A Band You Should Know: The Offline

The Offline’s latest album, Les Cigales, posits the theory that sometimes the countries you know best are the ones you visit.

When I ask Hamburg-based musician, Felix Müller, to describe what his hometown is like in sounds, he struggles then laughs. But Felix who under his music moniker, The Offline, produces hip-hop-influenced cinematic tunes has released three albums inspired by France’s coastlines, turning these geographical pinpoints into sonic soundscapes. Despite living in the land-locked German city, Felix often ventures down south to France—board in tow—and his desire to capture his surf spots was how he first experimented with music and sound as The Offline. His debut album La couleur de la mer released in 2023, tells the story of the Atlantic coast, one he created back home after being inspired by the images he took there on his analog camera. And his most recently released album? This one, Les Cigales, is an ode to the Mediterranean, honing in on Marseilles in particular. It’s more chill than La couleur de la mer, whose darker, more dramatic notes hint at the Atlantic’s wild surf, but like it Les Cigales still takes its cues from cult film composers Francois de Roubaix and David Axelrod. It’s an album that translates the salt, sun, and stories of Marseille into an audio postcard that’s the perfect accoutrement to down a beer to, and which makes you homesick for the city, even if you haven’t been there yet.

Hey Felix, it's so nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too.

I’ve been listening to your album Les Cigales a lot over the last couple of days and it's been putting me in a really good mood.

Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

So, I wanted to start off with the way you got into music making because your first couple of albums were a sonic response to some images that you took while you were traveling the Atlantic coastline, is that right?

Yeah. So basically I travel a lot to the south coast of France, surfing as much as possible. Everywhere I go I take my analogue camera with me and I love capturing the life on film around me, especially on trips because trips are something special. So, when I was there, I think it was 2021 or so, I just had that feeling that I’m so attached to this coastline because I’ve been surfing there since I was a teenager. The connection with this landscape that gave me the feeling of home was important to capture it in some way and I wanted to have something to remember it by. It wasn’t just the visuals, but I was also asking how can this sound? And that's a bit of the backstory of how The Offline was born as it is now.

Is the area you’re referencing around Biarritz and Hossegor?

Yeah, it starts from Lacanau, north of Bordeaux and from there going all the way down to the Basque country. This was the reason why in the EP (En clair-obscur) the songs were named after surf spots—‘Côte de Basques’, ‘Plage des Casernes’. It's always a reference to this coastline.

Coming from Aotearoa, I understand that feeling of attachment to a particular coastline, where we're so used to seeing the sea. There's something I think in your memory that becomes synchronized when you're near the horizon.

Definitely. It’s really interesting that so many people are driven to live or be at the coastline and see the ocean and horizon. Something’s happening with humans I think, when they see the ocean, right?

I read somewhere that when humans are used to seeing a horizon, it makes you very much aware of how little they are. And I think there's something in that. It's like you're aware of how insignificant you are.

I think so too. And also the thing with water is that it’s not where humans are normally used to being. So, if you're in the ocean—just surfing or whatever—you have to adapt to the elements differently. It’s a completely different mindset.

I love in your video for the song ‘Pour Nael’ you're walking around barefoot and your feet are feeling the different textures you're walking upon. And in some way that feels like a call to action somehow, to hear all the different textures within your music. As a surfer and skater, do you think you have a particular way of sensing things and does this apply to the way that you make music?

Yeah, for sure. I think so. Even if it's not something that's really in my mind every time I think about it, it’s more unconscious. Skateboarding is the main thing that’s put me in the direction of music, of style, of everything. It’s a lot about DIY thinking. I'm not a trained musician. I really only started making music because I saw skate videos and heard the punk rock songs in it. Then friends of mine said, ‘Okay, let's make a band,’ and we started just trying out instruments. This also applies to skateboarding and surfing because it’s just about being out there and seeing what the possibilities are. Just trying to make something out of it in a creative way.  

You learn so much while you're actually doing it.

Yeah. And it really depends also on the environment. So even if you’re surfing in one spot, one day it can hammer, and the next day it's flat. It's just like with skateboarding; if you do a trick at one set of stairs, it's not comparable to another place where you may do the same trick. Every time is unique, every day is unique, with the people you do it with also. It has a lot in common with music—just the feeling of it and capturing a moment. You cannot reproduce it.

I think that's super interesting because it’s like you're two albums, La couleur de mer and Les Cigales, they’re both like sonic snapshots of France’s coastlines. But I’m also interested in sounds that you think would categorize Hamburg, where you live now?

This is really hard. This is a really hard question. [Laughs]. Because I think Hamburg is not really in the music that I make. The Offline is more like something for me to escape to. It’s more about thinking of different places, like imagining being in the south of France or whatever. But I think Hamburg has a sound that’s a bit rough, because it's a harbor city. Also, in Germany, Hamburg people are quite famous for their dark humor—people here don't take things so seriously.

With Les Cigales I love that you shift focus from The Atlantic coastline which was your focus with your first records, to the Mediterranean. And when I listen to those first records, they’re a bit moodier, a bit more temperamental and a bit more dangerous, which I think reflects the coastline there. Whereas Les Cigales is more sunnier, more relaxed and more chill. And so I was interested how you felt Les Cigales reflects your experiences along the Mediterranean?

This is really interesting because this time it was different than the recordings before. I made music last year and just had a bunch of demos and I was not sure where the direction of the story would go. And Les Cigales, the story of this EP like it is now, it developed when I spoke to a friend of mine, Peter Haueis who also directed the videos. When we sat down we came up with the idea to make it a Mediterranean story. He had some friends in Marseille and he said, ‘Okay, Felix, let's shoot the video in Marseille,’ and so we went there and met a bunch of lovely people who helped us bring everything to life. So, it was a bit different than the albums before, because the ones before we imagined, ‘What can it sound like, this coastline?’ With this album the songs flew out before, and then the story evolved.  

You've also mentioned a couple of film composers like Francois de Roubaix and David Axelrod as inspirations, and I've listened to a bit of their music and I can hear a bit of their influence. Tell me why they've made an impression on you.

Francois de Roubaix, I think it's mostly how he creates soundscapes, which are really interesting. He had a phase where he was more classical in the way he composed, and then he started playing around with electronics and made more electronic soundtracks. He was also, as far as I remember, self-taught, so being that experimental was really inspiring for me. A few tracks (and this is where my hip hop influence comes in) also sound like a perfect sample. The same I think, for Axelrod. Earl Palmer who played drums on his recordings had an incredible groove. I was really driven into that direction, to try something like them, or be influenced by them.

On your Instagram you often give themed recommendations of records from your collection, which is so great. And since in the Northern Hemisphere we're saying goodbye to summer and Down Under we're kind of heading into it, tell us three records from your collection that you play on the perfect summer evening, during ‘Un long été chaud.’

One is definitely any track from Khruangbin. This is perfect sunset music, I think. And for starting the evening try Erlend Øye & La Comitiva. And I really love this last one, I think it was in one of my stories. It’s a compilation called Panorama, and there’s one track on there by Andre Popp called ‘Sweet Mary.’

Amazing! Thank you so much Felix. 

Thank you!