The technicolor apartment of musician Myd

I grew up near Lille, in Villeneuve-d’Ascq. My father was a doctor – and also a passionate pianist – and my mother worked in professional training. At home, it wasn’t particularly about décor or design. We didn’t have designer furniture, no special art on the walls, but always a comfortable environment that felt like us, with a sense of freedom: I was always allowed to do what I wanted, to develop an artistic side. That helped me open up. My parents traveled a lot. Sometimes my father brought back objects from the US, my mother brought back paintings from Africa. At home there was this kind of mix of things that told our story. I remember being surprised when I went to friends’ houses where the parents lived in spaces that felt more anonymous. It’s a matter of personal style, not value. That intimate element that tells your story in a home.

Since I was 18, my dream was to have a music studio. When I moved to Paris, I was living in a shared flat and my room looked more like a studio than a bedroom. My computer was in the middle, cables everywhere, a drum set, and my mattress was just a piece of foam in the corner. But for me, nothing was more important than music. That’s still true. I first bought a studio four years ago, which I really designed to my taste: a place that felt right, that sounded like me. I spend almost all my time there, about six hours a day. For a musician, especially an electronic one, the studio is like a brain, a tool that has to work super fast. Like a writer with a pen custom-molded to their fingers. The only thing my studio lacked was a place to sleep. And because I was touring more and more, I felt frustrated to come home to a place that didn’t really please me. It almost felt better to be on tour than at home (laughs). One day I found this apartment for sale nearby. It was practical to separate things… And also, I’m quite solitary, I need a home. I wanted something that excited me as much as discovering a new hotel room, a new club, a festival, meeting new people. Touring means a flood of new experiences and inspirations. So this was the chance to create an inspiring home.

It’s the ideal hotel room. That was my inspiration. I took a lot of photos of hotel rooms I liked, like Hôtel Amour in Nice, for comfort, practicality, and originality. I don’t know if it’s true for all artists, but I’m extremely messy. I needed a place where I could really put things away. My dream is to forget objects completely, to be minimalist, for the mess I create to vanish. This apartment is perfect for that. There’s no furniture. Just a bed, a coffee table, a sofa. I needed extreme optimization. I liked the idea of no longer being dependent on furniture you move around. I also like the idea of a finished product, one you don’t touch anymore. That probably comes from music: when you make a track, it’s done, it’s released, you don’t touch it again. This apartment is the same: it can’t really exist in another form. And it frees my mind, which is restful (laughs). By fixing the layout, by choosing radical colors that work together and complement each other, I can focus on what really matters to me: music. Now, if I want to sit and read, I have three possible spots, each with a different vibe. There aren’t endless options, and I like that simplicity.

I was tired of white. White is silence, color is music! And we always think of a “classic” interior as white, but we forget that in every decorative era – take Art Deco, for instance – interiors were painted in large blocks of color. Same with a house I love near where I grew up, Villa Cavrois! Even our grandparents: often they named bedrooms by color. The pink room, the blue room… We’ve all seen that. Sky blue has always appealed to me. Years ago, when I was in a shared flat, I painted my entire room blue – ceiling, walls, floor. I loved the monobloc effect. It felt like being in a cocoon, a set. Super soothing. I’d read that blue is good for the heart rate. Back in wartime, tanks that carried soldiers to the front used to be white inside until they realized it stressed the men out; then they switched to sky blue. Color affects mood! So here, I wanted blocks of color to create different moods. I met Anthony Authié, the interior architect from Zyva Studio. I liked his work, I wanted his point of view, and I enjoy sharing from artist to artist. We agreed: better radical color than boring white. Better to debate with someone than talk to someone who says yes to everything. Better to add an element of surprise in music and risk not being liked than the opposite. Same thing! Anthony said: come to my place. He’s got this great salesman’s trick: instead of convincing you to buy a jacket, he puts it on and says, “See, doesn’t look bad on me, right?” (laughs). In the end, after all these conversations, I gave Anthony carte blanche. And I’m thrilled here. Honestly, it’s beautiful. I feel like this apartment helps amplify the memories and moments I spend in it.

Yes, the bedroom. Up until the last minute, it was supposed to be green. I wasn’t feeling it. Plus, green is supposed to be bad luck for artists. We went to Ressource for paint, and the salesman said, “I’ve got an incredible yellow, slightly faded, really beautiful.” That settled it. The paints are fantastic because they shift with the light, creating very different atmospheres depending on the time of day. In photos with flash they look neon, but in real life they’re very soft.

No, that’s the interesting thing: we couldn’t change the structure much because the apartment is on the ground floor of an old building. On the contrary, we had to work with a very quirky space. Quite the opposite of Anthony’s usual work with cubes and sharp geometry. It was funny. He managed to bring geometry into this place. There was a long phase of research to source materials and details: the door and closet handles are climbing holds. I’m also proud of some small ideas we had: in the bedroom, for instance, a built-in laundry basket hidden in the cabinetry. Dirty laundry is always ugly, right? It was like the built-in trash bins people used to do in kitchens, but adapted for the bedroom.