father used to listen to a lot of world music, mainly Indian, African and Asian music. So I kind of fell in love with all those vibrations. It’s very meditative to me. I think it’s very deep and full of emotion.
Then I discovered trip-hop music: Massive Attack, Portishead, but also all tunes from labels like Ninja Tune or Warp. Amon Tobin and Bonobo were two artists which literally changed my life. I was like “This is what I want to do”. 15 years ago, that was something really big for me.
MM: Your sound is a unique and eclectic mix of influences, ranging from Indian sounds to modern urban beats. Can you talk about how you conceived your signature sound? And your affinity towards the sitar.
LIL FISH: It’s something I can’t easily explain. I go really deep into the sound to create and build it. It’s kind of a big thing to finish a track, always full of details and things to discover for the listener even after a few listens. About the sitar, I think It comes from my father listening to lots of Indian music. I don’t know why but I just love it and very often I want to integrate some in my music, instinctively.
MM: How do you find your own perfect balance between organic and electronic elements?
LIL FISH: The idea is to try to make it not too electronic and make it alive with lots of organic elements and acoustic instruments. It’s essential to have this balance between organic and electronic elements before considering a track as finished. The biggest thing is to create an atmosphere, a mood, something deep. The main electronic elements are bassline, synths, drums and sound design. Sometimes it can be quick but I can also spend a lot of time on a track, adjusting to the last detail to create exactly what I want.
MM: Would you care to share any techniques, plugins, etc. that you believe are essential to your musical process and shaping your sound?
LIL FISH: I work on Ableton. It’s dope! I have some VSTs I like to use: mainly Serum, Fabfilter and some Kontakt banks. I can spend a lot of time mixing a track to get a good balance. It’s a big part of the process. It’s the way to shape your sound and create the space you need, to hear every sound properly and also make it clear and nice to listen to. A good equalizer is probably one of the first things to use for that.
At the moment something easy I like to do with Serum is to try differents fx chains with differents saturations, filters, etc. and play around with them. You can do so many things with that alone. Something which really changed my life for producing bass music is to have good monitoring speakers. It’s just crazy how deep you can go into sound.
MM: Who are your main musical influences?
LIL FISH: My main influences today are trip-hop and bass music scene for sure. Drum & bass is also very big to me again and I’m exploring and try to integrate the energy and the vibe to my music at some point. I’m really happy to see also all sorts of « organic bass music » (now called Global Bass) with many exciting artists emerging. I can’t tell you just one artist, I would suggest people who like this vibe to listen to artists from my current label Gravitas recordings.
MM: Can you talk about how your association with Gravitas records came to be?
LIL FISH: My contact with Gravitas recordings came from my friend CloZee who is a huge artist in global bass music today. I first met CloZee on a gig and discovered we were doing music with a lot of similar influences which is very very rare in France! I want to mention how CloZee and her huge support was important to me. She did a lot and I'm super appreciative. She is a very good example of an incredible musical journey and career today. She is developing something big in music.
After some projects on my side, Jesse (Gravitas Recordings’s boss) proposed to me to release an EP with them. That was awesome news! Gravitas Recordings is an important and established label in world bass, global bass music in the US. They are part of those rare labels that create a kind of family with a strong musical identity. In France, we don’t have any label for this music so I couldn’t be happier.
MM: Could you give a special mention to the artist who has done your artwork?
LIL FISH: Lulu Swallow who is an awesome artist who did two of my cover (FUSION, 2016; ORGANIC, 2019). She goes really deep into my music and universe and really understood what I wanted. I’m super glad about this collaboration. The artwork of “Organic” came from a real drawing. She is a really good and sensitive artist.
MM: Who/what are some artists, people, places or things that inspire you outside of the musical world?
LIL FISH: There is so much to tell. Generally, my inspiration comes from nature and landscape for sure, even if I live in a pretty big town. Emotions are very important to me to create. I love many kinds of street art but also land art, both of which explore the concepts of time and ephemerality.
MM: You’ve done some interesting collaborative tracks and remixes. How does the collaboration process usually happen for you?
LIL FISH: Yes, It’s something I’ve done many times and I really like to do. I think it’s very interesting to go to the universe of other artists and mix it with ideas from my musical universe. The process happens mainly via the internet. Nowadays, you can easily collaborate with an artist on the other side of the planet. The best is to work physically with an artist but it doesn’t happen often. Many collaborations or remixes come from artists in the US, while I live in France.
MM: What do you like to do apart from making music?
LIL FISH: I live in a culturally strong town with historic architecture. So I love to walk in the pedestrian streets, full of history. We have many good artists coming here. I try to go to concerts as much as possible. I have another project called Supachill that I created with a friend which takes a lot of my time. It's a groove hip-hop live band with a singer, rapper, trumpet, flute, bass, beat-making, scratching. Nature is extremely important to me so I spend as much time as I can in the wild to have a good feeling of balance.
You Can Follow LIL FISH on:
https://music.fanlink.to/lilfish
https://lil-fish.lil.com/https://soundcloud.com/lilfish-1
https://www.facebook.com/fablilfish/
https://www.instagram.com/lilfishmusic/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6v1gwQsToXK5nl09vuGywg
All Images courtesy of LIL FISH
