)
The electro and experimental world knows them for their solo careers and as a collective: Kaffee Matthews, AGF and Ryoko Akama form The Lappetites, a musical collective open to fellow travelers. Three improvising artists committed to aural and autobiographical exploration, with a taste for risk-taking and what they like to call sonic "poaching".
"Friendship, openness, fluidity, listening." They cheated. Kaffee Matthews and Antye Greie, aka Agee or, on stage, AGF, were asked to give three words, at the drop of a hat, which they felt defined the spirit of Les Lappetites and the quintessence of this singular approach. They chose four, right off the bat. So be it! Their accomplice, Ryoko Akama, was unable to be present for this interview between Paris, Berlin and Northern Finland. No doubt she would have approved of her stage partners' choice.
Creating a space for musical exchange and exploration
First of all, the name: The Lappetites. " It's a contraction of laptop and appetite," says Kaffee. The laptop, long the creative instrument of choice for the musicians and performers who make up this collective born in 2002, and the appetite for exploration, improvisation and the stage. An appetite for working together. Twenty years already. Les Lappetites was born in New York, on Kaffee's initiative: "In the middle of a festival that had programmed only men except me, I organized an evening that brought together women artists to play together: Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Marina Rosenfeld... legends! We'd never done that before. It was phenomenal. I wanted to create this meeting place where we could explore musical ideas together. Les Lappetites is more of a communal space than a music group in the strict sense of the word." The idea had already made its way into Kaffee's mind: "A few weeks earlier, I'd been invited to an electro improvisation festival in Berlin. And I was the only woman. I went through my address book and contacted all the female electro musicians and improvisers I knew, many of them American. What can women do when they have a space where they can work together? That's what I was dying to know!
Eliane Radigue, fellow traveler
After this performance, it's time to really build the project, to make a date. " The project, or rather the concept," corrects Agee. A concept and an international network of female musicians of varied aesthetics, all linked by the electronic fiber. A free forum for feminine, feminist cosmopolitanism. And from collaboration comes emulation and the unexpected. We get out of our comfort zone and it's so cool," smiles Agee. In 2005, Kaffee, Agee and Ryoko signed Before the Libretto, their first recording together, alongside one of France's experimental composition papesses, Eliane Radigue. Les Lappetites thus formed a quartet for a time. " Working with Eliane taught us a totally different approach to sound and playing," Agee recalls. Today, she, Kaffee and Ryoko form the core of Les Lappetites, sometimes joined for a live performance by other female artists - and the list goes on.
Connection, experimentation, introspection
Musically, the three have their own style, their own tropisms. "Our approaches are not at all the same: one is more versed in the spatialization of sound, the other in a quasi-spectral approach with digital and vocal mixes, Ryoko works a lot with synthesizers...". In 2009, Les Lappetites created an explosive opera: Fathers, a rich tableau of sound and visual research in nine scenes, for which the three musicians researched the lives of their respective fathers beforehand. The result is an OPNI. An unidentified operatic object? Digital composition and live performance, audiovisuals (three screens on stage), a nod to classical opera (with a choir in the final scene). .. "It was a colossal project, and a real challenge. It was a colossal project, and an opportunity to explore the notion of identity and childhood reminiscences," says Agee. Today, it's more usual to summon up one's life in electronic music: back then it wasn't at all, it was techno, you had to be cool, relatively detached from intimacy. We were going against the grain.
Trailer "Fathers" - The Lappetites- from Blanca Regina & unpredictable on Vimeo.
Valuable risk-taking
The work, in music, on identity and its limits continued in 2014, with a residency at EMS Stockholm resulting in another audiovisual performance: Borderless. An obvious title! Here again, the performance goes beyond music: drawing, audiovisual ... " We work like this, " explains Agee. We work like this," explains Agee, "when we 're invited for a residency or a concert, we start the process of working together. We rarely work together outside these specific events. And what exactly do they love about working together ? We're always taking risks," says Agee. Before the Libretto, our only recording so far, is totally crazy. The album includes the delightful Avoiding Shopping, with its deep, rubbery bass that contrasts with the sonic buzzes, verging on saturation. Or the hard-hitting Heimat (German for homeland) and Agee's haunting, almost frightening psalmody. " Fathers" was another great risk-taker," continues Agee. I love that, because in electronic music, we're quick to talk about experimentation, whereas it's often a case of repeating formulas that already work and please." The trio's last performance took place in Berlin at the Heroines of Sound festival in 2019.
2022: rendezvous in Albi
The Lappetites' reunions and performances are therefore rare moments. The trio is on the bill at the riverrunfestival on October 8, organized by Albi's GMEA. What do they have in store for this reunion with the French public? Surprise! " I'll probably propose a few of my poems, maybe a piece by Eliane [Radigue]... I think we agree that we haven't decided anything yet, " smiles Agee. "We're going to bring our instruments, our energy and all our ideas... and we're going to play!" concludes Kaffee. Once again with Les Lappetites, the field (and song) of possibilities is wide open...
The Lappetites, riverrun festival, 2022
Suzanne Gervais
Festival riverrun, concert October 8 at 8:30pm at l'Athanor, Albi
