FKJ – a.k.a., French Kiwi Juice or Vincent Fenton – is a French singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who entered the music scene in 2017. The debut was met with all praise from critics of all genres, and soon after his reputation skyrocketed with his Masego-assisted track Tadow. Right from the beginning with those early releases, he established his trademark sound and it's been recognizable in every piece of his music since. He’s become especially known for his live sets – an impressive one-man display of talent that always involves at least four instruments and a whole lot of layering.
Towards the end of 2019, he released his six-track Ylang Ylang EP, which takes its name from the Ylang Ylang room in which the songs were composed. For six months last year, FKJ lived in a remote studio off the grid, in search of an escape and hiatus from the busy day-to-day. Looking for a spot of isolation, the jungle of Southeast Asia was a perfect fit: what it lacked in amenities – no electricity, only a nighttime generator to make music – it made up for in beautiful landscapes, and almost complete solitude.
He's said about the EP: “I want to present it more like a conceptual one, like a film scoring of that time and place.” It’s a project he hadn’t attempted to date and he accomplished it well: there's a true cinematic quality to the Ylang Ylang collection and its jazzy, symphonic compositions, all painting an intricate scene of FKJ’s jungle refuge. The production quality is unbelievable – each bit of rhythm and instrumentation is so clean and crisp.
For this EP, he completely sheds the high energy rhythms that characterized much of his past music – opting instead for velvety melodies and soft jazz arrangements. But gentle and hushed as it is, it’s far from dull. With every song, he manages to keep you on your toes – never sure where it might go.
He does this well in the EP’s title track (my favourite song of the six): it starts off as a cryptic piano instrumental before an electronic beat joins a minute in, stirring the pot. This technique gives his music an unpredictability that also makes it feel completely unrushed. He’s in no hurry to get to the root of a song, instead exploring the sound and letting it unfold naturally.
Each time I listen I get the image of a snow globe: for the first bit of the song the white specks lie calmly at the bottom, and then he introduces the beat to shake everything up, while we sit back and watch it all float.
Just a few days ago, he released an incredible live session of the EP, filmed in his jungle studio. Certainly not a bad spot to isolate, surrounded by lush greenery and complete with an ocean view. But more importantly we get to watch his talent firsthand and the songs have a fresh, improvisational quality when played live – that is to say, their jazzier side really shines.
(The only song unfortunately missing from the session is Earthquake, the EP’s dreamy opener. I would've loved to watch FKJ play the saxophone portion – it sounds so uninhibited.)
The only lead vocal feature on Ylang, Ylang is Bas, who raps on Risk and taps more heavily into the R&B edge of FKJ’s music. The artists have said the recording took only one take --- and though I know next to nothing about music production, I can imagine that’s pretty damn rare. Risk is the most lyrically sophisticated of the bunch and includes some memorable lines – especially from the chorus: “I haven’t seen light in a while / It hasn’t been bright in a while."
And then we have the most vulnerable song of the six, 100 Roses. Along with sharing its cover art, FKJ explained that the song is about the real reason he and his wife sought out a retreat of isolation in the Ylang Ylang room: the loss of their first expected child, Ayla. He wrote: “She was a surprise and we embraced her. But life decided differently, and she left us before she could take a breath in our world. We watched her gain life and we watched her lose it.”
Inherent to this EP is a very personal catharsis. It’s a score that captures this heavily impactful period of FKJ’s life --- both a deeply moving story and an extremely calming soundscape.
Happy listening!
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