FKJ: FOLLOWING HIS HEART ON TYBER

Sep 11

8 min read

Typically an artist's favorite F WORD will come at the close of our interview, but for FKJ it seems like the perfect place to start. When I posed the French musician the question, he took a moment to hesitate before he found his response. “Follow”, he says. “I think that’s the answer that I get at the end, that I should follow [what] my heart is saying deep inside.” It’s a notion he is conscious to live by these days, the idea of “not thinking, just to follow”, and was instrumental in the creation of his latest album Tyber.

“Not thinking, just to follow.”

Vincent Fenton, professionally known as FKJ (French Kiwi Juice), joins me via Zoom ahead of its release; he is bathed in sunshine and relaxing in a lush green Paris park. It seems a pretty idyllic moment of respite in the city before the start of a “crazy” week of rehearsals ahead of his upcoming world tour. “I’m super excited,” he assures me. “I finished the album a few months ago, and it’s my new project right now”. It’s his first tour of this scale since 2023, but the artist is eager for his audience to experience the album live. “We’ve been sharing music in the visual world, now it’s time to go into the real world and see how it feels. It’s exciting for me to see what’s out there.”

Tyber is the freshly released third studio album from FKJ, following on from his previous work, the self-titled FKJ and V I N C E N T. The album was born out of a period of intense tumultuousness in the artist's personal life; its starting point now almost unrecognisable. Originally titled Shift, its creation came at a time when, for FKJ, everything felt unstable, and the music was trying to find the answers that the artist just didn’t have.

He happened upon a video of a Hindusitic belief that turning 33 can be a very transitional stage of life; a stage of either positive or negative upheaval. Leaning into this idea, the musician was guided by a friend to a retreat where he underwent a meditative process. “I was helped by a plan, by a ritual–the Buchi ritual. They use this plant, Koli Boga, which is not really known at all, but it's a very powerful experience.

While meandering through this process, he encountered a tree-like figure, called Tyber. “It felt like a very wise being and [it was] where I got a lot of answers from,” he explains. The experience was clearly clarifying, and FKJ’s encounter with Tyber led to an intense overhaul of the album he was currently compiling, now approaching its creation with an entirely new point of view. Tracks were reshaped and new music was recorded, moulding “Shift” into something completely different. “I wanted to close this chapter with what really closed it; the encounter [with Tyber]. I decided to name the album as the last thing that happened during this chapter rather than the first.”

“I wanted to close this chapter with what really closed it; the encounter [with Tyber].”

The result is an album that moves between soul, jazz and R&B while still immersing the listener in the psychedelic electronic sounds that have become synonymous with FKJ’s music. It was recorded across many different places; London, Brazil, LA, Paris and Mexico, but when I ask FKJ where, geographically, he would place Tyber, his answer is somewhere much closer to home. “I think it’s my head. It’s a battle and reconciliation with my mind, a kind of discussion with myself.”

“It’s a battle and reconciliation with my mind, a kind of discussion with myself.”

The more FKJ discusses Tyber, the clearer it becomes that its 11 tracks document a journey of self-discovery, one he’s described as “falling into an abyss and coming back out of it”. For him, it serves as a quasi-photo album, a series of snapshots capturing this period of his life full of both “terrible and beautiful” moments that he can return to. I would have thought sharing this would seem daunting, but FKJ seems fairly at ease about divulging its content with his audience.

It’s because despite the album's autobiographical nature, FKJ is careful to maintain a veil of privacy, rather than laying down his journey like the pages of a diary. “It’s still music,” he tells me. “It’s not literature, and it’s pretty abstract in a lot of ways.” Sharing his life that transparently would be too intimidating, and the artist maintains he’s “not so outspoken” that he’d be keen to document his journey that way. Instead, the lyrics are meaningful to him; only FKJ knows what each one is about.

Talking to the artist, however, I never get the impression his intention is to isolate people from understanding his music. It’s a chance to plug in, experience the atmosphere and rather than withholding meaning, FKJ leaves space for the listener to find their own.

FKJ is known for being a "pioneer" of New French House, but his music also sits between electronic, jazz and soul. Despite the intricate production and multi-instrumental arrangements that have become synonymous with his work, he does not approach music rigidly, or try to manufacture a particular sound.

“When people say that I have a sound, that’s the perception of [other] people, not necessarily mine. I’m just recording whatever inspired me to record that day”. He’s not opposed to the idea of a concept album, (“I love concept albums. I love when an album has one sound.”), but his approach to Tyber focuses on twining together tracks through mood and ambience, rather than forcing himself to stay within the bounds of certain genres. “I just make it,” he says simply. “Then it’s all about the selection–about what makes sense.”

“I’m just recording whatever inspired me to record that day.”

