“It's the first week of July in Paris, and the temperature is around 39 degrees. Everything is in slow motion, like a shimmering mirage on a hot road. It's a good context to speak about our latest album ‘When all we want to do is be the fire part of fire’ especially when right now all we would rather be is the frozen part of ice!”

Andjela: "When all you want to do is be the fire part of fire" – Bill Callahan is one of your inspirations, but this line wasn’t borrowed - it feels like a roof, a frame within which something happens. What, in your opinion, takes place within that frame? What themes found you while you were "lighting the fire"?

UTO: I like that you use the word frame. A frame is like a sample with a view. When you make an album - even though the process can be very different from one artist to another - your work starts with a collection of samples. You have the substance but it doesn't mean that you can at this point see the frame clearly. This frame of reference seemed to put us at crossroads, a junction between the physical role of the fireplace after living in the countryside for 7 years of our life  - and its importance in our creative process. Moreover, the fireplace framed conveniently a metaphor of desire, youth and danger. Fire is the best image of chaos, order and energy. The sun is too far away and I’m short-sighted.

There are various narratives depending on how you build a fire, whether you're looking for a long-lasting peaceful fire that has the warmth of an old soul or whether you have a pyro-maniacal urge to choose materials that burn quickly (a "will'o the wisp"  (art & life). We all have an inner fire, and according to its nature we are in need of different kinds of fuel (air, heat and combustion).

In our special frame we had in mind Bill Callahan’s sentence, but also Angel Olsen's "Burn your own fire for no witness" and Antonin Artaud's verse "le feu se brûle lui-même, il se punit" (fire burns itself, it punishes itself).

Andjela: When we listen to the album, it feels like some sounds don't belong to daylight. They are like footsteps in moss, breath beneath tree bark. Everything is beyond reality, flooded with invisible creatures. What kind of creatures visit you while you create?

UTO: I think we are drawn to sounds which are mysterious and in mutation. I don't think that we ever thought about them as daylight or nighttime sounds, but it's true we like to add some extra texture. Hidden in the mix, you can hear samples of daily life and sound design. When you blend these elements together it creates an image.

When we create it's a mix between high concentration, and accepting all the past, all the time and space possible to invade our body and soul. All blended together once again, it creates something that can be very simple but it can also be contorted, strange and monstrous. 

Andjela: Your creative process seems very intuitive and improvisational. How much room do you leave for chaos and unpredictability in your music-making? Does it ever happen that a song takes over and leads you in an unexpected direction?

UTO: It's more intuitive that it is improvisational. Because we aren't instrumentalists, we like to work atmospheres and loops, and see how to inhabit and break a loop. But paradoxically a mathematical loop can bring more chaos than a free messy part. A song is an attempt to order chaos anyway. We sometimes use free machines like in "plumbing" - it's an evolving pattern, like a little animal that is alive (gene by LA Priest). We keep that lively part - but as we create a loop, selecting a capsule of it, you will both hear chaos and order. I don't think we have ever experienced a song taking control of its production yet, I’m sure we would welcome it! No, we often have to stay focussed to finish a song, but if an unexpected direction that we like happens we will take it. 

Andjela: The album also contains rhythms that feel familiar at first, only to take you somewhere else. As if someone walked through a familiar door and found themselves in someone else's dream. Do you enjoy playing with expectations - offering comfort through a song only to subvert it?

"I like to imagine that our rhythm is like a person who has been limping for a long time. Over time, their particular walking rhythm will become part of their body and find stability in the imbalance. I think we're looking for that."

Andjela: Living in the suburbs means you can create without compromise, undisturbed by the outside world. Does that freedom encourage you to explore directions you might otherwise avoid? Does your environment help you shed internal barriers?

UTO: It's hard for us to create new music at home. We can do everything at home, this is why I think you are more easily disturbed at home. This is why we have always started records in an unknown place, far from home, it can be in the city or on a boat on a river, it's not about being loud or hearing the birds, it's about not being disturbed by daily routines. 

Andjela: Even though "Zombie" sounds like a struggle between love and death, there’s also a kind of magnetism toward the unknown and the dangerous. How do sonic effects support this complexity of love - being both healing and harmful?

UTO: It's true there's a vibration in “Zombie”, the rhythm and the bass are both attractive and scary. Emile found the main instrumental melody and the sounds, and I was immediately drawn to it, even though the original demo had a gravity that does not weigh. 

Andjela: "I wrote this on the napkin" – What does that act of writing on something so ephemeral mean to you? Is that song a kind of emotional field report from chaos, written on the move, between leaving and returning?

