French producer/multi-instrumentalist FKJ took viewers inside his home studio for the latest installment of NPR Music‘s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert series. The five-track session featured the man born Vincent Fenton displaying his sonic architectural skills as he builds songs from the ground up.
“I’m about to play you, not really my songs as they are but kind of more my process of making them,” FKJ says following the opening performance of “New Life”. “So let’s do it.”
To watch French Kiwi Juice construct a song from scratch is like salivating from across the sneeze guard as the Subway artisan crafts your sandwich one ingredient at a time. A light drizzling of wah-infused Fender Stratocaster is complimented by flakes of 808s and a healthy heap of synths. Though FKJ is perhaps best known for viral content like his work on Masego‘s “Tadow” and the Cercle video of him performing on a desolate Bolivian salt flat that seemed to be on everyone’s algorithm in 2019, this performance took on a more jazz-oriented feel.
Watch FKJ perform his songs “New Life”, TUI”, an improvised jam session, “IHM”, and “Ylang Ylang” for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert series. He will visit the U.S. on a North American tour beginning on October 6th in San Francisco.
FKJ – Tiny Desk (Home) Concert