Last December I met singer and songwriter Pitou to discuss her year of experiment and collaboration (2024) but also retrace a bit the steps of her career so far.

AR: Six years ago, I was new to the Netherlands and you were one of the first Dutch artists that I found out about from the lineup of ESNS Festival. At the time, you had already released your two EPs, Pitou and I Fall Asleep So Fast, but the first song that I listened to was your adaptation of Clair de Lune by Debussy. That’s a very good introduction to your music.

The first thing I want to discuss is your instrument. In that piece, your voice is very central, so I wanted to ask if you can talk us through how you started singing, how you discovered your voice over the years and how that's developed as a way to express yourself.

P: I already sang from a very young age and I think it was a friend of my parents who at one point noticed me singing and she was a singer herself. She was the one who said to my parents, "Her voice is good and she really enjoys singing, maybe it's something, you know, to stimulate."

I had a fascination for classical music from a very young age and there was a classical choir, a children's choir, that I ended up auditioning for and I was accepted into. My musical upbringing was from 10 to 15, to sing in a classical choir and to sing with big orchestras and with other choirs.

That was really wonderful, but it was using your voice in a very, in a very, sort of precise way. And at one point, both in just the way I wanted to be as a teenager and also with singing, I felt like I wanted more freedom. So around the age of 18, I started writing my own songs because that meant I could use my voice completely how I wanted it. 

That was why I started writing music, is to sort of see, yeah, have fun with my own voice. I think by now when I sing on stage, it feels very natural and I don't think too much about how I use my voice. But in the writing of songs, I'm very aware of, for instance, with the last record and especially with the first two EPs, it was all in quite soft and introspective, sung in a quite soft and introspective way. I feel like now I want to have more fun with my voice and use it in weird ways also. I just feel even more freedom with that and so I try to write songs that also provide a stage for doing that with my voice.

AR: What is something that you're craving for in a collaboration and what is something that you think you can bring to the table?

P: I think what I crave is to be inspired in some sort of way, and that can happen in so many ways. Sometimes it's that I really, really admire the other person, just the level at which the other person performs. Sometimes it's the creativity, sometimes it's even the energy they just bring into the room, the joy we have together. I guess I'm always looking for something I can look up to or be inspired by in a way, and then I hope I can do the same thing in whatever kind of capacity for the other person.

AR: What would be a dream collaboration for you? But like a realistic one.

P: I would love to at one point do a big show with a symphonic orchestra and a big choir. That would be amazing. I've already done things with choirs and orchestras but always in a couple of songs or as part of a program. I remember specifically one concert with the Metropole Orkest with Anohni, a cover of Crazy in Love by Beyonce. It's beautiful! I remember seeing that, I think, over ten years ago and being like: that's what I want.

AR: After seven years, at least, of activity as Pitou, you released your debut album Big Tear. I want to quote two lines. One is: "If I plant a tree, I want it to be there tomorrow." and another one is: "I might be more like an animal." What I want to ask is: do you feel like your creativity comes more from instinct or ponderation?

P: I think this is also still in development. I used to think a lot and overthink and I think it was also a big theme of Big Tear. There was sort of the value of words changing and I think right now what I'm creating comes way more from instinct. I think it always used to come more from instinct, but I didn't have the confidence to completely trust my instinct yet, so I had to sort of overthink it a lot, like the ratio stamp of approval. I've thought about it long enough so now it's a valid thing, whereas now I think I'm more quick to just accept my instinct and be like, this is valid, even if it's just on the spur of the moment.

There's always the seed of the song, and sometimes that's a line, sometimes that's a melody. I think with Big Tear, it was just the idea of a big tear hanging in the sky or with Helium. For a long time, Helium was just a melody, a lyric that I did not like, but I really love the melody. So with Helium, it took me a couple of years to find the right line for the chorus. So usually there's some sort of seed, some sort of reason why this song has a right to exist that I feel strongly about and then it's about, and that's just work, to make all the other aspects of the song also worthy of people's time. And also so that everything just feels like a solid whole.

AR: What do you mean “worthy of other people’s time?”

P: Well, I can have an idea that I'm excited about, I want to create the perfect world for that idea so that I can better present it to people. Also for myself. Maybe in the beginning I don't think so much about other people, but also for myself. I don't want to have the seed, but then put it in a dry pot with no compost and send it out into the world because it will not blossom. But if I create the right environment around it, then it becomes, then the idea can sort of flower. And it becomes really a complete whole thing if it makes sense.

AR: Thank you, very poetic.

And I finally get to 2024, the year of experiment and collaboration, this is like the official title of the year.

P: Yes, yes.

AR: You acted and composed the music for a short movie called Barlebas.

I don't know anything about it, so I was just wondering, what should we know about it?

P: It's a short film directed and written by Malu Janssen, and she just gave me the opportunity to be a part of it. We met in 2022, even before Big Tear, and we met over a cup of coffee because I was thinking about music videos for Big Tear. I messaged her saying like, "Hey, I've seen some of your music videos, I really like them. Would you like to have a coffee with me and maybe talk about film?”. Then she called me a month after our first initial meeting and she said, "This might be weird, but I have a concept for a film in my head that I've been wanting to make for a long time. It's about a woman in the 1600s who is persecuted for allegedly being a witch. Now I've met you, and I think you are the witch."

AR: That’s a very nice compliment.

P: Yeah, I thought so.

Also music was, the concept was, the music was going to be, music and singing was going to be a big part. So in this capacity, I could be both the main character but also compose the music. I was very nervous, but the fact that music was such a big part of it made it a lot easier for me to trust that I would be okay because I had my voice and my music as a sort of entry into the acting. So that was very nice.

AR: Finally, Deep Pockets, a song you wrote with Naaz and LUWTEN. Was there something in particular that connected the three of you and how did the collaboration start with the two of them?

P: So the way we first met was during an interview with OOR, and we just always kept in touch.We really like each other's music, so we were always in touch, in some sort of way. We saw each other's concerts and, of course, you bump into each other a lot. Tthen at one point, Naaz was going on a writing week for herself and she invited me and Tessa (aka LUWTEN) to join her. There was not really a set up plan. We were just like, "Oh, it's nice to see each other again." We hadn't spoken for quite a long time. A lot happened in each and everyone's sort of personal life as well. So we spoke about that, and I was like, "Well, shall we just start and see what happens?”. Then we had sort of the skeleton of a song and we just... I don't know, it was just nice to see everyone. And then we all went our own way.

Then when this year came up, my year of collaboration and experiment, I was like, "Well, we already have a song”. We were all, I think, again focused on our own work, but because I had this year of experiment and collaboration, I was like, "What if we just finish it and put it out into the world? And just make it a real thing?”