For Episode 5. we’re joined by Parisian-Tahitian collective QuinzeQuinze and talent development programme, Future Bubblers.

QuinzeQuinze are an interdisciplinary network of musicians sitting firmly in the hinterlands of the progressive music scene in Paris. Their music takes cues from criss-crossing underground movements, challenging established convention, social diversity and immigrant identity. EPs ‘NevaNeva’, ‘La Jeune’ and 2022 project ‘Vārua’ (“spirit” in Tahitian), filtered Polynesian folklore through a synthetic blender; the result was a ceremonial take on dance music, retaining a sense of sibylline spirituality where earthly and astral entities collide in frictional fashion. Their audio-visual art creates autonomous spaces for marginalised voices, a counterpoint to the restrictive whims of normative gatekeepers in music. 

Future Bubblers’ project leaders Selassie Tevie and Claudia Afranie also joined us in the studio. Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings has long been a trusted incubator for emerging musicians, and an expansion of that world lies in the Future Bubblers; a talent discovery and artist development scheme which develops unsigned talent helping them build their own identities, audiences and networks. Future Bubblers are helping shape a more equitable landscape for budding musicians. These year-long schemes integrate industry-backed mentor-mentee partnerships, production workshops, placement on the critically-acclaimed compilation series (compilation 6.0 was just released to high-praise), and performance slots at Future Bubblers showcases.