Mathieu Boogaerts is the best thing to come from France since Serge Gainsbourg. His quiet, sweet, ruthlessly melodic minimalist pop sounds like nothing else, and your life will be better for letting them in.

Even though the music that Mathieu Boogaerts makes is typically French, it’s the sound of France now: informed by, among other things, reggae, afrobeat and laptop glitch-pop. And it makes us so happy that we want to burst when we hear it.

Mathieu was kind enough to exchange words with us…

Who are you, and where are you?

Who I am? Well I am not sure that I really know the answer, what I
am almost sure is that I am a 34 years old French, Parisian man, and if
I am on that website, it is certainly because I did 4 albums.

Describe your sound.

It is very difficult for me to describe my sound. I will say it is sweet, tender, quiet, melodic, melancholic, lucid.

Why should people buy your records?

Because they should not steal it on the Internet.

You’re known as a bit of an onstage comedian. Tell us a joke.

I just did it.

You once had Tony Allen as your drummer. Tell us about that. How did you meet?

A friend told me about him, I went in a club in Paris to listen to
him and I really got mad. I mean I was very into rhythm; my first
instrument was the drums and that evening a new dimension of rhythm
came into my mind. So we did play together on my first tour in 1996 but
it wasn’t that easy to mix our music together so we did not do for a
long time.

To English people that don’t speak French, what are your songs about? Do they have a unifying theme?

Love is the main subject. Many aspects, desire, frustration, jealousy, regret, happiness, sex…

You’re very popular in Japan. Why do you think this is?

I don’t think that I am "very" popular, I think that France have a
special resonance into some Japanese people hearts. Paris, la nouvelle
vague, la mode etc etc … I think that the aesthetic of my albums
(specially the first one and the second one) have a French "smell" that
they like. I also think that Japanese people love everything that is in
relation with childhood, small things, cute things  I think that my
music can have this smell also (especially if you don’t get the words).

How many stars are there on the European Union flag?

On the flag? 12.

If people like your music, what other artists can you recommend?

First albums of Dick Annegarn (1975); J’veux Du Live Alain Souchon; Les creatures Katerine

Preach about something you love (not related to your music) in under 100 words.

I love travelling alone, arriving in a city that I don’t know, where
I don’t know anybody. Walking all day long, seating on parks, watching,
listening to it. Enjoying the fact that every thing is different there
and relativising my existence in Paris. Thinking about other cities I
went to, looking at those girls who pass, dreaming.

What’s on your iPod?

James Brown; Bob Marley; The Beatles; Joao Gilberto; Ethiopian music; Dick Annegarn; Chet Baker.

Favourite movie soundtrack?

Black Orpheus (1959)

Do you have any plans to come to England?

Not really.

What are you going to do right now?

Re-reading my answers then go to bed try to finishing my 2000 pages book, Les miserables.

Buy Mathieu Boogaerts CDs at Amazon

Visit the Mathieu Boogaerts official website

[story by Stuart Heritage]