The Offline drops Permanent Vacation-inspired music video to ‘Un bout de chemin'

The Offline just dropped the Permanent Vacation-inspired music video to his latest single ‘Un bout de chemin’. Landing ashore, The Offline wanders around Hamburg’s infamous St. Pauli district, where he’s confronted by a gambling deadline as he searches for a better place.⁠

Watch the music video + order his debut album ‘La couleur de la mer’ on digital and 12” vinyl below.

Following debut EP ‘En clair-obscur’ and a series of singles earlier this year cementing his place as a rising voice in the world of cinematic soul & funk, The Offline continues to showcase music from his forthcoming debut album ‘La couleur de la mer’, with ‘Un bout de chemin’.

Based around a soulful cello ostinato, rising string & synth melodies and rhythmic, funk-inspired guitar parts, ‘Un bout de chemin’s’ rolling rhythms represent the journey The Offline transports the listener on over the course of his soundtrack-worthy debut record. Influenced by the work of film composer Francois de Roubaix, The Offline employed cellist Martin Bentz of the Kaiser Quartet (Chilly Gonzales, Jarvis Cocker) to add strings into the mix, adding a further cinematic edge to the music.

“Un bout de chemin, which means something like a bit of a journey, felt right for the rolling rhythm and the driven cello, but also in terms of the dramatic structure of the track. For me it felt like someone is pursuing a goal and this track tells a part of the journey. The name came about when I had the order of the album ready.”

Reminiscent of film scores from the 60s and 70s, The Offline worked with co-producer Tim Liztenberger to channel the influence of film composers such as Francois de Roubaix and Brian Bennet, creating his own soundtrack on ‘La couleur de la mer’. Inducing images of manorial, fog-swept villas at the sea's edge, silhouetted sailing boats and cigar-chomping villains attempting to thwart the mission of an imaginary hero, the record is a masterfully composed sonic journey. Experimenting with themes and atypical song structures, the music moves from dramatic cues to fragile romanticism. It incorporates psychedelic spaciness, retro soul and hip-hop sensibilities informed by The Offline’s extensive record collection and crate-digger status.

“Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated by the soundtracks from the 60s and 70s, and I always wanted to make an album in the film score direction. I wrote about 30 demos, kicked half of it and stuck to the ones that felt right in the dramaturgical structure of the ‘movie'. Interestingly the main theme was set really early on while writing the album, which made the writing process much easier.”

Aptly named, ‘Thème de la couleur de la mer’ opens proceedings, establishing the core motifs of the record. Haunting flutes and xylophones lead the way into Khruangbin-esque guitar lines, which sit against a hip-hop canvas that returns on boom-bap head boppers like ‘Quelque chose reste’. Retro soul revival takes precedence on deep cuts like ‘Un bout de chemin’, with wah-gated guitars interacting with emotive cello lines and symphonic string & horn sections.

The Offline came to life when composer and photographer Felix Müller travelled the Atlantic coastline in the south of France with his analogue camera, capturing beach life on film. After coming back to Hamburg, he started writing songs as the sonic counterpart to the analogue visuals. His Debut EP ‘En Clair-Obscur’ includes five tracks that capture the essence of his journey and the feeling of a cool summer soundtrack.