Connan Mockasin – Agathe Pinard

Dessert with Mr. Bostyn: An Interview of Connan Mockasin

Interview printed in Autre Magazine issue 8.
Photographs by Jamie Parkhurst
Access PDF here

Born in New Zealand, Connan Mockasin now lives in Tokyo. I met with the nomadic chanteur as he stopped through Los Angeles on the occasion of his international tour. There was only one show scheduled, but the tickets sold so quickly they decided to add two more. The last one felt like a bouquet final, a two-hour victory lap among friends, including John Carrol Kirby, with whom he performed a cover of Whitney’s “I Will Always Love You.” We were introduced at The Lodge Room in Highland Park where he invited us to join for dessert. Mockasin is quite noticeable with his long, platinum hair, big bucket hat and his quintessential John Waters-esque mustache. We talk about the venue where he had been playing the past two nights. He spots my French accent. I tell him that I’m from Bordeaux and we discuss the Southwest of France, mainly the best surf spots. We mention Biarritz and how he would love to live a little south of it, in a very small fishing village called Guethary located in Basque country. It’s a secluded haven also chosen by many French artists, including writer, Frédéric Beigbeder and actor, Vincent Cassel.

It had been five years since Connan Mockasin last released an album. His two previous ones, Forever Dolphin Love (2010) and Caramel (2013) were best described by writer, Daiana Feuer as “sensuous love letters from an alien.” This year’s Jassbusters is Mockasin’s first full-band album. It was recorded live over the course of a week at the legendary Studios Ferber in Paris, best known for hosting France’s most notorious singers like Serge Gainsbourg and Alain Bashung, as well as international enigmas like Nick Cave and Black Sabbath. The album is accompanied by a five-part melodrama film called Bostyn ’n Dobsyn, based on comics and short films imagined by the artist as a teenager. Although very different in nature from the past two albums, Jassbusters remains faithful to Mockasin’s essential recipe: a blend of eccentricity and sensuality. The record starts with a sultry track called “Charlotte’s Thong,” a perfect gateway to an updated sound that is peppered with humorously creepy, yet oddly arousing narratives—a combination that could only be extracted from a vintage porno or a Connan Mockasin song.

AGATHE PINARD: I was supposed to interview you a couple months ago at Desert Daze, but it didn’t happen due to the awful weather conditions and the huge line to get in.

CONNAN MOCKASIN: We almost didn’t get in.

AP: What were you doing when the storm hit and festival security asked everyone to go back to their vehicles?

CM: I’m scared of lightning, so I went to the trailer. It was really nice actually. We opened the curtains and watched the storm.

AP: Yeah, they had to shut down Tame Impala while they were playing.

CM: Some of them kept coming into our room and I kept saying, “Close the door!” because I was scared of the lightning. They were feeling so bad about the fans, so we had a game where you had to have a sip of whiskey every lightning flash. It was really fun.

AP: Your new album is called Jassbusters. Can you explain what a jassbuster is?

CM: It’s a band of schoolteachers who make a record together. I did these home videos when I was a teenager—twenty years ago now. We used to have this thing, Bostyn ‘n Dobsyn. Mr. Bostyn, the teacher, had a band called Jassbusters. It’s basically a band record, because I’ve not done any band records. This is the first. Basically, every band recording is a Jassbuster recording.

AP: What was it like recording with a band for the first time ?

CM: There were four of us recording and it was easy. The thing with a band is that if you’re recording live, you can feel if it’s not working, or if it’s working straight away. It’s a lot quicker. You feel like you can take your time when you’re on your own, but it’s not the same when you’re working with a group of people. Overall, it’s a lot easier. You have other people playing and putting their touch, which is very different from being on your own.

AP: I was curious if “Charlotte’s Thong” was about Charlotte Gainsbourg, since you produced a song for her and toured together?

CM: I did invite her. I told her that she could play on “Charlotte’s Thong,” but that’s about it. That’s just a name, like Jassbuster. We just came up with a name.

AP: You released a five-part series based on comics and short films you made in high school. Can you talk a bit about the concept behind the movie and why you’re doing this now?

