Artist Spotlight: Sans Soucis
Attention is demanding.
Its proper use requires unconditional willpower, prone to thousands of external stimulus daily.
The way music is experienced has changed dramatically for recent years, with an audience always more accustomed to jumping from track to track in a period that is exponentially growing. Yet, some pieces of music are still able to find a way to breach the walls of shallowness, turning on a stimulus of deep listening.
London based songstress Sans Soucis has just released her new EP ‘Unfinished’, an intimate piece that transcends topics about love, gender and trauma with a soothing and delicate tone, accompanied by a level of withstanding vulnerability scattered though the precious language of her songwriting.
Our Q&A, lightly edited for content and clarity, follows below.
Luciano: While listening, the approach of melancholy’s wave is unstoppable, yet hidden by a sense of hope. What are some experiences that shaped your songwriting process for this project?
San Soucis: Unfinished was the product of an intense period of self-discovery and recovery from childhood trauma through therapy. To my big surprise, I came to the understanding that there was no way for me to cure or amend my past. Healing was the keyword, which meant I had to take everything that I could learn from it and move on.
Unfinished means “My wounds are healing, and I’m knitting the life I deserve to live”. It’s my eulogy to our continuous evolution.
The EP also focuses on delicate subjects like gender roles: what ties you to this thematic?
I guess I just explored it out of necessity. I never felt like I really fitted into any gender, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate these thoughts. Music gave me the courage to dig deeper into how I felt, initiating a process of emancipation from everything I had been indoctrinated to. It brought me closer to what I like to call ‘my real essence’, led me to question some realities, environments and behaviours that prevented me from expressing my true will. I am constantly navigating this field, and patient with it because it’s one of those researches that takes a whole lifetime. To me, gender is about knowing who you are, what you like and how you want to express it. It’s a life quest that I pursue through my music, where I can be whoever I want and rediscover the playful human being that was left behind because beaten up by social constructs.
Are there any other social issues that are close to your heart?
I’ve been working as a music educator with children that come from disadvantaged backgrounds for a few years, to ensure equal access to music and create a safe environment for creativity and self-expression. My first steps into this realm were made in Lusaka, Zambia, as a volunteer for Mthunzi Centre, a shelter for former street children, where since 2016, I’ve been delivering a series of music workshops, as part of their summer activities. I’ve also been working with Abram Wilson Foundation in London since 2018 as a workshop leader for their program ‘Achieve Your Greatness’.
Do you feel a sort of responsibility to deliver a message with your music?
I believe I found what’s one of my biggest gifts, and to me, it is a huge responsibility to be aware of how much positive impact it could generate in people’s lives when shared. What I love about music is that every day it teaches me how to let go of my expectations.
You can’t control how your audience will experience it, and that’s the beauty of it. I feel the same about life. You can’t control how people will perceive you, but you can work on embracing yourself instead.
As a musician, I feel the responsibility to be present, mindful, and to always write from a place of kindness, whichever struggle or joy I’m going through.
I see music, like any other passion we might have in life, as a plant. You can decide whether to water it or not, but it won’t stop growing and manifesting to you, because it’s meant to exist. I chose to water my plant, and I genuinely hope it will inspire other people to nurture theirs. We owe it to each other as human beings.
With the number of tracks relatively small, when did you feel the project was ready to go?
It took me almost two years to envision the final project and decide on the track-list.
It is a small but well-matured release, written over time and at different stages of my life. ‘Unfinished’ is the oldest composition, written at the end of 2018, followed by ‘Red’, somewhere in the spring, and ‘Make One From A Two’, which was the last piece of the puzzle, composed in September 2019. I’ve always dreamed of producing a record inspired by the sounds of Henry Mancini and Nick Drake, and I felt like it was time for me to make it happen. I still can’t believe it did, but if there’s anybody I should thank, it’s certainly Help Musicians UK and MOBO awards who believed in the project and funded it.
What changed the most for yourself in the span of a year, between your previous body of work and this new one?
When I released ‘The Lover’ I was figuring out my sound and experimenting with what I liked. It was also my first production, and that was quite a big risk for me. I wanted to be honest, offering nothing more than what I knew, and I believe that it definitely came across. As for today, I am still working on my sound, picking up anything I like and making it mine. If there’s one thing that changed, or rather evolved, it’s my relationship with production, now inextricably connected to my songwriting.
This realisation came with confidence and belief in my vision. I’m so grateful for the incredible team of people I surrounded myself with and for all the supporters who recognised the authenticity in my words and music. It’s not easy for a female producer to break down gender-barriers while working in a male-dominated industry, and it is as difficult to find an audience when you’re simply trying to be yourself.
We are all unfinished. What do you think people find difficult to obtain, in order to complete their “own puzzle”?
I think acceptance is what we need to work on the most. Although acceptance sets us free from standards and labels only when achieved through forgiveness. We tend to blame ourselves quite often because of our incapability to hit certain targets that we stored in our consciousness, mostly during upbringing. Often times, we develop a self despicable voice in our heads that enslaves us to the point where we never really feel enough for anything. I worked on my relationship with this voice for many years, and I still do. I don’t push it away anymore because I realised I can learn from it. If I know what harms me, I also know how to fight it. Acknowledgement is the first step, forgiveness is the second and acceptance is the final and most important one. Acceptance is a state of mind where we let go of the ego and align with the soul, overlooking at the good and bad for what they really are: formative experience.
You can listen to ‘Unfinished’ here.