Discover Me Blind, the new video from Littlebig6ster, exclusively on Blues Actu

Blues Actu invites you to discover, exclusively one day before its official release, Me Blind, the first single and video from Mue, the new album by Littlebig6ster, due out on October 16, 2026. Born as the solo project of Virginie Pinon before becoming a true musical clan, the Angers-based quintet continues its journey with a record captured in live takes at the Tostaky studios of Le Chabada in Angers.

For Blues Actu, Virginie Pinon looks back on this transformation that has only just begun…

🎥 Watch the exclusive premiere of the Me Blind video

🎙️ Littlebig6ster interviewed by Cédric Vernet

Originally, Little6ster was a solo project. Ten years later, Littlebig6ster works as a genuine five-piece collective. Does Mue also tell the story of that transformation?

Yes, completely. The backbone of the songs still comes from my lyrics, melodies and compositions. It is the original imprint, the artistic signature of the project since its beginnings. With two major exceptions: Modern Tribe and Alien, which were co-written with Nicolas. Those collaborations happened naturally, carried by the bonds and complicity that have developed over the years.

On the other hand, where the evolution is most obvious is in what happens after the song is born. Once the skeleton has been defined, Nicolas and I first work on the structure, dynamics and direction of the arrangements. Then, when the song arrives in rehearsal, everyone injects their own musical language, personality and energy into it.

Littlebig6ster was not built around five pens writing together, but around a unique way of bringing songs to life collectively. The band becomes a clan through interpretation, arrangements and collective energy.

Mue tells precisely that story: the story of an intimate project that, through encounters over time, has metamorphosed into a human and musical adventure carried by two leaders moving forward in step.

The word “mue” suggests both a transformation and the shedding of an old skin. What did you leave behind while writing this album?

I think we left behind the invisible barriers and limits we imposed on ourselves without realizing it. For a long time, people tried to lock us into boxes: were we a blues, rock, soul or folk band? With Mue, we reject labels. Blues remains our mother tongue, our roots, but we wanted to let it travel freely, without a passport.

A transformation is not a denial. You do not throw away what you have been. You keep what is essential, the DNA, and you let go of the unnecessary, what weighs you down and prevents you from moving forward. This album is exactly about that shedding.

Five members of a band standing on a paved floor, dressed in black and colorful clothes, some wearing sunglasses, with a singer in the middle wearing a fur hat. — (c) Sarah Cross

Your music has often been described as a mix of roots blues, soul and post-hippie rock. With Mue, did you want to broaden your musical territory even further?

We never ask ourselves whether we should be modern or vintage. We simply try to be sincere.

Blues has never been museum music, frozen in time. It is a living music, one that travels and absorbs the dust of the roads it crosses. That is what keeps it alive. On Mue, we allowed each song to claim its own color. Some tracks are very rootsy, others explore much more tribal rhythms, and others take more contemporary paths. But the anchor remains the same: telling something true, without cheating.

You recorded the nine tracks in live takes at the Tostaky studio of Le Chabada. At a time when almost every note can be corrected, what does an imperfect but living take bring, in your view, that a perfect take can never capture?

Without a doubt. The stage is our natural element, the place where the songs breathe at full capacity. When five musicians play together, connected in the same room, something happens that no software will ever be able to simulate or manufacture. There is tension, listening, a look, and sometimes even happy accidents that transfigure a song.

We wanted to capture that truth of the moment. Mue does not seek the clinical perfection of the studio; it seeks the living, the energy. The live takes allowed us to seal onto tape that raw energy which has characterized Littlebig6ster since day one.

“In this song, blindness is not a loss of control imposed from outside; it is a willing surrender.”

The first excerpt, Me Blind, speaks of blindness, while its video seems instead to seek a form of revelation. How did that contradiction come about?

That contradiction is precisely what interested me. Me Blind is probably the song most viscerally connected to our blues roots. As I was writing it, I had in mind the way Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters spoke about love, desire and obsession; with very few words, but with tremendous force. An elemental force.

In this song, blindness is not a loss of control imposed from outside; it is a willing surrender. The character agrees to let go, to stop trying to control everything in order to let desire and the impulse of life pass fully through them. It is an invitation to stop trying to tame everything and to accept being moved by something greater than oneself.

