Artist Dossier: Mina Tindle (Pauline de Lassus)

Links: minatindle.bandcamp.com · Compass Rosa on Bandcamp · S76 (label) · Magic RPM interview, Nov 2025 · Modzik interview, Nov 2025 · PEOPLE 2026 participants

Bio

• Stage name of Pauline de Lassus Saint-Geniès; vocals, guitar, piano (Compass Rosa credits, Bandcamp, Wikipedia).
• Paris, France (Bandcamp profile).
• Label: S76, Paris (s76records.bandcamp.com); management: Maÿlis Pioux, Melissa Phulpin (Bandcamp credits). Official site minatindle.com currently dead (DNS; see Retrieval).
• Confirmed PEOPLE Festival 2026 participant — seed + the festival’s own participants page, which lists her as “Mina Tindle.”
• Returning alumna: Michelberger Music 2016 (soundcheckcharlie review), PEOPLE 2018 (Loud And Quiet review).

Practice Summary

• French singer-songwriter whose fourth album Compass Rosa was released Nov 14, 2025 on S76 (Bandcamp album page).
• Recorded in a handful of days with her husband Bryce Dessner and a surprise houseguest — Sufjan Stevens, on his first trip out of the US since his illness (Bandcamp credits, Magic RPM).
• Delicate bilingual pop-folk she calls a “capsule de douceur” (Magic RPM).
• An emotional compass where, in place of North, she wrote her grandmother’s name (Magic RPM, Modzik).

Threads they care about

1. The blue compass rose that named the album

On a deserted harbor she saw a compass rose painted in vivid blue — “dessinée à l’encre bleue en bord de mer” (Magic RPM); “peinte en bleu éclatant” on “un port désert” (Modzik).

Compass Rose → her dying grandmother Rosa: “au lieu de mettre le Nord, je pouvais mettre le nom de ma grand-mère. Comme une manière de ne pas la perdre.” It is the one image she describes in her own words, in both interviews, and the room’s visual anchor comes from it. [Confirmed — two independent interviews, original quotes]

2. “L’oiseau chante… Maman chante.”

Her son, hearing a blackbird, said “The bird sings… Mama sings” — the remark that restarted her music after five silent years.

It is the way back into the record, and the Encounter description leans on it — a blackbird starting up outside. [Confirmed — quoted in both Magic RPM and Modzik]

No image: the thread is an anecdote; nothing self-presented depicts it.

3. The pause was a visual practice

Between SISTER and Compass Rosa she painted, wrote and illustrated children’s books (still unpublished), and her way back to music was drawing.

A little animation made for Kate Stables (This Is The Kit) led to her making animated videos for The National’s First Two Pages of Frankenstein and for the Labèque sisters. “Faire des montages pour des clips, c’est un peu comme écrire une chanson.”

For the room this is the drawing side — the illustration desk and the pinned pages. [Pause/books: Confirmed (self-stated Bandcamp bio + both interviews) · video chain: † Magic RPM]

No image: her drawings and animations live on surfaces not reached here (official site DNS-dead; Instagram not attempted).

4. Place-history: she is PEOPLE family, three editions deep

2016 Michelberger Music at Funkhaus: sang in the all-female choir with Lisa Hannigan, Kate Stables, Shara Nova [† soundcheckcharlie]. 2018 PEOPLE: led the Lhasa de Sela tribute (“heart-wrenching… led by Mina Tindle, Emma Broughton and friends, closing with Feist’s devastating ‘Fool’s Gold’” — Loud And Quiet) [†, detailed eyewitness press].

SISTER (2020) released on 37d03d, the PEOPLE collective’s label [Confirmed — album hosted on 37d03d’s own Bandcamp]. Her own words, Oct 2025: “la même bande est toujours là et nous continuons à organiser des événements dans le même esprit.” [Self-stated — Modzik]

5. Bonus unusual reads

She knows every France Gall song by heart and does a perfect imitation (“Je sais très bien l’imiter d’ailleurs”) [Self-stated — Magic RPM]. Melody dictates whether a song comes out in French or English — “comme quand je dessine: crayons de couleur ou peinture, le rendu sera différent” [Self-stated — Magic RPM].

A repaired turntable at home is re-teaching her son how to listen [† Modzik]. Composer Charles Gounod is among her ancestors [† Wikipedia].

