Lewis OfMan

Lewis Pierre Simon Delhomme, known professionally as Lewis OfMan, is a French synth-pop producer. He has released three EPs, Disconsolate, Yo Bene, and Dancy Party, and an album, Sonic Poems, though is known for the latter's single with Coco & Clair Clair, "Misbehave", and his collaboration with Carly Rae Jepsen, "Move Me". His uncle is Benoît Delhomme.

Life and career

Early life

Lewis Pierre Simon Delhomme is from Paris, and has two siblings, Camille and Joseph, who are much older than him. His father, Jean-Philippe Delhomme [fr], is an artist who created a series of advertisements for Barneys New York in the 1990s, his uncle, Benoît Delhomme, was a cinematographer who worked on films The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) and Cyclo (1995), their grandfather, Georges Delhomme [fr], helped create Lancôme and spent 29 years with the firm, and Lewis' mother, Sophie-Anne, spent time as the artistic director of Courrier International. Growing up, he wanted to be a perfumer, but found it too mathematical, and spent much of his childhood on Sophie-Anne's phone, which contained a number of video games, including a rudimentary digital audio workstation. He then spent a period in New York, at which, aged eleven, he learned to play the drums; upon his return to Paris, he became the drummer for a band, the Jools, before buying himself a keyboard the following year. He then began composing works on Sophie-Anne's iPad using GarageBand, and his first EP, the Bandcamp-exclusive Disconsolate, was produced using the software.

Career

Delhomme adopted the Lewis OfMan moniker around 2014; SoundCloud had asked him what his artist name was, and he remembered that his brother had played a soccer video game in which his surname appeared in Spanish as "Del Hombre", prompting him to mention in passing that its English translation was "Of Man". That year, he released his second EP, Yo Bene, and later that year, he produced Vendredi sur Mer's debut album Marée Basse. In 2021, he released another EP, Dancy Party, and the following year he released "Misbehave", a collaboration with Coco & Clair Clair, which Billboard likened to a version of Kesha's "Tik Tok" shot in the Emily in Paris universe; the song appeared on Delhomme's album Sonic Poems, which was released the same day and was co-produced with Tim Goldsworthy, and contained eighteen voice notes. He then released the single "Nails Matching My Fit" featuring Shanae, and in July 2022, he released "Move Me", a collaboration with Carly Rae Jepsen, who had discovered Delhomme in September 2020 after a friend sent her a playlist; in an October 2022 interview with Paper, Delhomme stated that he wrote the song while living in Florence after spending a "special night" with someone, and that he wrote the track the day before a session with Jepsen. In February 2023, Delhomme supported Jepsen on several shows on her The So Nice Tour.

In October 2022, he released a remix of Superorganism's "On & On", which later appeared on World Wide Pop – Reeeemix!, a remix album based on the band's World Wide Pop. In June 2023, Delhomme released "Highway", a collaboration with Empress Of, alongside a music video shot in Los Angeles and directed by Écoute Chérie, Delhomme's visual collaborator. The song came about after Delhomme met Empress Of in Los Angeles, set up a session with her, and used it to burn off a demo he had started while on holiday in Greece while listening to the psychedelic rock he was listening to as a teenager and 1970s Brazilian music such as Jorge Ben and Quarteto em Cy. In November 2023, he released "Hey Lou", which Delhomme had also written in Greece, and which was a collaboration with Parisian singer Camille Jansen, with whom Delhomme had previously worked on her Louise EP in 2019; the song sampled a choir, as Delhomme was listening to Leonard Cohen's "So Long, Marianne" and Death of a Ladies' Man at the time, and was released alongside a music video shot by Pierre Auroux at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.

Artistry

Writing in June 2023, Rachel Brodsky of Stereogum described his music as synth-pop. In an April 2017 interview with W, he stated that he was "really inspired" by Frank Ocean, Ennio Morricone, Lee Fields, and Jamie xx, further elaborating that:

"Frank Ocean is the greatest artist I ever known, his way to create is incredible, all the contrasts and mysteries you can find in his music are very interesting, I really love his album Blonde and ever more the video album Endless, which is for me an incredible performance of talent and standards exit. Ennio Morricone, with his melodies, his choice of chords and sounds which are perfect, guides me a lot. Lee Fields have a special mood in his songs that I love, a really good energy that gladdens what you are doing at the moment you are listening to it. Finally, Jamie XX, because I feel in his music a huge part of spontaneity and sincerity, just groove and sounds experiment, I love that, he is not following a movement or something he really has his sound, and this is the artist goal for me." [sic]

Discography

Studio albums

• Sonic Poems (2022)
• Cristal Medium Blue (2024)

EPs

• Disconsolate (2014)
• Yo Bene (2017)
• Dancy Party (2021)

Singles

As lead artist

Remixes