Name: Cindy Pooch
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: French-Cameroonian
Current release: Cindy Pooch's new single "Délicatesse" is out via InFiné.
Recommendations: There is a book that I really loved called The man who spoke snakish by Andrus Kivirähk, an Estonian author. It talks about identity, tradition, and our ability to accept change, amongst other themes. It is funny, satirical, delicate, profound ...

If you enjoyed this Cindy Pooch interview and would like to find out more about her and her music, visit her on Instagram, and Facebook.
 


When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I often ask myself if I want to close or open my eyes while listening to music. It's a topic! I decide depending on the moments, the sensations.

I'm really sensitive to energy and my body will tell me. Sometimes I would listen to music and feel sick, because the energy conveyed in it is not okay with me at the moment. That is for some unpleasant sensations, because yes, music can bring a lot of them too!

Regarding more pleasant sensations, I figured out that a lot of things also happened in my lower abdomen while listening to music. Which makes sense  to me since it's an area in the body linked to creativity and sexual energy. I think that music contains in itself the power to convene this energy which I believe is  very powerful, vital and necessary to connect to creation. Through that communication, I experience that some music kind of fertilize my body.

It's amazing, when you pay attention, to discover the plethora of sensations that can take over. I love especially the subtle ones! There are so many, and they're everywhere! Sometimes I will focus on one main sensation, an obvious one, and sometimes I will try to follow a flow created by the ensemble of all of them.

And sometimes, I just feel nothing. Numbness happens.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

I started my journey with music as a child, probably because I needed joy and freedom! I found that music was a place where I could experience the joy of creativity and relief.

For a while (until around 20) I had no musical vocabulary. I didn't feel like I needed to have one, and singing was already really fulfilling! Later on, when I arrived in Lyon and surrounded myself with jazz musicians, I started to learn the codes by playing with them, going to jam sessions, and joining bands. I learnt the language (I'm still learning) because it was useful to communicate,  to co-create. I also started to work on my voice to gain technique because I felt frustrated about some physical limits due to lesions on my vocal chords. So I started a reeducation and became kind of obsessed with the voice.

But today, I feel like I kept that naiveté from the beginning, and just added to that more tools to gain latitude to express my feelings as precisely as possible and to be able to work with others. Therefore, I'm not at all nostalgic about my first steps because I feel like I'm still connected to that basic intention that was freedom and delight and healing (even if it wasn't conscious), and I just now have the tools to reach those states more easily.

Also, I  feel that wonder in music is still one of the main sensations I experience, doing it or listening to it.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music meant to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

At that age, music was definitely a shelter. It was my safe place and still is.

As a teenager, many things were complicated. I wasn't really sure where I belonged, in terms of culture, family, friendships ... But I knew that music made me feel good, and that I needed to sing.

I realize now that I have always created more music than I would listen to it. I grew up in Yaoundé, in Cameroon, so music was everywhere. I heard it all the time, but I rarely listened to an album, for example. I spent a lot of time writing songs with my best friends, I went to a gospel session once a week ...
My bond with music gave me structure, confidence, freedom, love.

In that regard, nothing has changed today.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

My main instrument has always been my body. More specifically, my voice. When I was a child I wanted to play piano, but it wasn't possible. But those vocal cords that were a part of me were a safe bet, and I feel lucky that I got to make music with my body first.

I used to think that since I didn't really play an instrument, I wasn't able to compose anything. I limited myself to writing lyrics and melodies. I planned to wait to have a comfortable level on the guitar to start composing real pieces of music. And then one day I realized that instead of waiting I could trust that inner instrument that  gave me freedom already, and trust my ears, and trust my spirit. I believe that this has shaped my perspective on music, at list when it comes to making it, into something really personal.

Then, the best ally to my voice was a computer, a MIDI keyboard and a sound card. These electronic tools also really shaped the form of my music. It was from my voice to electronic devices first. Only after would I invite other instruments. So my voice had the whole “organic space”. No competition!

I feel like this is the reason why for me music is so connected to the body. Because if I start to compose music, it involves my body, my throat, my breath, and it starts with that. With a breath, that I intend to keep alive and full as far as possible.

