After relocating a few times due to the Covid situation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic), I settled in Antibes, my home town in France, at my parents’s. Time passed by and the idea of producing my first album became more and more precise. I decided to leave Antibes with my gear in my clio 3,
and to not come back until the album is finished. As I’m writing this, it’s been a year since I left and the album is still unfinished (🙂😞 ). I hope to finish it soon (I need to stop watching music tutorials, Game of Thrones, the Lord of the Rings and Hey Arnold 😐 ).
Anyhow, after travelling to Saint Jodard (beside Lyon, FR 🇫🇷), Strasbourg (FR 🇫🇷), Dijon (FR 🇫🇷), Ajaccio (FR 🇫🇷), I discovered through my manager 👔 a residency program in Sopot (PL) 🇵🇱 near Gdansk in July 2021 with @Goyki and @CNM, for 3 weeks. I applied and got selected 🍾, which was great news for me, because apart from being able to continue my album and to share with other artists, I was able to live somewhere (at the time I didn’t know where to go and had no plan to have a roof ⛺️).
Sopot during the summer was a great experience for me, I met some artists that became my friends and discovered a culture completely new to me 🇵🇱. Apart from visiting, drinking pints 🍺 and vodka, I worked really well here. This got me thinking ‘why not come back to continue/finish the album ?’💡, since I had nowhere to go really in France after those 3 weeks and since the settings in Sopot were really prolific to my work. I exchanged a few words with Marta from Goyki 🤷💁♀️and she welcomed me to come back and work in the newly built Goyki 3 Art Inkubator 🏤. Great news for me and a brand new experience confirmed ! 👨🚀
That was it, at the end of September I drove from Strasbourg 🇫🇷 to Sopot 🇵🇱 in my clio 🛺 and found an apartment 🛌in Kamieny Potok (Sopot neighbourhood). The idea was to stay 2 months, but as planned, I didn’t finish the album 😞 and I really enjoyed the winter atmosphere in Sopot 🧚♂️💆♂️🧖♂️, so I asked to stay 2 extra months.
In 4 months, I had the chance to meet a lot of people in the music industry and visit a lot of places. Pretty hard to list and sum up all my encounters and plans I found here. It went from integrating the local electronic and indie music scene 🎛🎚, meeting up with local artists at concerts 📯 and weekends visiting Gdansk/Gdynia/Warsaw 🛤🏙🔭, to swimming in the Baltic sea at 7 in the morning on a sunday at -5°C 🥶🥵, going for shots with the local hairdresser from Kamieny Potok 🧑🦱, and playing football with French expats 🏈. Pretty random and unexpected but that’s how I see life. 🧑🦯🦯
One of the reasons I came to Sopot was to isolate myself in order to continue/finish my album 🛤. This city is perfect for this, it’s surrounded by forest and on the Baltic sea 🏞. The city is quite small but the easy access to the big city Gdansk makes a very good balance of life between activities and calmness. This equity was key to my mood for composing my album. On top of this, the people are genuinely good-hearted, welcoming and sincerely nice 🌞🌍👯♂️ which makes the environment even more comfortable.
Goyki was the key to this welcoming environment I lived in 🏤. The reception was great and I immediately felt home. I was also introduced to musicians and people working in the music industry. I had the chance to do a concert in this great club/pub called Ziemia and it became my second home for discovering the local music scene, which was a great experience. On top of this, I collaborated on one track of my album 🎤 with a polish duo called Woska/Khris. The track is still not finished yet 😞, but I’m really happy with the result. It was a great experience! 👷♂️
The team at Goyki supplied me with a room to settle with my equipment and work. Conditions were great. I managed to finish a good lot of the album. On top of this, the room had access to a balcony with the view of Goyki’s forest and the sea. You can imagine how the conditions enhanced the inspiration process (especially when it snowed !) 🥳🥳🥳
Anyhow, I feel really lucky to have had the chance to work in Goyki and in the tricity in general. Unfortunately, I had to leave to do concerts in France and for that it was easier to settle back over there. I really miss my routine and life in Sopot. I’ll definitely come back to visit, hopefully with vinyls of my album! 🔊📀🤩🙃🦻🧑🎤👷♂️🧝♂️👨🦽👖🐋☃️🏋️♂️
