DDb Interview Series (1012) - Felicia Atkinson

1.

As a musician you are mostly known either as Felicia Atkinson or Je suis le petit chevalier. Please tell about the originals of both projects and the differences between them. Do you have any else monikers?

I don't know if people know me more under my real name or under my moniker

changing my name was for me a possibility of mutation, like a werwolf would do for example.

I like this idea of having several different names, like bluesmen or soldiers.

It gives me a certain of kind of freedom.

2.

Please describe your most busy day!

my days are pretty buisy everyday: i work in the bookstore, i cook, i draw, i make music, i answer e mails…

what i love the most is when i have free time to do endless walk until the city touches the forest.

3.

Do you like to perform live? What gear do you use in your live shows?

I like to play live. Most of the time I improvise. Those days i am playing with a microkorg and different pedals effects. I used to perform with a guitar. It may happen again.

4.

You are also a famous visual artist. Tell a bit about the directions you move in and the fields of your interest. What inspires you to make your drawings and installations?

My drawings and installations or a way to communicate with the invisible, as is my music too. I call the ghosts and they come.

My installations are more like little reminders of their passage, like little memento mori.

I use watercolor, paper, wood, it is made also with a sense of improvisation in the meaning that they answer to the present moment and the feeling of the space itself.

5.

Some time ago you launched the Shelter Press. What is it? Is it supposed to be a platform for any kind of art or is it rather a mix of label and chapbook publishing?

Shelter Press is the second part of Kaugummi, the publishing house that created Bartolome Sanson a while ago.

We decided to create Shelter Press together to shelter our visions and the visions of certain precious people we wanted to invite.

The name is inspired by a book by Lloyd Kahn, about building your own shelter.

The first book we published was a book of collage of Julien Langendorff, then a re-issue of an LP by Pete Swanson and Renee Hell.

We want this publishing house to be more than that! It will host records, books and art shows. It will be a moving and utopian structure that will be the thresholds of our dreams.

6.

I bet you have lots of plans. However please share a few with us – most secret please.

Well, just right now i am releasing with Shelter Press and La Station radar a new LP as JSLPC, called An Age of Wonder that I recorded in Ohio last summer.

I am very excited about this!

Late a tape on  the great Sic Sic Tapes will be out i think!

Then under my name i will release a 7 inch on this wonderful newzealand label called Cooper Cult.

I am working also on a book of my drawings. Should be ready in for summer-fall 2012.

7.

Describe your most free day.

Well, if it's a completely free day, it should be also a completely secret day! :)

8.

How often do you listen to other’s music? What stuff impressed you most lately?

I listen to music everyday.

I love the last Ilyas Ahmed on Immune. Can't wait to listen to the new Motion Sickness of Time Travel on Spectrum Tools.

I listen to a lot of 70's folk music too, like i love the compilations they put on the rootstrat blog sometimes.

When i am at the bookstore i listen to Sonic Pieces records such as Ryan Teague or Pantone, and some jazz music such as Horace Silver or Ornette Coleman.

  

9.

This question may sound stupid but, what is more primordial for you? Art or music? Image or sound?

LOVE is the most important!

10.

Next question I will ask to every person in DDb interview series.

What has changed in independent music world with the developing and spreading of the Web?

Any positive improvements? Any negative repercussions?

I feel intent helped a lot the music! It is easy to discover and exchange music, i love it! I LOVE INTERNET!

the only thing i don't like with internet is when people stalk you and forgot that internet doesn't allow you to bother people or speak theme as they know you wether you never have met them.

It;s just that the words "KNOWING" is pretty vague on internet: it can mean " i haven't listened i just saw a post" or " i just know his name through Facebook" or " i read the two first lines about it on wikipedia".

I guess you need to stay humble about "knowing" something when you consult the internet.

But beside this, it is very very helpful! I have more people supporting my music in the United States, Russia  or Japan than in France where i come Framce! it's funny!