In the video for Me Blind, we come across repurposed archive footage, masked figures and scenes of collective trance. Why does this idea of ritual come back so often in Littlebig6ster’s universe?

I understand that it may evoke mystical or esoteric imagery, but the approach lies elsewhere. If the vocabulary of ritual, trance or transformation is so present, it is because it offers powerful metaphors to speak about the intimate mutations of human beings. What interests me above all are life trajectories and human experiences.

Each song on the album explores one of these facets. Running Wild speaks of pure freedom. Toy deals with emancipation. Fight 2 B addresses resistance. Modern Tribe celebrates collective strength and brotherhood. Alien transforms absence into light in order to keep loving despite distance. Step Aside evokes the courage needed to answer an inner call.

All these themes are deeply rooted in reality. For us, ritual is not a belief or a dogma: it is a visual and sonic key to symbolize the tipping points when an individual changes skin. And music is undoubtedly one of the most powerful triggers of trances and transformations. Like rites of passage from one state to another…

The cigar box guitar still occupies a central place in your sound. What does this instrument still allow you to express that a more conventional guitar would not?

Its simplicity, precisely. The cigar box guitar tells the entire history and philosophy of blues on its own: a story of resilience, resourcefulness, necessity and pure creativity.

When I play this instrument, the relationship is immediate, physical. It allows no pretense. It is raw, imperfect, rough, sometimes even unpredictable. I love its grain, its wild character and its ability to instantly bring the music back to its skeleton, to the essential. It is an instrument that rejects unnecessary sophistication and keeps its feet anchored in the dust.

After more than 350 concerts and several national distinctions, do you feel that Mue is finally the record that most closely resembles what audiences discover on stage?

I sincerely think so. Our previous records laid the foundations of our universe, but Mue captures much more faithfully what happens when the clan gathers on stage. There is much more spontaneous interaction, air, contrast and dynamics in this recording.

The choice of live takes restores that constant dialogue, that play of glances and responses between us. Today, someone who discovers us in concert and listens to Mue immediately afterwards will find exactly the same truth, the same sonic signature.

Five members of a band posing together, wearing various clothes, with a woman in the center wearing a lion fur hat. — (c) Sarah Cross

You often speak of the band as a “clan.” In an era when many projects revolve around a leader, what does that word say about your way of making music together?

The word “clan” is sometimes misinterpreted. It does not mean a uniform writing process. As I explained, the original source springs from my personal universe, with the exception of the co-compositions with Nicolas on Modern Tribe and Alien. Everything is already there: the groove, the bass, the movements. It is in the crucial stage of the arrangements that the clan takes on its full meaning.

With Nicolas, we structure and direct the musical trajectory of the songs: we look for tensions, textures, the dialogue between guitars and harmonica, the silences. Everything that will give the song relief. Then, in the studio and in rehearsal, everyone brings their own identity: Cyril unfolds his percussive universe and tribal trance, Gilles lays down the bass foundation that he makes his own, Vincent and Jérémy propel the whole thing with the power and finesse of their respective drumming.

That is the precise moment when the song changes skin. It escapes me, it no longer belongs to me: it becomes an entity of its own, belonging to Littlebig6ster. That is the clan: strong, whole individuals channeling their energy to serve a common vision.

“Transformation is not a fixed state; it is a movement.”

The video for Me Blind ends with the idea that “the transformation has begun.” Should this album be seen as the culmination of ten years of existence or as the starting point for a new adventure?

Both, I would say. In Mue, you find all the foundations that built us: blues, the instinct for freedom, the love of live performance, the roughness of the cigar box and that wild energy that clings to us.

But at the same time, this album confirms a maturity. Today we fully embrace our hybrid identity, our contrasts and our singularities, without trying to please or fit into the mold.

Mue was conceived as a concept album, a true initiatory journey in which each song is a stage of the voyage. We set off with the freedom of Running Wild, surrender in Me Blind, find our place in the collective with Modern Tribe, struggle in Fight 2 B, listen to our inner call with Step Aside, emancipate ourselves in Toy, make peace with absence through Alien, all the way to Soul’s Sacrifice and the cover of Heavy Soul, which complete the ritual.

Transformation is not a fixed state; it is a movement. It has only just begun, and this album is its first manifesto.