UTO: Yes I think it results from emotional insecurity - you would like it to be strong and sustainable like a rock, like a foundation on which to build. The opposite of a napkin somehow, that you would use when you spill something, when you cry and blow your nose, when you have greasy hands. So to write love on a napkin is admitting that the contract is rather fragile, even though it’s beautiful to bet on its strength « love is the hypothesis we built on, a bet in the wind, beautiful and insane » 

Andjela: The sound of "2moons" seems to float, there’s no gravity. Was that a conscious decision? To create a song that isn’t tied to any ground?

UTO: Émile and I (Neysa) are laughing because he isn’t the kind of guy to make deep conscious reflections. He always follows his musical intuition. I think that you don’t feel the ground because the guitars are moving through the recording space creating a doppler effect.   

Andjela: The lyrics repeat a motif of being caught between two choices - "his voice but my name", "our bed and his bed". Is "2moons" a song about the impossibility of being one single self, or maybe about always carrying two inner worlds within?

UTO: Exactly, the lyrics are about being caught between 2 choices, about wanting one thing and its opposite. Eventually you will lose both if you are incapable of choosing. Our moon is responsible for the tides, imagine our world with two of them competing with one another. This album is also about ending our love relationship, 2moons and Napkin explore that tension. 

Andjela: Your live shows have a specific atmosphere - a quiet chaos and carefully scattered lights. What images do you carry in your mind while performing? Do they change from city to city?

UTO: Personally I (Émile) close my eyes during the whole show. The images depend on the track we are playing, for instance for “Plumbing’’ we try to see a water leak in the ceiling. It’s more about feelings than images, the sensation of heaviness on “Heavy Metal’’ or exaltation on "Unshape'’.

Andjela: While on tour, you meet people who might know you better through music than through conversation. What is that encounter like - when someone loves you without questions, only through sound?

UTO: It often feels like a conversation!

Andjela: As a band performing in many European cities, is there a particular place on tour that you’re eager to return to, or one that inspired you deeply?

UTO: We just came back from this great festival in the German countryside called Fusion. It’s a huge event with no police or security and no phones allowed; featuring more than 30 stages with strange and beautiful installations. Music everywhere, all the time and from all over the world. People there know how to party and live together in respect and harmony.

Andjela: You’re currently touring through France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and last year you had the chance to perform in the UK, as well as places like Barcelona, Ljubljana and Brussels. How would you compare the audience reactions and energy in those different cities? Do you have any rituals when arriving somewhere new?

UTO: The audience is very different depending on whether we play an outdoor festival, a small club venue or a big hall. It also depends on when we play and the stage line up. There is an eagerness to hear new sounds and shows in both the UK and central Europe, something  we do not see when we play in France. To reveal one of our rituals, before every show we hug each other shouting « Raaaniii ». It doesn't mean anything, it’s something that we made up while playing with our dog Billy.

Andjela: Your music has the power to cross languages and borders. Have you ever thought about performing in the Balkans? Perhaps Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje... Your sound in an old cinema, an industrial hall, or even on a hill above the city.

UTO: We’ve never been to the Balkans and would love to do so. An old cinema would be perfect since our new show is actually more like a theatrical performance with no instruments.

Andjela: If your band were a superhero, what would its superpower be?

UTO: Being able to be at multiple places at the same time. (Émile)
Being able to feed all living beings on earth immediately, to create collective satiety. (Neysa)

Andjela: Do you believe a song can fall in love with another song? If yes, which of your tracks would have a crush, and which track would be the object of affection?

UTO: All our songs are in love with one another so I think more of a family, descendants, some songs are issued from some other, and some are brother and sister. For example we had a « washing machine » family of tracks on our debut album, songs with nonstop words cycling around the beat. On our latest album, we used the same beat over Zombie and 2moons.

Andjela: If you could spend one night sleeping inside a song, which song would it be?

UTO: Ashes on the fire by Richard Hawley, so smooth and warm.

Andjela: Which SpongeBob character would make a good member of your band?

UTO: Actually we haven’t watched SpongeBob so we’d rather have Rick from Rick&Morty, building us new stuff and being able to go play in other galaxies. 

Andjela: If you could spend an afternoon with your musical idol - not in the studio, but far away from music, where would you take them, and what would you want to learn about them?

UTO: A boat trip along the canal in Paris, then couscous at the Laumière restaurant, followed by a stroll through Parc des Buttes-Chaumont with our dog Billy, dodging the security guards. In the evening a jazz show at La Gare, then ending the night in the club underneath. I would like to know how many tracks they failed and how much fun they had in the process.