What strikes me about FKJ’s process is despite how intricately layered his music is, the artist approaches it almost entirely through instinct, inspiration striking in any number of moments. It’s not always found in a studio or through an instrument; instead, he explains that it can be anywhere, often “deeply” influenced by the environment: in the park, walking around the city or even cooking. “I’m imagining music in my head, imagining a reason,” he explains. He’ll usually first immortalise a moment on his phone through a brief recording before taking the time to explore and grow things further.

Music also develops through “playing around with instruments, (a long list including piano, drums, saxophone, guitar, bass, melodica and flute), kind of like a kid plays with his toys”, leading to one small moment, accidental or not, that sparks the idea for a full track. How does he know when he’s hit on the right thing? For FKJ, it’s simple. “It’s just your taste,” he says plainly. “ You're just like, oh, this sounds great to me. I love that. It’s exciting when you find something that you personally are crazy about.”

A clear example of this method can be spotted on his track I Want U, created with American R&B artist, Eryn Allen Kane. While the majority of Tyber was created over the past three years, the track's origin was sparked much longer ago. It began in a recording session where the two artists spent around an hour creating and laying down music. After they were done, it was left untouched. Years later, in the process of making Tyber, FKJ stumbled on the recording and one specific hook captured his attention. He sent it to Eryn, who had never heard the original recording, and the pair knew they had something to mould. “We were just hooked on it. [We felt it was] really catchy and we just couldn't stop listening to it.”

The track was laid down between the pair in just a day, in a similar fashion to one of his breakout tracks Tallow, created in a day-long improvisation session with musician Masego after the pair had just met. Typical of FKJ’s creative style, there was no plan–except to plug in and see where the music would take them. “I’m not really a songwriter where you’re listening like; what’s the intro? Maybe I’ll do that later on, but I like the first [go] to be unplanned.”

The album contains a plethora of collaborators, Baby Rose, Eryn Allen Kane, Bas, Lucy Park and Labrinth, each adding a distinct vocal counterpart to FKJ’s musicianship. For FKJ, the collaborations on Tyber began with the music, but often grew into close friendships, adding another layer of intimacy to an already personal album. “I knew their music before I met them,” he says. “But they happened to be, or became, very good friends.”

Yet despite the connections and artistry that grew out of this collaborative approach to certain tracks on Tyber, FKJ is also at ease as a solo artist. He believes it stems from his childhood, growing up in the isolated French countryside, where a lack of screens and limited opportunities to hang out with friends meant he spent a great deal of time “embracing boredom”. Time instead was spent discovering music, rummaging through his parents’ library and honing his skills across a broad selection of instruments. There’s a sense that the same instinct to play in childhood still sits at the centre of FKJ’s process today.

He eventually started creating his own music and the experience sparked a joy in the artist that doesn’t seem to have ever waned. “I just had some amazing moments–eureka moments–creating music on my own. When I listen back to it now, it was really innocent, but very powerful.” His youth has led him to find the process of working in solitude “comforting”, although he maintains that there’s also “nothing like” the “magic moments” that come from creating with others. He sums up his approach rather philosophically: “Some people can only make music with other people, some people can probably only make music alone. I cherish both.”

Despite the imminent start of his tour, FKJ is already looking ahead: “I’m always working on the next thing,” he laughs, not yet able to nail down exactly what his next project will be (having come to understand more about FKJ’s creative process, I’d be surprised if he did have a fixed idea). However, he’s keen to venture into music influenced by some of his idols. “I’m really into instrumental music. I’m a big fan of Piero Piccioni, Bernard Herrmann, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Debussy, Chopin. I don’t know if it’s going [what] I put straight up after this one, but I definitely want to do more of a classical type composing project”.

For now, it’s time for FKJ to debut Tyber. When it comes to experiencing the album, he recommends really good speakers, allowing the listener to pick up on all the “tiny details” the artist woven throughout the record–the kind of details he loves creating precisely because he hopes people will notice them. While he notes Tyber may not be his happiest album, he wants to leave people feeling upbeat at the culmination of the 11 atmospheric tracks. “There’s some melancholy,” he says, “but it’s a journey to get to a bright place. Hopefully, [people] come back with something optimistic; about their lives and about the world.”

“It’s a journey to get to a bright place.”

It's clear that this album has been pretty transformational for FKJ, and moving forward, he believes the biggest change in his musicianship will come with what is to follow. Tyber began as an album of someone searching for answers, and finishes with the beginnings of a response. He explains that the things he learnt as an artist don’t come from how the album was changed or reshaped; instead, he feels different starting work on new projects “because the root is from this place, from a new state of mind”. This perspective–the understanding to follow his instincts, and his heart– will soundtrack whatever comes next.

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