All Images Courtesy Loik Gomez
Demna Gvasalia’s Balenciaga is known for dissolving couture purism and building familiarity with tangential creative disciplines: art, architecture, social commentary, and music all form part of the novel aesthetic that conquered the canonised French house. In the Demnaverse, the ether is as far from realism as it is from sci-fi — the weird manifests as an implosion of menace and supernatural within the realms of grotesque mundanity, which the ominous sonic backdrop, composed by musician Loïk Gomez, aka BFRND, sublimates rather than accompanies. Sound design does more than simply adorn physical space; it altogether distorts its narrative, psychology, and visual stimuli.
If you’re familiar with Balenciaga’s SS20 runway collection, you’ve probably been entranced and transported to the weird (read, “semantically and emotionally confusing”) territories invoked by the apocalyptic, industrial, tribal techno symphony engineered by Gomez, Gvasalia’s husband, as well as creative collaborator since 2017.
Gomez fine-tuned his sound and aural aesthetic by covering Corey Hart’s classic track, ‘Sunglasses at Night’ for Balenciaga’s SS21 pre-collection — a single to be included in his upcoming album, (fittingly) titled Afterlife, and craftily straddling the ever-increasing cultural ambiguity separating irony and sincerity, fear and hope, laughter and tears. He tells us more about his collaborative process with Gvasalia, being a self-taught musician, and composing ephemeral soundtracks.
Can you tell us about your pre-Balenciaga/BFRND days? You’re a self-taught musician—how did your musical persona emerge?
I never went to music school and never tried to learn music the classical way. At the age of 9, I got my first electric guitar and started to compose my own music right away. Instead of taking the route of practicing ‘Come As You Are’ by Nirvana and impressing my friends around a bonfire, I practiced until I could play my own songs and the first riff I ever made has actually made it onto one of the songs from my album—so I guess it wasn’t all for nothing.
The music and fashion realms are inextricably linked, but what has been your first gateway into the fashion world?
I always had a sense of fashion, my mom is a seamstress and she sold high fashion garments for many years but I didn’t necessarily feel a connection to the fashion world. When I was a teenager the word “fashion” was almost an insult that you’d throw at someone who had a poor taste.
When I met Demna and discovered his work for the first time it was a revelation to me, there finally was a bridge between me and the fashion world. Someone was speaking a language I could understand and feel related to and it’s not just about clothes—Demna is the person who understands me the most in this world. I always dreamt of being married to a person that listens to Rammstein as loudly as possible, and encourages me to shave my eyebrows. Life couldn’t have given me a better gift.
I’m interested in the collaborative process between you and Demna — how do your ideas and aesthetics intersect, in what ways do you influence each other?
We have a very similar and complementary creative vision. We brainstorm a lot about each other’s projects. Every season, I send Demna a bunch of visual research material. Sometimes he asks me for my opinion on certain things. I make him listen to all my musical compositions—It’s like the tennis court of two creative lovers.
I always dreamt of being married to someone who listens to Rammstein as loudly as possible and encourages me to shave my eyebrows. Life couldn’t have given me a better gift.
“Apocalyptic” is a word that’s been thrown around a lot when describing the last Balenciaga show. Is it something you had in mind when making the score, or did it acquire this identity retroactively?
Darkness is a very subjective topic, for the majority of people it’s a scary thing but for us it’s part of our culture. I personally grew up in the black metal scene so darkness is far from being scary to me.
Of course, the show had an apocalyptic side, touching on the topic of climate change by flooding the studio, sinking the first three rows in a murky water that smelled like petrol but with that said we also ended the show with a track called ‘New World’, mixing techno beats, tribal drums and Arabic trumpets for a message of hope and unity.
Your first album, Afterlife, is set to release soon. How is making your own music different from doing it for/with Demna?
Working with Demna is always about translating a collection and its mood into sound. Making my own music is about defining who I am and expressing my own mood and emotions. Working with Demna also makes my music evolve because he likes to make me go beyond limits and discover new abilities.
You’ve been working on this album for two years. How different was the original idea from the final result?
I am certainly not the same person as I was two years ago, I stopped drinking and smoking to start connecting and listening to myself. The original idea was to make an album that is about letting the go of the past and embracing my new —almost like a second birth. That’s exactly what happened, a few months after being sober on a daily basis the lockdown happened and I had the biggest creative rush ever. I restarted the album from zero as a sort of deep cleansing exercise. Since then, I’ve composed over 20 tracks and it sounds more ‘me’ than anything from before.
I want to avoid playing in concert venues as much as possible and instead find places where it’s not usual to go for a live show—I'd do fewer shows, but focus on creating memorable experiences.
Why was ‘Sunglasses at Night’ a good fit for you, when thinking of a track to cover?
Demna and I wanted to do something unexpected. Everyone was used to very dramatic experiences and after quarantine we wanted to bring joy and come back to the essence of fashion, without storytelling and drama, just fashion at its paroxysm and what’s more fashion than wearing sunglasses at night?
What can we expect from you in the future?
I am thinking of a new way of doing live performances. The traditional way of touring all around the world for 9 months isn’t really appealing to me. I want to bring a unique approach to it—one thing I learned with fashion is the “never do the same show twice” concept. That’s something that hasn’t been done before in the music industry. I want to avoid playing in concert venues as much as possible and instead find places where it’s not usual to go for a live show—I’d do less shows but create more memorable experiences.
How does the ephemerality of the experience of a runway show affect your creative output and methods?
There’s a lot of last minute things, especially when you’re creating an IRL show, you end up mastering the track 2 days before the show. It also affects the whole press system that is used to receiving music two months in advance in order to publish their reviews on the day of the show. It’s a whole other world in which everyone needs to adapt and reinvent their system.
Watch the Balenciaga Summer 21 Pre-collection film soundtracked by BFRND below: