Tag: alternative rock

What has 2025 looked like for you?

Chaos! I released my second album, “He Called Hex”, at the start of the year, and that whole thing feels like an entire lifetime ago. Since then I’ve pretty much been juggling working on this new album on and off with many, many, Uni deadlines, as I’m just now going into my final year as a music student. I’ve also taken on some of my first soundtracking jobs, been playing in our band Nuclear Fishing, produced some songs for other artists and, in my few minutes of non-musical spare time, have recently been getting into watching anime for the first time. So musically speaking it’s been a lot, and that’s not even counting keeping my own personal life in order! But I’m at a point now where I’m absolutely on fire with making and promoting my music and am just so excited to put all this stuff I’ve been working on out into the world.

How did you first get into music?

I had piano lessons from a pretty young age, which gave me the majority of my background in theory – however, I never really had too much knowledge or interest in producing my own music as a whole until the 2020 pandemic hit, and I was trapped inside with nothing better to do. A friend and I wanted to make some crappy Soundcloud rap as a joke, so I downloaded initially Audacity and later FL Studio to help facilitate this, essentially teaching myself how to make trap through YouTube tutorials. As time went on and I got more to grips with the ins and outs of actually producing music I started to realise I could try and develop a sound of my own, and eventually picked up the guitar and started writing more demos. Probably my first fully realised song using my voice didn’t come until “Weightless” (featured on my first album) in 2023, at which point I knew it was something I wanted to embrace.

What was the process for creating your sound?

So building on that a lot of my early works spawn from a weird cross section of influences – my piano writing, which leaned more classical and soundtrack-music inspired, my production skills which leaned more towards modern hip-hop and my songwriting itself which gravitated towards emo and other left-field online singer songwriter-y stuff. On my first album you can hear all those sounds kind of thrown at a wall at random since, while I’m still really proud of that record, I’ll admit I didn’t exactly know what I was doing! At this point, the influence of a lot of fifth wave emo and similarly online rock and shoegaze began to take ahold of me, and you can hear me trying to emulate these very noisy and chaotic mixes. Only on my more recent material, like on Hex, have I been able to wield these influences with a bit more intent. It’s also helped that I’ve spent a lot of time improving my skills on guitar and finding tones and mixing techniques that I like for the instrument – although, I should say, my next album maybe strays away from the guitar a bit more than the last couple and veers back towards the piano, so to an extent it’s like I’ve come full circle.

Who was your biggest inspiration?

Honestly, it changes every month, but I think the artist who really inspired me and pushed me to start writing songs for myself was Parannoul. I massively admire how his early albums were somehow made entirely in the box, with his vocals recorded on an old Samsung phone, and yet it’s some of the most emotionally raw and compelling shoegaze music out there. I know I’m not alone in taking influence from him, but the fact he was able to make such a resonant record on such a shoestring budget is a testament to how far music production has come in the digital age, and really convinced me that maybe I can do it too. I have so many online generation artists to thank for this kind of inspiration; Asian Glow, what is your name?, acloudyskye, Vylet Pony, even P.Rosa who I collaborated with on my last album – there’s an incredible wave of creatives who started out as just kids writing songs in their bedrooms and again it’s impossible to hear some of this music and not be desperate to write your own.

Which song best represents you musically to date?

Maybe “Softly, Softly”, one of the non-album singles I put out during the summer – I think it’s maybe one of my most direct songs, but it encapsulates a little bit of everything that I’d done up until that point. It’s got a dark and gloomy atmosphere, some super noisy yet blissful guitars, tortured vocals and lyrics and even some of the weird left-field electronics, all packaged into a little bundle under 3 minutes.

Which song has been the easiest / hardest to write?

There’s a song on my next album called “Ever Turning Field” which is by far the hardest song I’ve ever had to put together for a number of reasons; not just because it’s 8 minutes long or so but also because it’s a massive dirge of emotions that I still haven’t quite managed to wrap my finger around. It’s the one time in my career so far where I’ve put together a song that’s larger than life – it feels like I’m trying to confront something unknowable throughout that song, which I hope will make sense within the context of the record when it eventually comes out.

Which song is “the one” that turns listeners into fans?

I’d like to think my new song “I’ll Be There”! Maybe it’s recency bias, but I feel like people who might have been curious about or enjoyed elements of my music in the past, maybe even people who didn’t like my last album, can hear it and get the impression that this is Kit Le Bihan 2.0 so to speak, and that now’s the time to really start taking note of my music. It’s why I think it’s a perfect single – it’s got elements of my first 2 albums, but a new layer of tenderness and clarity that I think maybe they lacked at points.

Do you have any favourite quotes/sayings?

“…even if something is a lie, even if it’s fiction… If it has the power to change the world, then it must contain some kind of truth. Aren’t we proof of that?” – Shuichi Saihara

What does the future of “Kit Le Bihan” look like?

Aside from my own university deadlines, I’m currently hard at work putting the finishing touches on my next album, which will come out in 2026. I started writing it sometime towards the end of 2024, and had envisioned it to be my “rock” album, but as time went on it actually ended up being my most electronic and piano-leaning album yet! I feel like every record is a bit of a left turn for me, but all I want to say is be prepared for something different, something more gentle and yet more emotionally intense, something brighter and yet more heartbreaking. Oh, and some more weird genre combinations – there’s bits of synthpop, EDM, indie rock, folk, even a bit of glam. I’m also really hoping to play some more live shows – I did one which was streamed live on the Live forever twitch and had such a great time doing it, so I really think I’d like to try and carve some opportunities to play my songs a bit more in the live space in person.

What are your next steps to get there?

Lots of work and promotion! It’s no secret that it’s always gonna be hard to carve out a niche for yourself as an indie artist, but I really think I can build on the steady growth I’ve had this year and do something really special in 2026.

Find out more about Kit Le Bihan here; https://www.instagram.com/kitlebihan/