Name: Pauline Lopez de Ayora aka Poppy Fusée
Nationality: French
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Poppy Fusée's sophomore album Better Place is out now via Un Plan Simple.  
Recommendations: Book: The little prince. Especially if you are an adult you should read it every decade as a reminder that you once were a young heart.
Flyte, by flyte, is the album I've been listening to why answering your questions – it's a very well written album!

If you enjoyed this Poppy Fusée interview and would like to keep up to date with her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and tiktok.
 


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?

Oh, it really depends on the song, my mood at the moment and what feelings are passing through I think.

I will often listen with eyes closed when I am in bed listening to folk music, really focusing on the lyrics and how they move me.

But I tend to open my eyes when I am traveling by train listening to more cinematic songs and writing stories in my head as the landscape unfolds before my eyes.
 
Entering new worlds and escapism through music have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to listening to and creating music?

As a listener that is exactly what I am looking for too! Music has always been a safe place when things were too loud and complicated at home as a child.

As a music creator I think I’m looking for my inner childhood joy to come out and play with me for a while. I tend to make music very instinctively. I really trust the whole process, I rarely second-doubt a word that comes out because I connect with something inside myself that never lies.

I love writing a song and understand what it’s really about afterwards.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience?

I started music relatively late in life. I was 21 years old when I stared to learn 2 chords on the guitar and wrote 10 songs just with these two chords haha. I wanted to tell stories, becoming a good musician was never my plan!

I think I still approach music and composing the same but I definitely gained confidence and trust. I am in my mid thirties now, so I know myself better and I know my limits and I am more interested in making music that I would listen to myself, rather than music that would for sure get played on the radio.
 
According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?
 
Music literally saved my life during these times! I discovered music that truly touched my soul. You know you emancipate from what your parents listen to, you make your own discoveries.

It was the beginning of the internet, so a whole new perspective was here. I would come back from school, throw my bag on my bed and turn on MTV and watch video clips until dinner.

I was obsessed with pop music back then, Britney, Texas, Nathalie Imbruglia, Savage Garden, the Servants, Oasis, Green Day, Coldplay … I discovered all of them through music videos!

How would you describe your own relationship with your instrument, tools or equipment?

My main instrument is an omnichord - a strange auto harp synth from the late 70s. It is an easy instrument to play because the keys are literally marked on the push buttons so the lazy musician in me is very happy.

But what I like the most is that anything I'll play with it feels and sounds magical. It leaves a really nice silence between different notes and leaves a great space for the voice!
 
Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I never start from a source or inspiration. I just let things happen. But afterwards I like to take a step back and try to recognize another artist in the song, sometimes it’s another musician but more often than not it’s a movie. On my first album, Better Place, I found 10 movies to relate to my 10 songs.

It's is a game I love playing, I am a tarot reader aside from music and I really love to seek every major arcana (like the strength, the empress, the sun) in life situations or in art in genera!

As for the impulse, I would say it is still a mystery to me!

Are you acting out parts of your personality in your music which you couldn't or wouldn't in your daily life? If so, which are these? What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music?

Perfectionism for sure! I really observed myself while doing this album and with ALTO, my co-composer and producer, we went really deep into details, full of focus!

I have a hard time doing this in my daily life. I have ADHD so I am more a chaotic day to day little tornado!

The key ideas behind my approach to music are :

- Find joy
- Trust the process
- Never second guessing the first words that comes to mind
- Making music I would listen to
- Surround myself with people that cultivate joy love and excitement
 
If music is a language, what can we communicate with it? How do you deal with misunderstandings?

I think it’s everything you put in interpretation. The emotion you put when you play / sing is key.

You are misunderstood when there is a dissonance between what the song is about and how you deliver it. You can never be misunderstood when you mean and feel what you sing / play.

It’s all about being aligned with who you really are.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness and how do you still draw surprises from tools, approaches and musical forms you may be very familiar with?  

I think by not making that much music on a daily basis!

Because of my ADHD it’s impossible for me to write songs at my place, because of my lack of focus and too many distractions. So to write music I have to book a studio or a special place where I can only write music, which make these moments unique and out of time. Sometimes before going, I am afraid that nothing will come out. But guess what - it works every time!

So yeah I would say don’t make music everyday like you would go to a job if you want to keep it fun and meaningful!
 
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? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

I have three sounds that move me like no other sounds :

1 - Any sound the water makes, rain, river, waves, floods, lake - I have an interlude on my album called «be like water» with my friend November Ultra. It is an ode to water and how it heals us and make us brand new when we accept to let go of things as we bathe.
2 - The sound of the wind in the leaves in a forest in Summer. It calms me and makes me happy and quiet
3 - The sound of whales, I found them so deep and mysterious!

I have a habit of recording sounds that surround me on my phone. Any sound can be musical. My first EP is truffled with sounds recorded on my phone from holidays, journeys, happy days at the beach. They fit perfectly with the melody and give a unique feel to each song.

There seems to be an increasing trend to capture music in algorithms, and data. But already at the time of Plato, arithmetic, geometry, and music were considered closely connected. How do you see that connection yourself? What aspects of music do you feel can be captured through numbers, and which can not?

Oh I supposed someone who studied music would be able to answer this much better than myself. In terms of measures, partitions can be mathematically perfect. I approach music instinctively so it’s hard for me to see arithmetics in it.

I would say geometry, the circle especially, because I love to have stories with a beginning and an end that can be played on repeat.
 
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 only write from personal experience and what I have been through. But as I said earlier, I only figure out what a song is really about once it’s done, sometimes weeks later.

I use music as a reflection of my soul. As I would use tarot. It shines some light on a subject that would never come to me in a simple conversation. It reaches the depth of my soul and brings it up so I can understand what is going on underneath.

I think we can definitely learn about life through music. I understood grief through many songs before I had to get through one. And it’s like it had prepared me gently for it because when it happened it’s like I knew how to feel, how to react, and how to get through it.
 
We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?
 
I recently purchased earplugs! As I grow older I measure the beauty of silence.

I grew up in Paris, surrounded by noise and sounds. I spent holidays at my grand parents' where Radio France inter is playing all day, every day, until the TV journal. They would talk loud over this background noise.

Three years ago I moved to Normandy, to a small town called Bellême and really discovered the beauty and the importance of silence. It helps me focus, it helps me question myself, and find answers.

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?

Again it depends what level of intensity you put in what you make. Sometimes I perform old songs that I don’t like anymore and are not aligned to me anymore and I do it as an automatism, like making coffee in the morning (for those who drink coffee - it’s not my case).
 
If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would love radios to be bolder in terms of their selection, more eclectic, people to me more curious and adventurous ...

And above all a decent life for musicians. I am lucky to live in France where we have a special status for musicians as long as they tour and record music. That is how I can develop as an artist.

I would like to see that happen for every artist in the world: Financial security to make art peacefully.