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Earlier in the year, Sun Cousto, the Swiss duo made up of Isumi Grichting and Julie Bugnard, crafted the truly promising and memorable album Imaginary Girls (Chrüsimüsi Records), which builds from gloriously harmonic pop ballads to scrappy punk immediacy engulfed in a pastoral freshness. Compared to 2019's debut LP, Satan And I Walk Under A Rainbow, it's a substantial improvement in production and songwriting, helping the duo identify their long-term trajectory and the undeniable power of two. To dive further, we chatted with with Grichting and Bugnard, where they filled us in on their early years, touring Japan, and the tuneful tension of their latest record.
What have you been up to lately? What have you been listening to, reading, or spending a lot of time doing?
Julie Bugnard: These days I am reading Mad Movies, a magazine about genre cinema. And I'm also reading a fantasy RPG master's book to organize the next session we’re gonna do with some friends. Concerning music, the last album I fully listened to was Link Wray’s Early Recordings. I listen to a lot of radio podcasts, so the time I take to consciously listen to music is important.
Isumi Grichting: I listen to songs that I know well here and there on albums that I like. And at the moment it goes from French oï to new age [laughs]. Right now I'm reading Capital in the Anthropocene by Kohei Saito. I bought it at a train station after work because it said "international best seller" and that intrigued me. It is a book that presents Marxism in light of Marx's unpublished notes on ecology written in the second half of his life and proposes degrowth communism as a solution to the climate crisis (which will generate many other crises) that awaits us.
How did the two of you get into music growing up? What kind of records and fanzines would we find if we could travel back in time in your teenage room?
JB: The first band that I really got into was The Clash. I listened to London Calling when I was 14 and my life suddenly changed. I felt sensations and emotions that I've never felt before. This album opened my world and my imagination, as well as all the other Clash albums. I started to be fascinated. Kate Bush, David Bowie, and The Velvet Underground came really quickly after that and are still a big influence on me. Every time I listen to a Velvet Underground album now I am like, "Woah this is so good." It's like always a surprise how good every album sounds.
IG: For me it was Nirvana. I bought all the magazines that talked about the band, even when there were only two or three lines. And that was a lot because I was really at the height of my Nirvana mania when all the press commemorated the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. I feel like I built my identity as a teenager through Kurt Cobain's interviews. I discovered musical references (K Records, C86, The Vaselines, Shonen Knife, Kleenex, DEVO, punk in general), but also political and social ideas that still inspire me today and are part of my identity. I don't really listen to Nirvana anymore, except sometimes obscure home recordings that I find on YouTube. I also had a big black metal period where I discovered vinyl/cassette, black and white fanzine, DIY, and lo-fi culture. This was also really important to me.
How did you meet and form Sun Cousto? What was that conversation like about first making music together?
JB: We met in an acting school in 2016 in Lausanne. We have a theater bachelor. We were in the same class and became friends. As I recall it, was like we both had this dream to have a band and when we met, it suddenly became possible. For me, it was like the dream became tangible. And for the little story, we went to a French festival in the mountains in 2017 to see Ty Segall in concert. After a crazy night, we were both in a tent and I remember looking at the stars in the sky and we made this kind of promise that we will form a band. I know this sounds really cheesy [laughs]. And it certainly didn’t happen exactly like that. But in my head, I picture it a bit like that. After that festival, I had the sensation that we said like, "Ok so you do the guitar and I do the drums," and it was done. I had no idea how to play the drums. But we learned how to play together. And I had so much confidence in Isumi that it was easy.
IG: I remember it exactly like that too! I also remember how fun and easy it was.
Do you think your sound and process have changed since your first release in 2017? And, how do you feel looking back on your catalog?
JB: Yes it has definitely changed over the years. When we started we were so fresh in the music process. I feel like the first years our sound was changing every six months because we were spontaneous and we were learning a lot of new things all the time. Every release has its own personality. But I guess and hope that even through the years we kept the same spirit; a freshness, a raw approach, a will of experiment, and of course a lo-fi mind. And I think it is still important for us that even though we are only two instruments we don’t sound like a "rock" duo. Concerning our catalog, now I feel a certain tenderness looking back at it. When we were in the recording and releasing process I was very hard on us because I was younger and I thought it was not good enough. But now, I see it as a nice keepsake of our evolution and I feel proud.
