WHO TF IS

OCTOPOULPE ??

D.I.Y. shows recordman, intrepid road swallower, nerd of magnitude 6, and above all a fine connoisseur of toilets. Octopoulpe, better known by the civil identity of “JP” is one of those people who, by a simple exchange, come to give you a boost though your life. To prove you that being rigorous in nonsense and throwing yourself out blindly into the paths of wandering has something magnificent about it. Multi-instrumentalist, polyglot of computer languages or simply eternally hyperactive.

Together and immediately, let’s pierce the veil of mystery, namely: who the JP really is?

| By Nino Futur

The JP is a rare specimen, an element of no periodic table, a pokemon of no pokedex, a reality mutation. As his totem animal the octopus, the JP devotes himself alone behind his drumkit and programs to a tentaculous sprawling, spectacular and wild music.

Alone but accompanied by his virtual orchestra onscreen, Octopoulpe is more of a total sound and light show, managed entirely independently. The equivalent of a Puy du Fou show for crusts.

Originally from the Vosges, it was in the hostile coldness of Nancy that the JP found himself, first of all through the furrows of metal with his first band Headust (“tête poussière” as he likes to specify) with which he will perform at more than “100 concerts including one in the city of Dijon please“!

In 2005 it’s the big Revelation. Called urgently to play in a band from Rouen, the JP rushes into the touring vortex, an experience that remains forever etched in his genes. In 2006, the JP founded Escarres, a chaotic mathcore band allowing him to discover the punk world and all the DIY philosophy revolving around it.

Amazed by the idea of discovering a scene where music and politics collides, and where problematic attitudes are not welcome, the D.I.Y. fully enters his DNA. Marking for him the beginning of a bulimic disorder characterized by an irresistible hunger for gigs. At the same time a new actor enters the JP’s life and will seal its destiny. He’s called MySpace. It is the beginning of an extended opening towards the worldwide DIY scene, the first contacts established with Japan and Asia and it is the great rush characteristic of the JP’s life which start to run.

Escarres becomes a kind of all-terrain punk machine playing just as much under the single neon of a squat as under a highway ramp bridge in Tokyo in the middle of the afternoon. “One of the biggest slap in the face of my life” affirms the JP lost in his thoughts about Asia.

An Asian continent that will mark another radical turning point in the JP’s life, who on a whim, will leave his sweet native Vosges for the immensity of Seoul.

TO SEOUL AND BEYOND.

Resigned to the status of eternal tourist, it will take a lot of logistics to the JP to keep his visa: “I had to leave the country every three months to renew my tourist status, when I say leaving the country, it’s not just leaving for a weekend in Japan. This is where I tried to fit my tours for a month, leaving long enough not to appear as an illegal worker“. There, the JP will pursue its appetite for distortions by founding MyManMike, a fastcore trio with a displaced mind.

Freelance web developer, the JP doesn’t have the most rock’n’roll remunerative business, but he does have the independence that his Korean comrades don’t. Eager to continue his bulimic quest for gigs and under the pressure of a close friend offering him to tour in Indonesia, the JP has 10 months to conceptualize a solo formula to play hybrid punk.

The head of JP is an acid kettle of ideas, nothing is formulaic, nothing is halfway, everything fuses and scatters. This is where the idea of a sequenced punk solo project mixing video and lightshow got under way: “the main thing for me was to give a solo project that was above all not boring”.
Using his Swiss army knife spirit, the JP knows how to use his developer, videographer and multi-instrumentalist skills at the heart of the project.

The initial formula was presented in the form of a duo with himself projected on screen, the whole thing being sequenced on a midi pedalboard and randomly generated by passages, giving interactions between him and his virtual alter-ego, which could even give exchange of instruments…. “A hell of a mess! “.

Brilliant or disproportionate idea, the JP realizes very quickly that Indonesia was the worst place possible to run such a show. Often deprived of equipment in the midst of disastrous concert conditions, the JP finds himself trying his formula on broken video projectors, unworthy drum kits and other asthmatic sound systems. Not defeatist for all that, the JP knows how to get up stronger. This is how, after a hazardous baptism of fire, he and his virtual double combined their four arms and legs to be as one: the Octopoulpe.

Octopoulpe way of life

Influenced by the solo project of André Duracell, Octopoulpe will perfect his work on drum sequences and “pure data” language in order to offer a real complete and interactive show from A to Z. Now unstoppable, the JP is a touring war machine . Entirely independent, all you need is a single power outlet for him to deploy his infernal machine. Solely driven by the desire to discover new lands and forge new links, the JP makes the road a full part of its daily life.

“I think it’s drinking with people after the shows that hold me. If I only had to do my concert, sleep at the hotel right after and start again, I would have stopped the music. It makes no sense. I have no girlfriend, no kids, a job that allows me to be free. I want to travel, what more could you ask for? “.

Without limits in concept, the JP is ready to leave everything to just make himself laugh, like touring the tourist seaside towns of Spain: « you play in shitty pubs in front of people who don’t care and eat pizza. » In his 100/MPH life, the JP abstains from strong alcohol and drugs, owns a car from the future that almost drives alone, hates days off, and generally gets tired of touring after two months. “I want to go home and play new things”.

I took a shit in this toilet

Vital point of touring life, toilets have a very special place in JP’s life. Like a trip advisor for punks, the JP has developed its own rating system for toilets on tour using an ingenious stickers system. The highest rating is currently in El Puente in Yokohama with its toilets with heated seats.

“Impossible to get more than 4/5 if your toilets don’t have the small Japanese jet, Japan made me completely rethink the concept of toilets”.

Dans la tête c’est Mexico

Currently, the JP has deployed in Mexico City after a general fed up with South Korea: « Seoul is 24 billion inhabitants for a punk scene of 50 people, at concerts in the same places with relatively the same bands. I saw my friends playing more than 50 times, it’s heavy-going ». Possessing an over-developed sense of acclimatization, theJP therefore needed a radically distant setting to relaunch the Octopoulpe: “Mexico’s quick and dirty but awesome, sometimes a little fearful. Finding yourself in the middle of narcos who come down to shows is tense but fun. “»”

Came to live in right after a Mexican tour, a roommate found out hazardously on Craigslist and fate has once again sealed a chapter in the JP’s existence.

The octopus having three hearts, the JP has two lives: the one that lasts 5 months a year, placed under the sign of relentless tours pushed to the rhythms of blast beats, and booze at an athletic level.

And the other, the one that consists of doing 18 computer hours per day cloistered in his room: “I watch films on two simultaneous screens at the same time as I work, I’m a nerd 5000, I have roommates who never see me, I also have a drumkit in my room, it occupies…”

JP proudly claims to belong to the geek caste, even assuming it in his Geek core musical genre. “My thing about the pandemic was not going out and thinking about the concept of coding all my lightshow, because I’m fed up about going to places where just neon lights up the room. The resentment of a show goes alot through the lights.“

Able to get lost for 6 months starting from nothing in order to grasp the basics of light coding, the JP has a fascinating ability to rush into time-consuming breaches.

“I refuse to leave projects unfinished, even if it means spending 300 hours into it. My best buddy is after effect!”.

The JP is an idiocy perfectionist. All the video accompanying his show is made by his little care. A music video director, he is capable of spending a year on an animated music video project:

“I try to spend less time on my live videos, since they are only seen once by drunk people, but I can’t! “.