Bass music’s very own Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But instead of despair, they bring genesis.
The Toulouse quartet has never failed to deliver anything short of excellence. Returning to Paris this week for the next STUDIO Invites, the expectation in the air is feverish. What soulful liquid salutations will they trill our ears with? What sophisticated riddums and edgy groove-laden funk will move our feet? Visages releases hold a reputation for clear-cut crystal quality and effortless cool. It’s a sound all of their own, that the four have steadily built through respectful collaboration and discernment in their differences of taste and style… to boundary-shattering results.
Enter the pièce de résistance; the forthcoming ‘Amor Fati’ album that the group calls a ‘midlife crisis’ or rather, glorious acceptance of the challenges of life. In translation, ‘the love of fate’, the first single from the album ‘FFO’, landed earlier this month, teasing head-shaking hand-wringing funky basslines and ruthlessly succinct drums in their trademark melding of grime, jungle, soul, and tech drum and bass influence. The collection promises it all; the full range and mastery of the four’s talents, traversing subgenres and soundscapes in a symphony of their best qualities. Conceptually, they coin it their finest piece; a complete body of work that is uncompromising on every single track, ruthlessly precise and stoic in its deliverance – to put it simply, a banger of the age. A defining moment for Visages and their longstanding commitment to their authentic vision; to make good music and have a good time whilst doing so.
Ahead of the show, they shared some thoughts with us on this defining project, the passing of life, music without the image, being typically Visages, and crucially – one of life’s biggest joys: coffee.
Hey guys! Ça va? What were you doing five minutes ago?
We had coffee with a cigarette – a classic French breakfast, discussing our mixdowns being so shit!
Standard producer behavior. Speaking of, you’re about to release the mammoth ‘Amor Fati’ album soon, which is HUGE. What was the process like with creating this?
The creative process is pretty simple: we make music, we question ourselves about it, then we make music, then we question ourselves about it, and so on and so on, so VICIOUS CIRCLE. Until we’re pretty happy with the result. Then we’ll all mull it over in our minds, then Valentin and Etienne may discuss these things over coffee. I think this album took the longest because there were a lot of collaborations with other artists, and we wanted to make something that we were happy with in the long term. The creative process is natural, compared to the more technical part, which is mixdown, final arrangements, etc.. and we spend SHIT TONS of hours doing this!
How does this differ from your other gem, ‘From Lead to Gold’?
We don’t consider FLTG as an album because it’s just a series of tracks we made, while Amor Fati has been thoroughly considered as a story-telling piece of art. We tried to make a no-skip album, something you can easily listen to from beginning to end. We wanted to open ourselves to new music directions, writing music you can listen to at home, instead of having a typical drum and bass and 140 club release – but there’s still some, though, don’t worry.
‘Amor Fati’ means, of course, ‘love of fate’. Is Stoicism the philosophy of Visages?
The creation of this album was a defining moment in our lives, mid-thirties crisis, questioning on certain points, and the acceptance of failure. Our favourite piece of the whole process was the creative part, of course, making dozens of ideas and trying to find a common thread. We can’t summarise Visages in a simple philosophy because there are four of us and we are all different and that’s what’s incredible. But Stoicism is a philosophy that attracts us because it allows us to have a balanced perspective on all the events of life, both good or bad – and to always grow.
Yes, it’s essential to accept things as they are. So, with who will you be working on the album? Share with us some names!
Of course! Snowy, Chimpo, Strategy, Alix Perez, Nazca, Monty, Verbz, Trail, Eric Nakanishi. A mix of artists we respect, and also friends!
All big talents to collaborate with! Thank you for sharing. How do the four of you work across projects?
Basically, Valentin makes the track ideas, plus he is in charge of the artistic direction, while Etienne helps Val with the more technical stuff. We have a WhatsApp group chat with everyone, but we mostly troll in it haha. Valentin is in charge because he is the person who creates the music in our group and everything is orchestrated around the music and not on the image, which seems essential to us. And to be honest, this direction doesn’t change because we know what we want artistically speaking. Even if we always ask ourselves questions, our beliefs always remain the same. Everyone has a role to contribute, an area of expertise, and we must respect that, we are all different with different characteristics. In a football team, not everyone can be number 10. When it comes to our approach, we just listen to a lot of music and we take inspiration from that! That is how we get started.
What a well-oiled machine! How do you resolve creative disagreements? If you have them…
To be honest, we have none. We are all on the same page so it goes naturally. We all listen to different music and produce different genres of music. But we all share that and try to catch inspiration from all that different stuff, into one sound.
A sonic amalgamation. How would you describe your collective identity?
We are a group of friends, trying to have fun in a depressing world, haha. Music is a means of communication, escaping, passing messages, and sharing energies and emotions. It’s a big part of our lives. As always, we are all different, but for me – Valentin – it changed my life and helped me to be a better person. It’s really hard to describe what we do precisely because tomorrow is another day, you can have different inspirations from one day to another. We just want to emphasize the vibe and soul in our music, that’s about it, even in the darker stuff… we want to convey that.
We can hear those principles and influences in all your work. What do you love about grime? Who’s doing interesting things in the scene right now?
We love the energy from grime, it’s a part of the hip-hop scene kind of, but it feels like it’s still niche or underground. Even if we’re French, we love UK music in general, because it’s a different culture. We mostly listen to oldskool grime artists like Skepta, JME, Sir Spyro, D Double E…
True greats. Last year you toured the US for the first time and more recently NZ and Australia. How was it different from a European tour?
The highlight was spending some extra days as holidays in New Zealand, including the Northern Bass Weekend we did with Alix and the NZ crew. Also, touring in Australia and the US for the first time was really sick! We think every place in the world has its specific energy, it’s different from one place to another, what’s important is to catch this vibe and make people enjoy the moment! Only God can judge, and we observe!
What do you love most about Kiwis and Aussies?
The respect and kindness of people above all, it’s a shock when you come from Europe and France in particular!
Haha, maybe we can learn a thing or two from them! Speaking of Alix, what’s your relationship like with 1985?
1985 is a family, Alix is the father, and other artists are either brothers, cousins, or uncles! If we’re closer to them, they are more like brothers, haha. They trust us to do what we need to do, however, we too do it, which is incredible.
Creative control is essential. It’s been a long journey from 2017. What are you most proud of?
Yeah, long journey indeed, but it went like a blink of an eye! We achieved what we wanted since we make music, making a living out of that, and still enjoying it. There are so many things we are proud of, but to name a few, making music with Alix, playing in amazing places all over the world, having a track on FIFA, this kind of stuff!
The good life! And now a quick fire round; what do you want to do next?
To continue on this momentum, release lots of new projects all different, and also try to place instrumentals for rappers or singers. These are some things we are working towards.
What has being Visages taught you?
Trust your instincts… and work hard. This is something you just have to realize for yourself.
A great lesson to learn. What’s a signature Visages production technique?
The ‘kick T’es pas prêt’ sample!
Merci! Finally, where’s the best place to go in Toulouse for food, wine, and coffee?
Food? There’s too much to think of, because there are so many different cuisines, but after all, nothing beats going to a local market!
Wine? Because we’re French, we have to love wine? Haha, jokes aside Tom loves wine, but he mostly drinks some at home with good food!
And coffee… same also, nothing better than a good espresso made at home for us!
Interview conducted in February 2025 by Gianina Mesina
Thanks to Valentin from Visages for the great interview!
You can catch the quartet playing in Paris for STUDIO this Friday (28.02). Tickets are available here.
You can also read our previous feature with Sicaria, here.
