Discover the artist Stan Hipkiss and the Wakarnaj project

Cassettes are coming back into fashion and it was an opportunity for us to present those designed for Wakarnaj, a musical project by Stan Hipkiss & Rick Descartes! An opportunity to learn more about the artist Stan Hipkiss and his various projects through a written interview.

Hi Stan. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions! Would it be possible to introduce your music to our readers?

My previous stage name, Wilfy WILF, had been given to me in high school, and evoked a nebulous period, with hints of teenage parties, alcohol, and various substances. As a listener, I had gone through several phases: metal, classical music, techno and house, and was just beginning, around 2012, to line my ears with rap classics, as well as tracks from the new wave, l'Entourage and company, lulled by the Rap Contenders, it was in the air at the time. My inspirations, at the time, were groups that pleased the masses, but didn't necessarily shine with their originality. 

The Stan Hipkiss project was born in 2020 during the lockdown. I felt it was time for me to change my alias to mark the fracture that was happening in me and in the world: my environment and I were mutating, violently burying what we were to start anew. Stan Hipkiss is my personal revolution, my adult crisis.

My music is a beautiful mix of all the inspirations I can catch here and there, when I discover an artist I like, I take the time to listen to their discography to draw the richness necessary for my personal evolution, and sometimes beautiful collaborations are born.

I sometimes make my own instrumentals, sometimes I let a talented producer handle it. I rap, I sing, or I interpret my lyrics.

Honestly, I know few people capable of listening to as many different music styles as I do, appreciating all their subtleties and drawing inspirations from them for the future.

All these things are true for my solo projects, but the collaboration with Rick Descartes has an additional ingredient, which brings our tracks to a higher level: pure madness.

We had the opportunity to work together on designing cassettes for your experimental project WAKARNAJ. How was your collaboration with Rick Descartes? 

One day at an open house of an overpriced school in Paris, champagne glass in hand, I was approached by a young guy with all-white hair who was dancing like a madman and talking very loudly, he had several musical projects including [Lyn] and we exchanged our SoundCloud.

When I got home, I played the guy's music and discovered with amazement his style: it sounded like a soprano singing over weird gothic music, I was absolutely stunned.

After experimenting at the audiovisual level with our trippy episodes in my first channel Ici C'est La Nuit, and having produced a video for his project ßęđŧīmĕ Šŧōŗĩėş, Ņŷx (available on Youtube), we finally decided to make music together, and the first track we produced was BTMEL, which is an aberration in terms of mixing but full of common references, which made us realize one thing: our collaboration has no limits.

After a few tracks, the idea of making an album seemed obvious to us: we felt, despite the experimental aspect, the emergence of a common thread painting a dystopian universe parallel to ours, with sounds bordering on steampunk.

We'll find this atmosphere even more accentuated in our second joint project which will be released in a few months: "La Grande Risée".

The WAKARNAJ format seemed ideal for releasing a cassette, and we finally opted for Distrolution Merch. For me, it was the first time I held the physical object of one of my projects in my hands, it was incredible.

What's the story behind the cover of the Wakarnaj mixtape?

I had proposed to a designer I know to do the cover, he refused because of the sultry content of the lyrics.

Finally, my wife suggested that her sister, who draws and paints, take care of the cover.

She lives in Taiwan, so I translated all the lyrics into English and gave her a detailed explanation of the creative process for each track.

The track "Saint Michel" tells the tragic story of a flutist who played near the Saint-Michel fountain in Paris and was devoured alive by mad children, these are the lyrics that the artist drew for the cover.

Let's talk about cassettes. Can you tell us about your experience with Distrolution Merch?

When I ordered the cassettes, I felt confident, the site communicates clearly and their responses are quick. If I need to release a new cassette, I'll gladly go through them again.

In general, is there a merch item that you give particular importance to? If so, which one?

Without hesitation: the cassette. Before being an artist, I myself own a collection of cassettes and I listen to them almost every day when I'm at home and sometimes even outside, I own a Walkman.

You recently released a music video for your track "Thrilla From Manila". What's the story behind this title?

My latest solo project, "Le Masque" is composed exclusively of collaborations. There are tracks with artists I know in real life, and others with artists I met through the Internet.

"Thrilla From Manila" is a collaboration with an artist from the Philippines named Jeivenchy, we met through the DistroKid website which was my former distributor, since then I've switched to Soundcloud.

The track talks about a girl from Manila so dazzling that she knocks out men at first glance, like Muhammad Ali during his famous boxing match.

For the music video, I didn't want to literally illustrate the lyrics, it bored me, so I improvised. I asked Jeivenchy to send me footage shot at his place in the Philippines, and the fact that he was in dark glasses and long coat mode made me think of Matrix (I'm a big fan), then we shot footage in my basement with my wife who dressed me from head to toe and filmed with a VR headset.

I took advantage of a walk in the forest to ask a friend to reshoot footage of me with the VR headset, with a "Matrix-style kung fu scene" vibe.

I also materialized Jeivenchy in a 3D application to create an avatar to connect to.

The last additions to the video were the scenes of the computer scientist with the mirror mask typing lines of code at full speed, who is none other than... Rick Descartes!

What is your best memory as a musician?

I don't have a best memory per se, it's impossible to rank that, but I love the chemistry I have with certain people I make music with, and the good times spent composing.

Shout out to Rick, to Bill The Gate, to Jung, to Nambuc, to Makesense, to 4ex32 and to all those I forget.

To wrap up this interview, can we talk about your future projects?

This year, the following are planned: "La Grande Risée" with Rick Descartes, which is not a sequel to WAKARNAJ but is the continuation of our work together, there's an incredible featuring with Bill The Gate with whom we did "Sous nos pieds" on the album "Le Masque".

"Lost Tapes Volume 2" the second compilation of my tracks dating from before Stan Hipkiss.

And finally, with 4ex32, we're working on a big project, on which Rick and Bill are also present.

Stay tuned.