Medium & Materials

• Voice, guitar, piano (her credited instruments on Compass Rosa) [Confirmed — Bandcamp credits]
• Songwriting in French and English, melody-led language choice [Self-stated — Magic RPM]
• Painting, drawing (colored pencils vs. paint as distinct registers), children’s-book illustration [Self-stated — Bandcamp bio + Magic RPM + Modzik]
• Animation / video montage (The National, Labèque sisters clips) [† Magic RPM]
• Collaborators on the current record: Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens, Benjamin (Ben) Hofer Lanz, David Chalmin (recording/mix), Quatuor Zaïde strings [Confirmed — Bandcamp credits + Modzik]
• Recording mode: a few days, one place, one energy — at David Chalmin’s Basque-country studio (“un disque cohérent parce qu’il a été enregistré dans un même endroit, avec une même énergie”) [Confirmed; day-count contested, see ledger]

Aesthetic Vocabulary

Her words first.

“Capsule de douceur” · “disque capsule” — hers, in Magic RPM. A small enclosed softness; for the room, few things, each within reach.

“Boussole émotionnelle… rose des vents personnelle” — hers, Magic RPM. The album as a personal compass; the navigational spine under the softness.

“Enveloppant” — hers, Magic RPM. The sound wraps rather than projects.

“Contemplation” / “grands espaces” — life outside the city, hers, Magic RPM. Emptiness that reads as contemplation; this is the room’s negative space.

“La douceur devient une forme de résistance” — Modzik editorial, inferred; not her phrase.

“Incantations, confessions, and serenades” · “a gentle remedy to the world’s upheavals” — self-supplied album text, album about.

Sound materials (not paintable — stays here): sober arrangements; interlaced voices with Sufjan Stevens; guitar/piano beds with string quartet; modular-synth and beat-programming shading; Adrianne Lenker’s Songs as the touchstone for the stripped “capsule” format [Self-stated].

Lyric imagery, hers (album lyrics, Bandcamp): seven seas, islands and archipelagos, pearls collected, a mappemonde of je/tu, “trouver le Nord,” hammock sisters, “ce chemin au parfum de thym.”

Inferred: a Franco-Atlantic double register — French chanson memory (France Gall, Souchon, Brel) under an Anglo indie surface; brightness without naivety; grief carried gently.

Visual Inventory

Objects & Surfaces

• Compass rose hand-painted in vivid blue on a harbor surface [confirmed — both interviews]
• Acoustic guitar [confirmed — credits]
• Upright piano [confirmed — credits; instrument type †def-leaning, piano itself confirmed]
• Illustration desk: colored pencils, paint pots, brushes [confirmed — self-stated]
• Pages of an unpublished children’s book [confirmed — self-stated]
• Repaired turntable, lid open [† — Modzik]
• Compass Rosa blue vinyl LP (“Pressed on blue vinyl!” — her merch note) [confirmed]
• France Gall record [self-stated fandom; the physical record as object = tagged invention]
• Modular synth, small [confirmed — credits; furnish only]
• Blackbird (merle) at a window or sill [confirmed anecdote]
• Hammock [† — lyric-sourced, “soeurs de hamac”]
• Small ink sketch of a compass rose on paper [confirmed — “dessinée à l’encre bleue”]

Materials & Textures

• Vivid ultramarine/bright blue paint and blue ink [confirmed]
• Weathered pale concrete of a quay/harbor [confirmed — the deserted port]
• Paper: illustration sheets, lyric sheets mixing French and English [confirmed]
• Blue vinyl, warm wood of guitar and piano [confirmed]
• Salt air, sea-facing openness [confirmed — Basque coast years]

Spatial Signatures

• A deserted harbor adjoining the space; sea light through a tall opening [confirmed — the port anecdote + six Basque-coast years]
• Capsule intimacy: one room, few elements, everything within reach — recorded “in one place, one energy” [confirmed]
• “Grands espaces” — emptiness that reads as contemplation, not absence [self-stated]
• Cool bright Atlantic daylight, silvery not amber [derived from sourced setting — coastal, blue]

Studio Design Brief

Visual anchor

The vivid-blue compass rose, hand-painted on the pale concrete floor — its North point relabeled ROSA (the relabeling literalizes her stated idea; tagged invention).

Mood

Capsule de douceur — enveloping softness with a navigational spine; gentle but oriented.

Density

Sparse-to-Moderate. She made this record in days, in one room, after five years of silence; the room should feel like that economy — few things, each loved.

Surprise element

The repaired turntable with a France Gall record on the platter and the blue vinyl waiting beside it — the perfect-imitation superfan hiding inside the hushed folk artist.

Negative space

The harbor side of the room — a tall opening onto empty quay and sea, upper third of the space kept open; that emptiness is her “grands espaces.”