CM: I don’t know why now. I just wanted to do it. It’s always been something I enjoy, Bostyn ‘n Dobsyn. I wanted to make a series, but I didn’t even know how to do it. I wanted to make something new again. When I made my first album, Forever Dolphin Love, I didn’t know how to record. So, it was all new. Making an album by yourself you just make a lot of mistakes. I tried to make a series in the same way: without really knowing what I was doing. Sometimes mistakes turn out to be good. When you do it while not being particularly good at it, you do it in your own way.

AP: The story is about a music teacher and his student. Where did that idea come from?

CM: I don’t even remember. We just thought it was great—Mr. Bostyn, thinking his student, Dobsyn is a girl, and calling him Josie. It starts a whole world of deceit.

AP: Is it in any way autobiographical?

CM: I hope not. I play Mr. Bostyn, so I hope not. Although he is not necessarily bad. Dobsyn is pretty bad later on.

AP: Matt Correia from Allah-Las asked me to ask you about your favorite color.

CM: That’s a great question. I don’t know. I don’t have a favorite color really.

AP: Can you talk about dolphin love? What is it and what makes it forever?

CM: I was making music at my parent’s in New Zealand. I was just driving around and I went to my friend Brim Dog’s house. He lives further south on the beach. We were around an outdoor fire, quite drunk from red wine, and I remember singing “Forever Dolphin Love.” That’s just how it happened. Maybe it was because the ocean was right there by Brim Dog’s. I don’t know.

AP: You’ve been working on the score of a surf movie called, Self Discovery for Social Survival. What was the experience of working on that project like?

CM: I basically just wanted to go surfing with my friend Andrew.

AP: It was filmed in several locations. Mexico, the Maldives…

CM: He and I went to Nicaragua. It was a filmed trip with all the directors and stuff. I thought that was gonna be the end of it. So, I talked to my record label, and they got really into it, and ended up taking Andrew and I to Iceland. We went surfing there with some of our favorite surfers. The whole idea was to mix surfers and musicians.

AP: Yeah, I’ve heard that Stephanie Gilmore, who’s the seven-time world champion, was on the trip.

CM: She’s so great, and she’s winning at the moment, so she could win an eighth! We became friends and she takes me surfing sometimes. It’s so great to watch her surf in real life. We came back from the trip and made the music in New York, just for the Iceland segment.

AP: How was the trip to Iceland? The water must have been freezing.

CM: Yeah, it was late October as well, so it was getting cold. They put you in these wetsuits that cover most of your face, but I’m really claustrophobic and I couldn’t get out of it by myself. They had to help. You feel it on your face if you go under water. It stings like acid water.

AP: You tend to blur the lines between humor and beauty in your music videos. Can you talk about how you conceptualize a video, like “I’m the Man, That Will Find You,” for example?

CM: I haven’t done a music video in quite a long time. I didn’t direct those videos. I had friends direct them. I do have a little bit of say, of course. With “I’m the Man, That Will Find You,” my only input was rolling down those stairs. The rest of it was directed.

AP: So, you normally just ask a friend with a sense of taste you can trust?

CM: Yes, but I would love to do it myself now. Back then, I would get friends to do it. I did one with my friends Fleur & Manu in the forest just outside of Paris for that song called “Faking Jazz Together.”

AP: Tonight, just like the past two nights, you will play ‘in the round,’ on a stage in the middle of the audience. Can you talk about how this format has been working out so far?

CM: It’s been great. I’ve done this before when I was playing with a band and there weren’t so many people. We’d move instruments on the floor and play in the middle of the audience. I’ve always loved it. It’s nice for people to see, and there is a good atmosphere. I’d love to do it more, but most venues don’t really allow it. But these past nights in LA have been so good. I’ve really enjoyed it.

A Voyage Into Sight, Sound And Surf: An Interview Of Filmmaker Chris Gentile

Cinema, Interviews, Music

Interview done for Autre.love

Surf Discovery for Social Survival is the surf/music feature film born from the collaboration of Chris Gentile from New York-based surf brand Pilgrim Surf + Supply and Keith Abrahmsson from the record label Mexican Summer. Together they started this ambitious project to connect surf, sound and sight and make a film that would satisfy most senses. World-renowned surfers including Stephanie Gilmore, Ryan Burch, Creed McTaggart and Ellis Ericson joined musicians Allah-Las, Peaking Lights, Connan Mockasin and MGMT ’s Andrew VanWyngarden on this surf journey starting from a secret spot in Mexico, to the southern atolls of the Maldive Islands, and ending in the cold waters of Iceland. The film is narrated by a man who is often referenced as the godfather of American avant-garde, the late Jonas Mekas. I had the chance to talk to the artist, photographer and film director Chris Gentile about the making of his first feature-length film, bringing together artists and surfers, and working with Jonas Mekas.

