Interview with French artist JVLIVS

With ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia, JVLIVS launches the first chapter of an ambitious seven-year project, HEPTALCHEMY, tracing artistic transformation through the ancient stages of alchemy. Blending blues, soul, funk, jazz, trip-hop, rock, and electronic textures into a raw, cinematic instrumental journey, the album treats sound as both architecture and ritual.

In this interview, JVLIVS reflects on chaos as creative fuel, the decision to embrace imperfection, and how alchemical symbolism shaped every note of the record, from its burning beginnings to its first moment of luminous cohesion.

ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia is built around the idea of raw substance, which is the starting point of all transformation. On a personal level, what did this “prima materia” represent for you when you began composing the album?

For me, the Prima Materia was first that old inner chaos I’d carried for years: hundreds of solitary demos, blues riffs scribbled at 4 a.m., electronic loops born from insomnia. It was the alchemical lead of my sonic life since 2018 – Robert Johnson’s haunted blues meeting Portishead’s suffocating pads, Justice’s relentless beats, the French Touch in fusion. I decided not to clean it up, not to tame it too early. Accepting this imperfect disorder was my first true act of commitment to HEPTALCHEMY. Without this dirty, living lead, no gold possible.

The album moves freely between blues, soul, funk, jazz, rock, trip-hop and electronic textures. Why was it important for ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia to be so stylistically open and unfiltered?

Because the Prima Materia, by definition, is fertile chaos containing everything in embryo – the fire of blues, the dampness of funk, the mists of trip-hop, electronic lightning. Choosing one genre from the start would have been like locking an alembic before distillation even begins. I wanted listeners to feel this confused richness, this primordial soup from which everything can be born. It’s also a personal thank you to these currents that built me: from Eric Clapton’s bluesy riffs to Massive Attack’s tense silences. This stylistic freedom lays the richest possible foundation for the six mutations to come.

Each track is named after a specific alchemical stage — Calcination, Dissolution, Separation, and so on. Did the alchemical framework guide the music from the beginning, or did the symbolism emerge after the compositions were written?

From day one. I drew the seven stages like an architect’s blueprint before even plugging in my instruments. “Calcination” was born from a burning, almost aggressive blues riff to consume the superfluous ego; “Dissolution” from jazz piano chords that liquefy slowly, as if form were melting into water; “Coagulation” ends with electro-rock orchestral crescendos solidifying everything into a dense, luminous mass. This isn’t symbolism plastered on afterwards: it’s reverse choreography where the alchemical ritual dictates the sonic matter.

You often describe music as architecture. How did your background as an architect influence the structure, pacing, and spatial feel of ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia?

I compose like I build: solid blues foundations for “Calcination,” then airy, acoustic, spatial trip-hop elevations in “Conjunction” where sounds seem to float between walls. In “Coagulation,” I sought massive, almost gothic orchestral vaults with reverbs giving the impression of wandering through an immense nave. The pacing follows architectural progression: primordial fire explosion, groovy moist dissolutions, Andalusian nostalgia with dry guitar accents, then electro-jazzy climax. The album becomes a habitable cathedral – the listener enters, gets lost, and emerges transformed.

ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia is entirely instrumental. What do you feel instrumental music can express about transformation, tension, and identity that lyrics sometimes cannot?

It speaks directly to the body and unconscious. Without words to intellectualize, tension builds through heavy silences, blues dissonances that scratch, electronic swells that squeeze the chest. Identity reveals itself in this instinctive genre fusion: a guitar cry becoming a funky bass, then a mystical synthetic pad. Transformation happens in real time – from the raw rage of “Calcination” to the luminescence of “Coagulation.” My voice waits until 2031; for now, I let the music speak an older, more universal, almost ritual language.

There’s a strong sense of rawness and imperfection throughout the record. How intentional was that choice, and what would have been lost if ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia had been more polished?

Totally intentional. The Prima Materia isn’t clean: it’s rough, stained, alive. The little imperfections – a slightly slipping blues note, a bit-dirty drum kit, crunchy textures – carry the vulnerability of beginnings. If I’d polished everything to the max, the album would have become a museum statue, frozen and cold. Instead, it remains a living laboratory. This roughness invites the listener into the process, to complete the transmutation themselves. That’s what makes the record human.

Although it is the first chapter of a seven-year journey, ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia must also stand on its own. What experience or emotion did you want listeners to walk away with from this album alone?

I hope they leave with a physical sensation of foundation: like after touching matter still hot, vibrating with potential. From the incandescent fire of “Calcination” to the synthesis of “Coagulation,” the central emotion is almost palpable hope – that chaos can become something great. Even without the next six albums, this record offers a complete arc: from disorder to first luminous cohesion. It invites introspection, silence after the last note, and a secret desire to see the sequel.

Now that ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia has been released, has it shifted your perception of what the next stages of HEPTALCHEMY should become?

Yes, radically. Its reception proved this raw base is even more fertile than I imagined. The unexpected fusions already inspire bolder turns: ALCHEMY II: The Orchestral Transmutation will dive into symphonic epic with an amplitude I didn’t fully dare before; the unplugged and pure electro phases will gain contrast from this original roughness. HEPTALCHEMY now beats for real. The six years of instrumental lead straight to voices – features in 2030, then mine in 2031. 

If ALCHEMY: The Prima Materia captures a “before” state in your artistic journey, what part of you do you already feel has changed simply by completing and releasing it?

I feel like I’ve truly coagulated an identity: artist-architect-alchemist. Publishing this album burned away many doubts – about my autodidact legitimacy, about daring such a long, conceptual project. Today I feel more disciplined, more confident in the heptological vision, and above all eager to mutate further. The transmutation began inside: more lightness in rigor, more fire in patience. In the music, it takes shape.