Photo: Arnau Pascual Ledesma louislouis.org
Belgium-born, Berlin-based composer, singer-songwriter, and producer Manu Louis is a multifaceted musician, with a unique ability to mix diverse musical elements and genres, from jazz, art pop and electronic music to punk and chanson française. Louis is as comfortable performing everything from completely acoustic solo shows to large-scale performances, often incorporating video projections and even dancing. With several albums and singles under his name, and more than 500 live performances across Europe and Asia, he has built a reputation for his energetic and unpredictable shows. We’re excited to have Louis curate this month’s mixtape, and here’s a few words from him about it:
“In 2008, after the subprime crisis, when Germany asked Greece to pay its debts and refused to help, Jean-Luc Godard said that the cultural debt we owe to Greece is incalculable.
If you consider the value of life outside the market, it is hard to disagree with Godard, and the German claim should logically have failed.
When I was asked to make a mix based on the music that influenced me, I turned the question directly to myself: what music should I save more than any other? In Godard's terms, to whom do I owe the greatest musical debt?
The cultural debt we owe to Black music is incalculable.
Where would music be today without hip-hop, blues, Detroit techno, Chicago house, funk, soul, jazz, dub, reggae, to name but a few?
To me, no music of the 20th century ran deeper than jazz. As much as I admire certain 20th-century European composers, songwriters, or eclectic outsiders, nothing comes close.
There are several reasons for this. One that has always fascinated me is how, unlike the avant-garde in classical music, the avant-garde in jazz evolved with the community and not only with decisions made by an individual genius in his room. This is exactly where, to me, classical music lost track, and jazz or many different Black music genres have been constantly rebirthing.
So this mix will be about jazz. The adventurous and the historical (mostly from bebop to free).
But it's not a compilation of my top 12 favorite tracks. I’ve chosen 100 tracks and crafted this mix live, in the moment, as a performance. If I create another mix tomorrow, it will be completely different. So, there’s no Coltrane, no Monk, no Duke—not because they aren’t central but simply because they didn’t emerge during this particular moment.”
