Occasionally, I’ll have a weird or bad day. Yesterday was one of them. I truly fucked up a post and have corrected it. I had a lot on my mind, including an interview and a bunch of other things. So let’s have a better day today, right?
Hamburg-born and-based photographer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Felix Müller is the creative mastermind behind the rising cinematic soul project The Offline. The German photographer, composer and multi-instrumentalist can trace the origins of The Offline to his travels along the Atlantic coastline of southern France with an analog camera, capturing beach life. Upon his return to Hamburg, he started writing compositions as the sonic counterpart to his photography.
Müller’s full-length The Offline debut, last year’s Timor Litzenberg co-produced La couleur de la mer was inspired by the work of Francois de Roubaix, and saw him creating a soundtrack to an imaginary film. The album’s material evoked images of manorial, fog-swept villas at the ocean’s edge, silhouetted sailing boats and cigar-chomping villains attempting to thwart the mission of the imaginary film’s hero. The album experimented with themes and atypical song structures, moving from dramatic cues to fragile romanticism while incorporating psychedelia, retro soul and hip-hop, inspired by and informed by his extensive record collection.
Slated for a Friday release through DeepMatter, Müller’s latest Les Cigales EP reportedly builds upon the head-nodding blend of hip-hop and 70s soul jazz that he developed on his full-length debut. The EP takes it sonic tunes from the structure of film and TV music from the 1960s and 1970s, channeling the influences of film composers like Francois de Rouabix and David Axelrod while also seemingly sitting between the chilled out, summery grooves of Surprise Chef and Robohands. As the EP unwinds, its narrative reflects a love story full of longing, melancholy and drama, connecting with the story of Cyptis and Protis — the founding myth of Marseilles — whose love broke convention and welcomed the arrival of foreigners on French soil.
EP track “Les amis” is a breezy yet subtly uneasy track featuring a glistening guitar, a shuffling and laid-back groove with bursts of twinkling vibraphone, brooding horns and woodwinds. The track continues the EP’s narrative with the track representing growing familiarity and intimacy between two friends, before taking a tense turn, hinting that all isn’t as it seems. A meet-cute gone somewhat wrong, perhaps?
The video begins the breeze blowing through the tress before quickly moving to our star-crossed lovers staring at each other longing from across the water. They meet in the water, where they float languidly, holding hands like beavers do. We later see our lovers walking around the ancient, sun-dappled scenery. But under the surface, something is strange and kind of off. Much like its predecessor, the video mischievously nods at 70s spy films.
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