AGATHE PINARD: I wanted to start by asking about the meaning behind the title, Self Discovery for Social Survival, can you explain it?

CHRIS GENTILE: When we started to conceptualize the film, myself and Keith Abrahamsson from Mexican Summer, we were thinking a lot about music and its relationship to surfing. Surfing is this activity, this pursuit that people engage in and that kind of helps people detach from what they’re do day-to-day, give them some contemplative time to sort of go inward and we were trying to come up with this name, and along the way I came across an old book that was written for climbing, for people who would free climb and climb up mountains. It was basically a book that gave people a pathway to overcome fear. The book was titled Self Discovery for Social Survival. Keith and I both felt like that really resonated with the spirit of what this film was about. Surfers are constantly looking for that open and free space to have a moment in nature, where two forces are meeting each other and the surfers are in the space where the energy that’s coming from nature is dying and being born at the same time. We felt like this title had a lot of metaphoric possibilities and decided to go for it. It’s a mouthful, it’s a big title.

PINARD: This is an ambitious project that mixes surfing, music and animation done by the in house designer of Mexican Summer…

GENTILE: Yes, Bailey Elder but also Robert Beatty, who’s an independent artist and illustrator.

PINARD: How did the idea/project come together ?

It was evolving the whole time we were making the film, it was a very open-ended and experimental process. The one thing that I really wanted to maintain was an open-endedness with everybody involved. So there are multiple points of influence that went into the filmmaking. I didn’t give the surfers any directions while they surfed. We travelled together, we picked these particular places, and they were reacting to the waves that were there for a two-week period of time, and the cinematographers were reacting to the way the surfers were surfing, positioning themselves to get the shot that felt right. I really left a lot of that control up to them. The musicians who were involved were on these trips and they were in the water and surfing the same waves that the professional surfers we travelled with were surfing. They have a first experience and perspective on what was going on. The idea was to let them go back into the studio and have complete creative freedom over the music that they wrote in reaction.

PINARD: What about the animation?

GENTILE: When that came into play, we showed a rough cut to Bailey and Robert. Then Keith Abrahamsson picked a couple of songs that he felt were appropriate to transition from one location like Mexico to the Maldives. To put a song and an animation that would kind of be like a mental palette cleanser, Keith came up with these two fantastic songs. One was an archival song from the seventies, “Void Spirit,” and the other one was a song that was made by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma for the film. Jefre isn’t a surfer, he wasn’t on the trip but he made these beautiful compositions inspired by the idea of being under water, being under the ocean. So, those tracks were given to Bailey and Robert along with the access to this footage, and they reacted and created these animations. Everything was very independent to one another, every aspect of the film. I kind of kept everything on track and helped people when they need my help, but really it was exercise––relinquishing ego and control, and letting everybody’s influence come in and affect the overall project.

PINARD: That’s funny, last week I interviewed Connan Mockasin and we talked about the trip he made to Iceland for the movie, and how he was impressed at the beginning to be around these professional surfers like Stephanie Gilmore who’s a seven-time world champion.

GENTILE: One of the things that I had to do was to think deeply about the personalities that we were going to introduce to one another on these adventures because most of the people didn’t know each other. And taking a surf trip, you don’t know what you’re going to get. There’s no guarantee that the waves are going to be good, or that the weather is going to be good, or a tire may go flat. You may miss opportunities or you may get opportunities that you would never expect. When we went on these trips I had to think about how the group would feel and I was just going off my own instincts and my own guts. The trip to Iceland was really special because it was a group of really different people. They all had a sincere admiration and appreciation for one another. Everyone became fast friends. Iceland was interesting because we were traveling all over that country chasing these storms and these waves. Sometimes getting them and sometimes missing them, but we spent so much time in these vans just traveling across this incredible landscape. Everyone got a lot of time to know each other, more so than on the other trips because on the other trips it was a lot more surfing, people were getting tired, it was different. Iceland was the one where I think the actual chase for the waves was the beauty in that trip, more so than the wave riding.

