Chapelier Fou
Chapelier Fou – real name Louis Warynski – is well known today for his exemplary discography: three albums (613, Invisible and Deltas), three EPs (Darling darling darling..., Scandale!, Al Abama) and two 12” of remixes (Protest and Fuses). Since the very beginning of his career, the French composer’s songs always stimulated the imagination of his listeners to the point that “fan music videos” have regularly appeared on the internet.
1999, after studying classical violin & harpsichord, Louis composed his first songs, mixing violin and electro, fiddling, handling structures, textures... He simultaneously gave musical courses in several universities. Ten years after, in 2009, he signed with French independent label Ici d’ailleurs as Chapelier Fou, and released his first EP Darling darling darling... that revealed the artist to the public and crystallised his particular style. This was followed by release of a second EP: Scandale!. Around this time, Chapelier Fou began performing live for the pleasure of his new fans as well. No doubt that his numerous and remarkable performances on French stages (Printempsde Bourges 08 Discovery, Eurockéennes 09 Revelation) made this one-man band more mature and led him to approach other instruments (guitar, cello or bouzouki) with his desires as the only limit.
Chapelier Fou never stopped composing, and in 2010 he gave birth to his first album: 613. With this opus, he is still the genial electronic fiddler and violin virtuoso that we knew from his first two EPs. At 26, Chapelier Fou was not already only an outstanding acrobat on stage, he was also already an alchemist able to create a new formula for each track with a rare intelligence and to bewilder his–often young–audience thanks to his savoir-faire and obvious generosity.
2011, Chapelier Fou closed his EPs trilogy, publishing Al Abama, while he was off round the world; he was in China at the time of his third EP’s release! Afterwards, and after a hundreds of concerts worldwide, he released, his second album Invisible (still by Ici, d’ailleurs): continuously exploring the infinite potential of computers, Louis gave there free rein to his spontaneity, using violin, guitar, but also increasing number of vintage synths. An almost disconcerting outcome emerged from his constant risk taking – He kept questioning himself rather than releasing ever the same patterns but the central elements that had forged his style were there to be found.
Two years later, Chapelier Fou returned with Deltas, his third album, whose title is a sign of his ambitions: to exalt what is living, to give a new dimension to sound, to show his uniqueness. This album crystallized all the elements which made Chapelier Fou’s personality, from electronic music to beautiful violin melodies that gave thrills. But it also opened up the realm of possibilities, with his variety of more diversified emotions and his arrangements which were more intense than on his previous deliveries.
If Chapelier Fou had been once considered as a «sound handyman», he was becoming a certified composer with his compositions, arrangements or harmonies. This had not happened overnight but was the result of his ability to feed himself from his experiences. Each track of this album is a wonderful and fascinating paradox, where the obvious beauty of the melodies challenges unexpected uncommon structures. Many soundtracks for movies, documents, commercials (JR’s”Inside Out, Episode 1”, Jan Balej’s “Little From The Fish Shop”, commercial for Google Web Lab, soundtrack forLab212 for a Barbican Center digital exhibition...), concerts all over the world (Europe, Australia, Canada, China, Russia, South America...), songs in the playlists of the more demanding DJs, and getting an international fame! In 2016, Chapelier Fou composed tracksf or a a digital art installation project, namedLes Métamorphoses de Mr. Kalia, realized by Béatrice Lartigue & Cyril Diagne from French artists’ collective Lab 212: the two invited him to work on a digital art installation project, the graphic work of which was entirely generated by code and entered in a DevArt (the famous firm offering databases for developers) contest. The project was then selected by Google to be presented at the “Digital Revolution” exhibition at the famous Barbican Centre of London along with works from Björk, Will I Am, Amon Tobin, among others.
Contact our team now to discuss working with Chapelier Fou.
info [at] topshelf [dot] com [dot] au
+61 408 962 319