Varnish La Piscine

Listening to Varnish La Piscine’s music for the first time is never a boring experience. Or in any case not something you hear every day. From the moment they hit play, those listening to this producer’s music, are given a mix of the seemingly improbable yet surprisingly coherent. Playful synthetic melodies, the swaying softness of bossa nova, explosives American trap beats, the melancholia of old film music… Whilst Varnish La Piscine’s music is as challenging as it is accessible, it definitely stands out from the crowd. All these elements combine to form the power and uniqueness of this Swiss producer/ rapper/ singer, who since going solo six years ago, has his every move followed by the whole rap world and those in the know recognise him as one of the best around.

Jephté Mbisi was born in Switzerland and grew up surrounded by a family of music lovers. The music at home swung between his parent’s congalese beats as well as popular 90’s singers like Sade, Sting and Phil Collins. But it was another decade that the young Swiss fell in love with; the 2000s, with its colourful music videos, its rap, its r’n’b that is still celebrated today, its iconic producers like Timbaland, Swizz Beats and above all, Pharell Williams. Combining creative genius with visual flair, the achievements of the young Swiss’s first musical hero convinced him of one thing: to create something interesting, you need to be different.

The young producer was always certain of one thing. First and foremost, he would lock himself away in his bedroom to concentrate on beatmaking. Above all, thanks to his pitch perfect, he was able to reproduce everything he listened to and that was in his head, without any music notation. And then to test his new magical recipes out on a rapper: Makala. An explosive exponent of Swiss rap, the Genovese has fascinated since his arrival on the French-speaking rap scene in the middle of the 2010’s as much for his wild concerts as for Varnish’s awesome production (which accounted for most of the music he released at the start of his career) which sat somewhere between rap, electro and vintage synths reminiscent of video game soundtracks. In 2016 the young producer released ESCAPE (F-R Prelude), his first solo project followed by Le Regard Qui Tue (The Look That Kills) in 2019, a video soundscape with (amongst others) the singer Bonnie Banane as a sparring partner before releasing METRONOME POLE DANCE TWIST AMAZONE in 2020. These records are as crazy as they are creative, challenging as they are exciting, halfway between rap and song, they have found their audience with the last two going past a million streams.

So, what will be Varnish’s next adventure? Without doubt Varnish La Piscine’s official signing to Ed Banger Records; something which now seems totally obvious. The collaboration between Pedro Winter and Varnish La Piscine has instantly created magic, both being super fans of Pharell, lovers of electronic music and both cinema and a captivating visual universe. So much so that the Ed Banger boss made the decision to sign him in 2021, and then arranged for him to meet his idol, Pharell Williams, in person in Paris. As if this wasn’t daunting enough, in 2017 the young producer, during a residency in Italy, had already collaborated with Philippe Zdar, another one of his role models, on the track “Venezia” taken from Sébastien Tellier’s album Domesticated.

To kick off his time at Ed Banger, Varnish La Piscine decided to do what he does best, to surprise, musically as well as visually. Written between 2021 and 2022, the tracks of his upcoming project act as a perfect calling card that let you enter the young Genevese musician’s brilliantly creative universe. Its music is both high-brow and accessible, comprising of a form of refined pop made up of diverse influences: rap, bossa nova, electronic synth, surf music, reggae and underpinned by Varnish’s singing and rapping as well as three guest artists, all of which are accompanied by a series of short films. And yes, if you still doubted Varnish’s creative aspirations, he is also a director. Both an audio-visual and musical work, it is both inspired by the absurd humour of the Coen brothers and the stylised intricacy of Wes Anderson, this film has confirmed what the rap world already knew; Varnish La Piscine is definitely not just any ordinary guy. To find out for yourself, all you have to do is just listen to his music.