Victor Solf - Tumblr Posts
One day I was sitting on the beach, the sun shining, the sky blue, the sea as far as the horizon, listening to this song on a continuous loop until my dark shadows faded.
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It is never too late to just let go
いつも驚かされるのは、良くも悪くも人の行動だ。
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誰かを喜ばせるために、自分ができることは必ずある。
Bloody hell, he's so right!
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From my side, I like to live in a utopia to make the world a better place!
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The jerks can then live in their destropy, a world full of hatred, envy, resentment and propaganda, I won't put my mind through the stress of always being upset about anything and everything..
Just between us, our brain is a fascinating orgasm that lies completely in the dark and helps us to make the world more colourful when we have real humanity in us. It sorts the world for us and creates patterns, and only those who recognise that patterns need to be broken are the ones who can shape the world for the better.
HER ...... ROCKET MAN
HER
The story of HER is characterised by massive successes and tragic strokes of fate, by triumph and tragedy in equal measure - but ultimately it is above all the story of a friendship: that between Victor Solf and Simon Carpentier.
German-born Victor and Frenchman Simon met back in 2007 - they were still at school - and the two hit it off like brothers. When they started making music together, their sound was equally influenced by classic soul à la Otis Redding and hip-hop from the post-"Yeezus" phase. They gave their project the name HER in 2015.
Their music became instantly recognisable when the early song "Five Minutes" was used as the soundtrack for Apple's "Shot on iPhone" campaign - which ultimately earned them more than 6.7 million streams on Spotify. The duo from Rennes with Franco-German roots then released the EP series "Her Tape #1" and "Her Tape #2", which were peppered with highlights such as "Quite Like", "Union" and "Her" - which in turn meant more than 20 million additional Spotify streams for HER. Behind the seductively provocative visuals that adorned their covers was a subtly dreamy newer wave sound, minimalist, somewhere between pop and soul, in which jazz elements also flickered - and so the two best friends circled the globe several times, presented the EPs live and also made a decent wave in the States.
So much for the numbers, the impressive successes of the last two or three years - because in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, Simon lost a long, hard, silent battle against cancer, which hardly anyone outside his closest circle of family and friends realised: he died a few months ago, in August 2017.
"The whole of last year was incredibly hard because Simon was so unwell," reports Victor. "For example, it was incredibly difficult for him to do our tour - but he also thought it was important to carry on and give concerts! He just didn't want to give up, he didn't want to stop... he battled with this illness for six years. And we didn't actually talk about cancer or death that much during that time: We wanted to talk about life instead. And now, I think it's my job to continue this line and this approach. It's really difficult for me, but I'm doing my best - for myself and for him."
With the support of his late friend, at least in spirit, Victor went back into the studio and continued working on their debut album "HER", which will be released by Republic Records in 2018. He put the finishing touches to the existing songs and also returned to the stage in between: among other things, he played a stunning, deeply moving set at the Rock En Seine Festival in Paris - a festival, incidentally, where HER had always wanted to perform. More shows followed all over Europe and then the album was as good as finished: "Most of the songs were already finished beforehand; they just needed some fine-tuning on the vocals, the background vocals...", he reports. "It was just important to me that Simon's voice, Simon's vision and his guitar playing remained virtually untouched and really sounded exactly how he wanted them to in the final version. I worked on that."
With the single "We Choose", HER have already released a significant album harbinger in advance: Simon's unmistakable voice spreads out over an extremely minimalist, light and smooth production, meaning that his presence can be felt immediately and his signature is unmistakable. "The strange thing is that this was the very first song we wrote as HER - and also the last one I recorded with Simon," explains Victor. "We wrote it just as our previous band was coming to an end. We wanted to make a real statement with it: that you can't lose hope, that you have to hold on to what you love. We were working on new ideas every day back then, and this song just stood out because we were also about holding on and carrying on - after all, there were people back then who thought we were going to stop completely now that the other band had ended. Well, we didn't stop. And I think now is the perfect time to release 'We Choose': Because even when things are bad, there's still one thing - hope. The song is kind of the prologue to the next chapter. A chapter that will hopefully continue the way he would have wanted it to."
While the band started this new chapter with a sold-out concert at the Bataclan in Paris, the music of HER remains the best and most tangible proof of how unique the chemistry and bond between the two band founders was.
"It's just extremely important that this album comes out," Victor concludes. "It's the only way for me to come to terms with his death. This is music forever, for life."
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
Joseph Campbell
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
Plato
There are circumstances that can confront anyone with the decision of hero or wimp...... whoever has the choice is better off than the one who is faced with the choice.
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What a suit wow! Hats off to him, he's got what it takes.