Inkwells
Live DJ set at L'Usine, Paris, France
13 December 2025 | 01:08:41
NOTE FROM THE EDITORS
Raw cuts. Fast breaks. Feedback screaming from the amp. Drum machines, bass riffs with heavy chorus, dissonant synths, and somber chord progressions. Flaming poetry reminiscent of the Beat Generation. The sound of Inkwells has a name: warehouse rock.
The Paris-based formation channels the raw energy of rock into pulsating, atmospheric electronic compositions. Their rhythmic foundation draws from old-school jungle breaks, modular drum machine patterns, and muffled percussive textures sampled from obscure records of musique concrète and 1960s psychedelic rock.
The rest emerges from late-night improvisations — automatic lyric writing by M. Woodcock, preaching subconsciously into the microphone; noise-rock textures and saturated riffs by N. J. Darrow, bent and fractured into rhythm with deliberate erraticism; and dark pads and siren calls from classically trained pianist L. Krainik-Saul, painting a cinematic unease.
Each track bears the mark of prolonged experimentation. Each sound is rough, unique, irreproducible.
ART DIRECTION sits at the core of the project. Every release is an experiment in image and form. Their debut mixtape 536°F, released 13 December 2024, and its succeeding single Raincoat (2025), extend the group’s sonic identity into visual storytelling.
The title 536°F refers to the autoignition temperature of petrol — a substance that burns through the mixtape in every sense. Its dual nature, raw and refined, volatile and controlled, frames the record’s conceptual tension. It opens with “petrocolour blues” and erupts into Heat, culminating in the final, searing question: “Does it burn enough?”
HEAT
A music video co-directed by KÅARGHAUS and Inkwells mirrors this auto-destructive cycle. A man in a business suit hauls a red jerrycan up a mountain, consuming petrol to fuel an endless pursuit — and himself in the process. Shot on a shoestring, the film’s stark imagery earned it a place in the 2025 Berlin Music Video Awards’ Silver Screenings. An absurdly simple visualiser for the mixtape complements it: comedian Vincent Legrand climbing a snowy slope thirty-six times in a row.
RAINCOAT
Their following single, Raincoat, dives inward. Directed by Owen Kasparian, its claustrophobic narrative stars Legrand once again, this time as Des Esseintes — a direct homage to Joris-Karl Huysmans’ À Rebours, the decadent novel in which a recluse constructs his own artificial paradise to the edge of madness. Raincoat translates that descent into an audiovisual trance of asphyxiating sensuality and mirrored desire.
On 13 December 2025, Inkwells descend from their sonic laboratory to the floor for a hybrid DJ set televised on REVOLUTION 9, merging the analog grit of rock with the feverish pulse of their electronic experiments.
Discography
