Francois X: "I no longer feel the need to ask for permission"

Francois X speaks to Playful about identity, heritage and his new EP The Skin Between Us

With his new EP The Skin Between Us, Francois X reflects on a journey that is both deeply personal and sonic. The Paris-based artist opens up about identity, heritage, and the emotional weight carried through sound.

From growing up surrounded by Black American dance music to formative experiences in iconic clubs like Berghain and Concrete, Francois X has shaped a language of techno that balances tension and tenderness. In this interview, he shares the story behind the EP, what “neo-futurism” means to him, and how music becomes a lived experience rather than a calculated process.

You describe this EP as a reflection of your journey. What made now the right time to bring it all together? I think I’ve reached a place of clarity personally and musically. I no longer feel the need to ask for permission. The Skin Between Us is the first time I’ve allowed myself to bring all parts of me into the music — the emotion, the friction, the heritage and the rawness.

Over the years, I’ve lived through so many shifts in the industry, in the sound, in myself. From growing up around the French pioneers, to shaping a certain vision of techno in the early 2010s, to absorbing the impact of places like Berghain… All of that shaped my ear, my instinct. And now, I think I finally understand what my sound really is. This EP is a moment of maturity, not trying to follow anything, just allowing myself to speak clearly in my own language.

Watch Playful Podcast's interview with Francois X from 2023.

What does the title The Skin Between Us mean to you? Is it about connection, separation, or something else? It’s about all of it — connection, separation, memory, projection. Skin is the first frontier. It’s what people see before they hear you, before they even try to understand. Because of my background, being mixed-race, navigating a mostly white European scene, I’ve always felt that my skin carried a story that people wanted to read a certain way. But it’s never the full story.

The EP is about that tension, the one between how I am perceived and who I really am. It’s about learning to rise above that gaze, not to erase it, but to claim the space beyond it.

I say it in the manifesto: “I carry stories in my skin. Layers of memory, of friction, of freedom. But I don’t let them define me, I let them inform me.” That’s what this project is about, transcending the surface, without denying it. Creating a sound, a language, a presence that can’t be reduced or labeled.

You grew up with Black American dance music. How did that sound and emotion shape these tracks? I grew up in Paris with an older generation of artists who put me directly into that culture — immersed in Black American dance music from the start. Detroit, Chicago, house and techno — that’s where it all began for me.

Those tracks held memories and soul. It wasn’t about being polished or perfect. It was about something deeper. The music spoke to me in a way that felt personal. Even if I didn’t fully understand it at the time, it mirrored a part of me.

At home, I was surrounded by a mix of West African music and Black and European music. And when I discovered house and techno, it didn’t feel foreign — it felt like an echo where I recognised the feeling. The way that groove could hold joy and pain at the same time.

That emotional DNA runs through the whole record like a tribute filtered through my own language. That emotional weight lives inside me. It’s not calculated. It just comes through. Because at the end of the day, that music didn’t just teach me how to dance, it taught me how to listen, and how to tell my story without words.

From Paris to Berlin. Francois X.

How did your experiences in clubs like Berghain and Concrete influence the vibe and structure of the EP? Both places had a deep impact on me in terms of how I hear and build music today. Berghain, especially in the late 2000s, was a turning point. That moment between 2006 and 2010, when the lines between house and techno started to blur — that era changed everything for me. Tracks like Rej by Âme opened a new path, where soulful textures met darker ones. Then came Klockworks, MDR… stripped, raw, physical techno. It became a language that I absorbed completely.

But Berghain wasn’t just about a sound. It was a place where contrast could live. One minute you would hear pitched-up Chicago records, the next something cold and reverberated. That collision shaped my vision of intensity — something ritualistic.

Concrete in Paris gave me something else. With artists like Antigone, Shlømo, and the Dement3d crew, we shaped a sound that was more emotional, more ethereal, but still grounded in tension. Concrete taught me patience. How to tell a story across hours.

The Skin Between Us is the convergence of these experiences. It holds the groove, the tension, the architecture of those nights. It’s a body record, yes, but also a record of memory. These spaces taught me how to feel a room and how to build tension without words. That legacy is embedded in the EP, not as a reference, but as a lived frequency.

You talk about music being something “lived, not thought.” How do you create that feeling in the studio? I try to bypass overthinking. I’m not looking for perfection. I work fast sometimes, almost instinctively. The best takes usually happen when I stop trying to control the process and let the emotion lead. It might be a memory, a fragment of something I felt the night before, or just a certain tension in the room.

I’m not chasing trends or technical prowess. Sometimes it’s a single texture, a distorted loop, even my own voice pitched and broken — whatever feels true in that moment.

For me, making music is like keeping an open diary. It’s a way of translating things I can’t always explain. If it doesn’t resonate in the body before the brain catches up, I know it’s not ready. That’s what I mean by music being lived — it has to come from the inside.

The EP blends tension and tenderness. Was it hard to find that emotional balance in the music? Yes, and that’s exactly why it matters. I often feel that techno today is either too clinical or too euphoric. I wanted to stay in the space between, where things feel unresolved, emotional, even contradictory.

Tension without tenderness is just pressure. But if you let a track breathe, if you allow space for vulnerability, that’s when it becomes human. That’s where the weight comes from. For me, that’s the real challenge — making music that moves bodies, but also holds something fragile inside.

You describe this as a “neo-futurist” work rooted in continuity. What does that mean for your sound today? For me, neo-futurism isn’t about rupture, it’s about resonance. You can’t move forward if you don’t know your roots. The future isn’t a clean break, it’s a transformation of what we carry — memories, sounds, scars, influences.

This EP isn’t about turning the page. It’s about absorbing the past, digesting it, and letting it guide the way forward. I’m not nostalgic, but I’m not erasing history either.

My sound today is hybrid, but grounded. It holds traces of where I come from, the grooves I grew up on, the solitude I’ve lived with, the dancefloors that shaped me. That’s what I mean by continuity. I don’t replicate, I evolve. Neo-futurism, for me, is moving with what’s inside you — not to look back, but to know where you’re stepping.

Francois X's new EP - The Skin Between Us is out right now.

Each track explores identity in its own way. What do you hope listeners take away from this record? I hope it offers something that goes beyond the surface. Yes, this is techno and dance music, but there’s a deeper message underneath. For me, The Skin Between Us is about how identity lives in sound, not as a statement, but as a texture and a memory.

I was shaped by a scene that often celebrates progressiveness, but still rarely reflects the full spectrum of its roots. And I say this not to point fingers but because I’ve lived it. This record carries a part of who I am — as an artist, as a man of mixed heritage, as someone who grew up loving a culture shaped by Black American music, but somewhere along the way, that soul got maybe diluted. My music tries to reconnect with that feeling, not by copying it, but by continuing it, in my own voice.

I don’t fit into any clear category, but my presence in this space has always been both natural and quietly at odds. I’m not here to explain myself, but I’m here to put something in the world that resonates. The music carries my heritage, my solitude, and my clarity. That alone is already political — not in posture, but in presence.

If someone hears this record and starts to reflect not just on me, but on their own relationship to this music and this culture, then I have said what I needed to say.