When I listen to music, I also like to catch the breath that is exhaled by the artist. Not all the time - but if I'm touched, I'm seeking that.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

I believe that what motivates me to create is a feeling of emergency. I never really just decide to create, and surely never decide on a theme, or a subject. I feel like, at a point, I just get overwhelmed by an emotion that manifests itself into words and sounds, in my body, my head, then my voice.

If at the beginning, this was really an informative process (in a sense that I consider that the songs that burst out are witnesses that know things about me that I don't know yet ), now I have a more explicit and clear intention to trigger catharsis and engage into a healing process with my music.

This is also a feeling that I look for when listening to music in general.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

When I listen to my music, my first impression is not even the overall tone but the emotional tone, or charge of it. I feel like I'm using music but music isn't really the subject, or the purpose.

Most of the time, when I create a piece, I listen to it again and again for days. I always say that I bath myself in it, for it to operate its transformative power on me. Only after that am I really able to consider it really as a musical object.

I'm not able at all to define my personal sound, and I don't feel like doing it. I believe that we all are in constant movement, and I'm really afraid of frozen things. It's almost a phobia! I feel that my sound has to be true to me, to who I am, in my motion. And I guess that's the main feedback that I love to experience  when I listen to my music.

The truth of who I was in the moment when that form got out of me to manifest itself into those sounds. That's the first impression. That's why sometimes it's hard for me to listen to the songs. It's like I'm forced to look in the mirror. Then,  that bathing process can lead to acceptance.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? How far would you describe them as “musical”?

I don't know if I would want to call it a musical. To me music comes after this, and those non-human sounds are more raw. Essentials. Music is civilizational and sound is just pure energy.

But I guess we can't resist anthropocentrism, and whenever I hear the sound of cicadas during summer in the South of France, I feel like they're singing or playing cymbals. It's weird because that sound to me is both aggressive and really soothing. I love ambivalent emotions. It's fascinating though! They do what's called a ‘cymbalisation’, with their abdomen, and if it's the right temperature, they start to “sing”.

This is easier to translate into our musical language, but I think that sound itself  in general, as a vibration, is filled with energy that can move our matter. It's everywhere among and  around  us, and maybe we just reproduce it with music, and give it a frame.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

I'm kind of obsessed with contrasts. As if I believed that a huge space for freedom and extension could exist only in ambivalences, and by reconciling antagonisms. So I do feel drawn to extremes most of the time, and it's a comfortable sensation.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

Intuition is what works best for me.

I guess I always felt really free in terms of forms, rhythms, and melody. However, I've been listening to pop music growing up, and I know that I have those conventional forms in my system! But I feel like the form depends on what needs to be said.

Each story can lead to a different form, a different approach. I sang a lot of different musical genres, from funk,  to maloya, trip hop, blues. I am sure that I carry a mix of codes  from  those experiences.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

Weirdly I struggle to remember how I put a piece together. It's just experimentation, It's just moments where I'm drowned in my sensitivity and just do things.

I don't think I have a creative process.

Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

I never conducted scientific experiments in my music. Yet.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

I believe  that music allows us to be present to our emotions. I think that it draws lines and directions on our paths, and that it's a precious tool for us to know and feel who we are. To me, music is a door. But I don't know if understanding music on a deeper level is necessary to experience that.

In my personal journey, it is one of the different tools that I discovered to  go forward, feel, connect, heal. To me, therapy work, regular energetic healing, conversations, music: those are things that serve the same purpose in life. It accelerates the process of knowing myself, accepting myself , reconciling with my older and future selves and healing wounds that are not accessible to me apart from the deepest introspection. And music allows that introspection.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I'm a little bit chaotic at doing mundane things. I am messy, clumsy, and sometimes making a cup of coffee can take a long time because I'll be distracted. I feel like I'm often going a bit too fast and miss the beauty in a lot of everyday gestures.  

Music is a zone of consciousness for me. When I compose or when I perform, I really feel connected to my inner self, and able to channel and express beauty. It gives me focus, on the energy in me and around me. Making a great cup of coffee never does that to me.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

I can't think of a specific one. I think it's because there are so  many. Sorry.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I feel like there is so much to wish for in the present that I never think about wishing for the future!

I guess I would just love to see and hear more and more freedom. I would love the voices unheard to be heard for what they have to say. More space for people who are still invisible but have a lot to bring musically, intellectually and spiritually, everywhere on the globe!

I hope that we collectively will be able to provide that.