PINARD: For the movie you took some surfers and went on a trip to Mexico, the Maldives and Iceland, which one was your favorite ?

GENTILE: That’s a great question. I mean, I’ve been to that spot in Mexico so many times and it’s one of my favorite places on the planet. I loved the opportunity to go down there with that group of people, but I have to say the Maldives was really unique and special, because we had this group of Australian surfers together that were kind of like a brotherhood. That trip, we were on a boat, the whole entire time, on an old, old boat. It travels really slowly, had a lot of character and a great captain and a great crew. It was not posh by any means, it was kind of a busted boat. But it was so fun because everybody was just excited to be around each other, find waves, fish. The kind of boredom that you experience on these boats, these guys were wild and doing the most hilarious stuff. Some of it we couldn’t put in the movie it was crazy, drunken backflips off of the boat completely nude at like 3 o’clock in the morning. It was incredible, very memorable.

PINARD: The film is narrated by the late, legendary Jonas Mekas, it might have been the last project he worked on…

GENTILE: I know that Jonas filmed his life every day, so I’m sure that that footage is truly his last work. On this project we were so fortunate to have him agree to come and narrate. The words are Jamie Brisick and Jonas read them. It was so special to get to meet him and experience his humility and his generosity, it was fantastic. If it weren’t for Jonas, I don’t think we could have made a film like this. He’s had so much influence on me as a young artist throughout my life. He gave us, me and the rest of the people at Mexican Summer, everyone, he truly gave us the license to make the film. So, to have him narrate it was an honor, it was so special.

PINARD: How did you get him to work on the project?

GENTILE:Keith Abrahamsson is really responsible for that. Keith presented him with this idea and had already been working with Jonas on a couple of other things, helping him with his archives. They had a working relationship together. Keith asked him if he would be up for narrating the film, and explained to him what it was, and I think it was so strange that he thought it was worth doing. It wasn’t very difficult. He got in a recording studio with him, drank a couple glasses of wine, and I think in one or two takes he nailed the narration. It was great.

PINARD: The movie will premiere in LA this Saturday, are you excited? How do you feel about it ?

GENTILE: I’m a little nervous, I’ve never directed a film before. I’ve made a lot of short films, experimental films, but nothing that’s feature-length, and at this scale, and this level of production. I’m so grateful to have the experience. I’ve learned a lot from it. I’m really excited to see it in front of an audience, see the reaction, see the bands perform live to it, it’s going to be so special.

Self Discovery For Social Survival will premiere in Los Angeles this Saturday June 15 at The Palace Theatre with a live score by Connan Mockasin, Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT and Allah-Las.

The film is out digitally on June 18 and available to pre-order now at https://geni.us/SDSS .

Connan Mockasin Announces ‘Jassbusters’ With A Collection Of New Videos

Music

For Flaunt .com

Connan Mockasin is the musician, composer and record producer from New Zealand who collaborated with MGMT, James Blake and Mac DeMarco. After his latest collaboration with Sam Dust on Soft Hair (2016), Mockasin is back this year with a new and third record called Jassbusters accompanied with a five-part film. The album is said to have been recorded live in less than a week in Paris at Studios Ferber during the summer of 2016 while Bostyn ’n Dobsyn, the film, allegedly took 20 years to develop and only took 10 days to shoot in Los Angeles.

“Con Conn Is Impatient” is the first single from the record and comes with a video clip from the film in which Mockasin plays fictional music teacher, Bostyn, and his friend Blake Pryor plays the music student, Dobsyn. Seeing them both in the video wearing what you could only define as very bad wigs is pretty funny but the song is perfectly silky smooth and mellow. You can watch the video above.

Below is the second single from the record, Charlotte’s Thong. One might wonder if the title refers to Charlotte Gainsbourg as Mockasin composed a song for her 2011 album, Stage Whisper, before going on tour with her. I’ll leave you with that impeccable, smooth as peach skin, nine-minute track.