Small pop star of the moment, the Danish artist released in this month of March his third project: “The French Girl Effect“. With guests like Benny Sings with whom he does not hesitate to collaborate on the eponymous title and on the track “Right There“. M.I.L.K speaks to us about naive love stories with passion and on some warm groovesin a universe close to Mac DeMarco/Miller according to the mood. Far from a simple album of elevator music, the artist reinvents flirting through engaging stories that remind us of the beauty of our daily lives. Already acclaimed by the critics, the little hope rekindles a flame that has never been extinguished for a sweet and simple album. To better enjoy this trip, we asked a few questions to the guy himself !
You’ve been on a crazy rise since your first steps in 2016, how do you feel about this crazy start ?
I don’t think much about it. I’m quite impatient as a person, so in a way i always feel things should go a bit faster than they do. But as I’m getting more experience I’ve learned that this is not always possible. So now i chill out a bit more and do my things in my tempo and then i let others do their part in their tempo. Which isn’t always as fast as i would like but it works and i’m just happy. The truth is that i could release an album every third month if the label allowed it ! It takes the label more than 3 month to put out a single song so my tempo of creating doesn’t really match the labels speed. I’ve found peace in that now, instead i’m starting to work with a lot of other artists in between albums, i’m not just sitting around rolling my thumbs…
You do collaborate with various artists, how do you always manage to find a common ground with artists of such different styles ?
I’m a fan of music and fall in love quite quickly so whenever i stumble over an artist i like, i just ask the person if we should do something. And often people are super open, if calendars ends up matchingn we meet up and make a song. Sometimes it’s shit and then we don’t release it but sometimes it’s great then we release it. I don’t put much other thoughts into it, i just have fun and I love writing and producing music with other artists, nomatter what style they are in.
For this album I worked a lot with Benny Sings. To me, he’s something like a demi-god and even more after we started working together. He has this tiny great little studio in Amsterdam under a bridge with wooden floors in various bright colours and a low ceiling. It feels like walking into some little cave from a fairytale… And then ooooops, a day passes, and you come out with a little treasure of a song.
Another big collaborator on the album was Danny Dwyer. We have worked on a bunch of songs that we produced for other artists and also some of the songs on my previous album so we know each other very well and have formed this otherworldly music-making-bond where we know exactly what the other one is thinking during the process of creating. It’s kinda funny to look at from the outside and i think that we make the framework of the songs super quickly and intuitively, but almost don’t say a word to each other. It’s more like grunting and humming than talking. Anyhow, Danny is a genius.
As a Danish musician, can you tell us about the Danish music scene?
The Danish scene is interesting and super unambitious and the same time. There are always new artists popping up but very few end up making it outside Denmark because it’s such a small country, the niche isn’t very big… So it’s impossible to sustain a professional practice if you are a niche artist in Denmark that haven’t broken outside the country. This fact means that even though the level of artistic quality is insane, people end up burning out or conforming to the Danish mainstream, which means that it looses all international format..
If i was an international label, i’d hire someone in Denmark to pick up all the amazing artists that are on the rise there, and then help them onto the international indie scene. This way we would see a quite amazing blossoming as people could keep in their niche, and make an international career out of it. Personally I’m extremely grateful i didn’t signed to a Danish major label when I started out, because then I’d probably wouldn’t have found the international audience that i have today.
You released the single French girl effect (feat. Benny Sings) a short time ago, why did you choose this track to present your next project?
The song “French girl effect” sums up my whole album. It’s a love story. Nothing more, nothing less. But what makes it really special to me is that I actually wrote the songs as the romance was happening – I literally met the french girl and started writing the album in the same week, and it was lock-down so we had nothing to do. We were just together all the time from the first day we met. In fact, the only time we were not hanging out was when I was writing about us hanging out.
You released the single “French Girl effect” (feat. Benny Sings) a short time ago, why did you choose this track to present your next project?
The song “French Girl Effect” sums up my whole album. It’s a love story and nothing more, nothing less. But what makes it really special to me is that i actually wrote the songs as the romance was happening, i literally met the french girl and started writing the album in the same week, and it was lock-down so we had nothing to do. We were just together all the time from the first day we met. In fact, the only time we were not hanging out was when I was writing about us hanging out.
How do you feel about this release?
I feel good. It’s my best album so far.
An album of sweetness and an artist who overflows with it, we invite you to discover M.I.L.K and his latest project “The French Girl Effect” for a moment of sweetness or for your “rendez-vous galants” … Who knows?