What's your approach to performing live?
JB: We want to take the best of being only two but without sounding like a "rock" duo. Not like a garage bluesy drums and a guitar that would play only rock solos and stuff. I think we try to find surprising and funny solutions of being only two. During live shows, I think we are trying to be direct and sincere. To give all our energy without faking it. We are side by side on stage and it helps us to connect.
In the past, you’ve called yourselves the founders of "Twee Satanism." What are some of the major tenets of this religion?
JB: [laughs] we invented this thing in 2019 for the release of our first album. Twee comes from Twee Pop and Satanism is the side of Isumi listening to Black Metal music. So it was supposed to be a cute and dark fantasmatic cult. We used to say, "It’s when you go burn churches but with your cute and nice boyfriend." Or when you spend nice and happy time with your friends but you want to kill yourself at the same time. I think now we don't talk so much about this thing anymore but in a way, there’s something in Sun Cousto that makes me think a bit of this: a funny, weird, cute vibe, but with dark feelings and thoughts.
You worked with Elias Gamma to chronicle your Japan tour last year for the film I Travelled Across The Sea With Sun Cousto. What was it like making a tour film?
JB: It was very fun and exciting. Elias came to us with the idea and I think we are so lucky that he did the movie. It is such a good mark on what was our trip in Japan and I'm happy that in the future we will be able to watch it again to remember what we have lived there. At first, we wanted to write a full scenario and to really have a script to follow but we didn’t really have the time to prepare all this so at the end we only had a concept when we arrived in Japan (a half documentary about Sun Cousto in Japan and half fiction about a horror movie). So it’s a lot of improvisation scenes that we did and I was a bit concerned about how he would turn this into a movie because it was mostly spontaneous moments without a big plan. And when we discovered the result I thought Elias did it really well! I find the movie funny, full of tenderness, with a lot of our influences, and of course a really interesting point of view about Japan and the music scene. But I'm not so objective so I don’t know. But the point is we didn't want to do only a tour film and I think we succeeded in not doing only that.
Your latest album Imaginary Girls was one of our favorites of the year. I read that you recorded this partly in the studio and partly at home, with songs dating back to 2019. What insight can you share about the making of this album and the material written for it?
IG: Thank you, we are so happy because we also appreciate Paperface Zine! Yes, that's right. The tracks recorded "studio" were recorded in Elias Raschle's studio who recorded and mixed the album. They are guitar-drum tracks like live. The tracks recorded at home were composed and recorded directly on Garageband, sometimes via a tape recorder.
JB: Yes, those homemade songs were made directly by us two, in a more intimate context, where we were only two and we were more experimenting with a lot of instruments and improvisation. I think it brings a good balance to the album.
There's a new version of "Jesus Can't Surf" on this album, a song that's appeared in a few different iterations during your time as a band. What's the significance of this song and why do you keep coming back to it?
JB: It actually is the first ever song we wrote together as Sun Cousto! We composed it during our first rehearsal. We had no mics as we didn't really have a practice room so we were just screaming over the sound of the instruments! I don't really know why we keep coming back to it to be honest… maybe in a way because we never recorded the right version of it? Also because the song evolved a lot through the time and we wanted to have a more actual version? I don’t really know…
What can you tell me about the song "Satisfied" and how this one came together?
