After relocating a few times due to the Covid situation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic), I settled in Antibes, my home town in France, at my parents’s. Time passed by and the idea of producing my first album became more and more precise. I decided to leave Antibes with my gear in my clio 3,
and to not come back until the album is finished. As I’m writing this, it’s been a year since I left and the album is still unfinished ( ). I hope to finish it soon (I need to stop watching music tutorials, Game of Thrones, the Lord of the Rings and Hey Arnold ).
Anyhow, after travelling to Saint Jodard (beside Lyon, FR ), Strasbourg (FR ), Dijon (FR ), Ajaccio (FR ), I discovered through my manager a residency program in Sopot (PL) near Gdansk in July 2021 with @Goyki and @CNM, for 3 weeks. I applied and got selected , which was great news for me, because apart from being able to continue my album and to share with other artists, I was able to live somewhere (at the time I didn’t know where to go and had no plan to have a roof ).
Sopot during the summer was a great experience for me, I met some artists that became my friends and discovered a culture completely new to me . Apart from visiting, drinking pints and vodka, I worked really well here. This got me thinking ‘why not come back to continue/finish the album ?’, since I had nowhere to go really in France after those 3 weeks and since the settings in Sopot were really prolific to my work. I exchanged a few words with Marta from Goyki and she welcomed me to come back and work in the newly built Goyki 3 Art Inkubator . Great news for me and a brand new experience confirmed !
That was it, at the end of September I drove from Strasbourg to Sopot in my clio and found an apartment in Kamieny Potok (Sopot neighbourhood). The idea was to stay 2 months, but as planned, I didn’t finish the album and I really enjoyed the winter atmosphere in Sopot , so I asked to stay 2 extra months.
In 4 months, I had the chance to meet a lot of people in the music industry and visit a lot of places. Pretty hard to list and sum up all my encounters and plans I found here. It went from integrating the local electronic and indie music scene , meeting up with local artists at concerts and weekends visiting Gdansk/Gdynia/Warsaw , to swimming in the Baltic sea at 7 in the morning on a sunday at -5°C , going for shots with the local hairdresser from Kamieny Potok , and playing football with French expats . Pretty random and unexpected but that’s how I see life.
One of the reasons I came to Sopot was to isolate myself in order to continue/finish my album . This city is perfect for this, it’s surrounded by forest and on the Baltic sea . The city is quite small but the easy access to the big city Gdansk makes a very good balance of life between activities and calmness. This equity was key to my mood for composing my album. On top of this, the people are genuinely good-hearted, welcoming and sincerely nice which makes the environment even more comfortable.
Goyki was the key to this welcoming environment I lived in . The reception was great and I immediately felt home. I was also introduced to musicians and people working in the music industry. I had the chance to do a concert in this great club/pub called Ziemia and it became my second home for discovering the local music scene, which was a great experience. On top of this, I collaborated on one track of my album with a polish duo called Woska/Khris. The track is still not finished yet , but I’m really happy with the result. It was a great experience!
The team at Goyki supplied me with a room to settle with my equipment and work. Conditions were great. I managed to finish a good lot of the album. On top of this, the room had access to a balcony with the view of Goyki’s forest and the sea. You can imagine how the conditions enhanced the inspiration process (especially when it snowed !)
Anyhow, I feel really lucky to have had the chance to work in Goyki and in the tricity in general. Unfortunately, I had to leave to do concerts in France and for that it was easier to settle back over there. I really miss my routine and life in Sopot. I’ll definitely come back to visit, hopefully with vinyls of my album!
