Ecoanxiety, spleen and sweetness: Malo Texier, a warm musical discovery

He travels across France in a converted car, with his guitar on his back. His name is Malo Texier and he manages, with a few notes of his voice and his instrument, to immerse you in a hypnosis of melancholy and beauty. We met Malo, who explained how to do it the anxieties of our time it could also become the very material of art and beauty.

Interview with Malo Texier, author, composer and performer

To miss. Have you always sung alone or have you also made music in a group?

I started making music on my own with my voice and guitar. Then at the conservatory they teach us a lot about singing in groups. Finally today I went back to basics. And I’m starting to understand something, because I too was told: You move the audience more when you’re alone on stage. You are the atmospheres less, but you the keys plusbecause when you’re alone on stage, you are very vulnerable. You are alone, you have no musician friends to smile and wink at. Even from a musical point of view, yes a laying bare. We only hear your voice and the vulnerability is usually touching.

Can you tell us about your experience on stage as a woman?

I chose to focus on the stage because that’s what I like and interest me the most. For me it all comes down to this. However, it’s not easy at all because when I go on stage I inevitably find myself in front of people who don’t know me and who don’t even know whether they’ll like what I do or not. Often I don’t know in advance the places where I will play, so I find out everything: the place, the audience…

In these moments you have no control over the people you will play in front of and in my case there is a particular parameter and that is that I am a racialized woman whose music has a strong political dimension. My project is quite militant. His prejudices are quite clear politically. I have also my vocabulary, which is not necessarily understandable by the entire French population. In a choir, I talk about “to save the lady”From “get in the race”From “knight”…

Faced with this generalized anxiety about the state of the world, I felt a strong need to do work that had meaning.

Why choose this form of writing?

My writing style is pretty close to the way I speak. What I like about lyrics in general is when they’re quite raw. I like it when things are clear. I like figures of speech, but not when there are too many of them. I like it when you can just get the message. This is important to me people my age can feel representedthat they understand my words, that they are surprised and happy to recognize expressions that they are probably not used to hearing in the French soul.

The ecological issue particularly touches me and I realized that, apart from Tryo, I was missing role models.

Your songs have soulful sounds but are not simple ballads. They tell of your empathy for activists, they tell of the discomfort and splendor of a generation constantly exposed to political, ecological, social violence…

I’m starting to like this expression of lyric song more and more. What I want to highlight on stage is not so much my voice or my guitar but my lyrics. There have been times in my life where I have been very affected by many social issues that have jeopardized my mental health. Word political anxiety It seems to me even fairer, more comprehensive than that of eco-anxiety.

Faced with this generalized anxiety about the state of the world, I felt a strong need to do work that had meaning. And at first I didn’t necessarily find meaning in making music. I was wondering if it wasn’t a little a Ego Trip, something that pleases me more than is useful to society. I also had the impression that there is a lack of models of artists who make songs where the pleasure of listening and political commitment form a symbiosis, music that is both nice and busy. The ecological question particularly affects me and I realized this separately TrialI missed the models.

Ultimately, I found my model, using my words, my language, the subjects and the musicality that speak to me.

Are you attentive to the balance between the beauty of singing and militant commitment?

Absolutely. Precisely for this reason my project does not only contain political songs. It seems heavy to me, during a concert, to only hear about politics. I also find it strange to move from one political topic to another, in a sort of enumeration. So there are softer themes, such as love, melancholy, depression…

However it is also a question of racism, feminism, the capitalist world ; so many issues that I try to address in a certain way poeticFor give them meaning rather than feeling overwhelmed and hopeless by them. We need emotions, music and culture as much as militant struggle. I find that having a nice shape is a good way to do this interfere with someone’s political conscience.

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