IG: I think "Satisfied" is a typical Sun Cousto song. We test a riff in rehearsal, we play around until we find a melody with the vocals, and we have a little fun with it. Rehearsals are also times when we talk about our lives or music. I feel like the second part talks a little about that, even if we didn't agree on it (I feel like we never agree to write lyrics on a certain subject, we are much more spontaneous and we realize afterward what is it about). When I say "that," I'm talking about the male punk police who advise us, for example, to add a "boring bass" [laughs] or our legitimacy as a musician, or our desire to do solos too [laughs]. It's also a song where we compliment each other and we replay a little how we met and decided to play together. For the more melodic part ("You keep me satisfied when you blah blah …"), I imagined it a bit like the second part of Ramble Tamble by Creedence Clearwater Revival. For the lyrics, at the beginning we didn't sing the same thing, so we each came with our lyrics. I was in a Lord of the Rings period, so mine spoke of the unconditional love of the Valar for Iluvatar, trying not to fall into Christian song [laughs]. And Julie had lyrics that spoke about something else. Finally we mixed the two and it evokes something else.
JB: My part of the lyrics was more about feeling sad in a relationship I think. When you stay in a relationship that makes you feel bad and you can't ask for help because if you do it makes you feel even worse. When you feel sad and someone looks at you and that look makes you want to disappear.
The content of "I Don't Wanna Talk" speaks for itself but what can you say about the instrumentation?
IG: We recorded the song live studio and over-dubbed a double solo and a bass-like synth. At the very beginning, I thought it would become a bit our Sarah Records song! We play it in a more punk way, but the guitar riff, the vocal lines, the double solo, and the synth are still very twee-pop.
"Hardcore Sex With Your TV" is a real stand-out track in the way that it changes so drastically throughout. What was the making of this one like?
IG: Yes, this one is a bit special. We even hesitated at one point to put it on the album! We had recorded it a long time ago with a view to having a demo that we never released in the end. We re-recorded the song when recording the album and in the end, we preferred this demo version. We are only two instruments and when we have to make a choice of which version to put on the album, we don't necessarily choose the one where we play the best, but the one whose atmosphere is the best according to us.
"Golden Cities" is another standout with its unflinching sharpness. How did you conjure this one?
Isumi: It's one of the songs composed and recorded at home on a tape recorder. It's the last song we composed for the album. I like it a lot! There are a lot of different influences. There is this bell that reminds me of Raise the Dead by Bathory, but also this piano that always plays the same note that reminds me of classic rock songs. The keyboards remind me a bit of video games and the guitar sounds almost like a piano bar [laughs]. I also like how we tried to place a stylophone because we had read that David Bowie had written his biggest hits with it. I also like the vocal lines and the lyrics.
What's the story behind "Dark Thoughts"?
Isumi: It's a little ballad like we like to do, a little inspired by Vaselines or One foot in the Grave-era Beck. Julie wrote the lyrics!
Julie: They're cute little lyrics that talk in a rather gentle and simple way about mental health and going to see a doctor if you need to.
Is there a story behind the cover art? If so, how does it parallel with the songs here?
IG: The cover graphic is made by Gabrielle d'Alessandro, based on photos taken by Elias Raschle. The first idea for the album was not to have a big photo of us for the front like for the previous album. In the end, it's still a big photo of us [laughs]. We wanted to be in positions that evoke a story and not just a band photo. There's Julie in a kind of prom dress reading tarot cards on a table while I'm in a, "So… I'm going to work now!" position. There's no desire to convey a message, but maybe enough strange stuff to tell a story and we thought it went well with the title of the album Imaginary Girls. We also wanted to add little gifts in the vinyl and the cassette. So there are stickers in the vinyl cover that we can stick or not on the inner sleeve and there is a small sticker poster in the cassette.
What are some future plans for Sun Cousto?
JB: We have some shows here and there in Switzerland. Also, we would like to record a new album in 2025 with songs that we partially wrote in Japan last year. We would be happy if a new album could be released in 2026!
IG: Yes, we are looking forward to recording a new album. We have lots of new ideas that we want to try out and it's always exciting when you're a two-girls band to think about how you want the songs to sound on the album compared to live. For my part, I imagine the next album a bit more raw, partly recorded on a tape recorder with perhaps a more uniform sound than on the previous album, a sharper guitar sound that leaves more space for the vocals and more play on the rhythms.
Imaginary Girls is out now on Chrüsimüsi Records.