Sketch Brief

The content half of a draft-status sketch prompt; the style half lives with the art director and is joined at assembly. Inventory-bound and thread-tied; no texture, palette, or lighting guesses. All of it is a recommendation — the artist and the art director change anything.

In the sketch — ranked, up to four, each naming its thread

1. A compass rose hand-painted in vivid blue on a pale concrete floor, its North point lettered ROSA — thread 1 (the blue compass rose → grandmother Rosa; the ROSA lettering is the Studio Design Brief’s tagged invention).
2. An illustration desk — colored pencils, open paint pots — with a row of children’s-book pages pinned above it — thread 3 (the pause as visual practice).
3. A blue vinyl LP leaning beside a turntable with its lid open — thread 5 (the repaired home turntable, †) and thread 1 (the blue-vinyl pressing, confirmed).
4. An acoustic guitar leaning against a piano — trade objects, sourced (Bandcamp credits).

Left open for the artist — what the sketch deliberately leaves blank

• The walls · what is beyond the tall opening (a harbor, or not) · the second half of the room · what the pinned pages actually show · which language the lyric sheet is in.

Self-stated visual importances — only what they have said matters, with the link

• The compass rose itself — “dessinée à l’encre bleue en bord de mer” (Magic RPM), “peinte en bleu éclatant” on “un port désert” (Modzik) — is the one image she describes in her own words, in both interviews; its blue is hers, not a palette guess.
• “Grands espaces” / contemplation as the feeling of living away from the city (Magic RPM) — stated as a way of living, not as a room preference; carried as negative space, not as a wall decision.

For the art director — their own visual vocabulary, as hints

• “Capsule de douceur” · “boussole émotionnelle… rose des vents personnelle” (Magic RPM) · “crayons de couleur ou peinture, le rendu sera différent” (Magic RPM).

Content prompt — about 45 words, 2–4 objects, no people, no camera

A compass rose hand-painted in vivid blue on a pale concrete floor, its North point lettered ROSA. Near it, a small desk with colored pencils and open paint pots, children’s-book pages pinned above. A blue vinyl record leans beside an open turntable.

Room Descriptions

1. Signature — A compass rose in vivid blue spreads across the pale floor, its North relabeled ROSA. Sea light pours through the tall opening; a guitar leans against the upright piano, one chord still fading. Salt air. Soft as a capsule, steady as a needle.
2. Working — Colored pencils on one side of the desk, wet paint on the other — the medium decides the finish, the way her melodies decide the language. Children’s-book pages pinned in a row above a lyric sheet trading French for English. Paper smell, pencil scratch.
3. Unexpected — A turntable repaired at home, lid open, France Gall spinning — sing along and try to keep up; she knows every word and does a perfect imitation. The blue vinyl waits its turn beside it. Needle-crackle, warm dust bright in the sea light.
4. Atmospheric — Blue hour on a deserted harbor. The room nearly empty: a hammock swaying, the sea murmuring through the open door, ten songs held in the walls like an inner compass. Cool air, and thyme drifting in from a path going south.
5. The Encounter — The piano bench is pushed back, a chord still in the air. On the sill, a small compass rose, ink not yet dry. Outside a blackbird starts up — “the bird sings, Mama sings” — and you know she’s only stepped onto the quay to listen.

Tagged inventions in the above: North relabeled ROSA (1); France Gall record on the platter (3); blue-hour timing and door open to the sea (4); ink-not-dry sketch on the sill and her stepping out (5). All other elements sourced — see inventory and ledger.

Image Prompt Variants

Variant A — Sparse

Objects — 3 (floor compass rose · acoustic guitar · small ink sketch on the sill)

Prompt — A wide room with a pale weathered-concrete floor. Hand-painted off-center on the floor, a large compass rose in vivid ultramarine, brush edges visible, slightly sea-worn. An acoustic guitar leans against the far wall. On the sill of a tall opening onto an empty harbor, one small ink sketch of the same rose. Cool silvery Atlantic daylight enters low through the opening, casting the guitar’s long shadow across the painted rose and leaving the upper third of the room open and empty; the floor recedes to bare concrete at the edges.

Palette — ultramarine, pale gray, silver, warm wood.

Lighting — Low-angle coastal daylight from the single tall opening — bright, cool-white, slightly diffuse, like morning after rain.

Negative space — Upper third fully open; right half of the floor bare.

Variant B — Curated

Objects — 6 (upright piano · guitar · illustration desk with pencils and paint pots · pinned children’s-book pages · turntable with blue vinyl · floor compass rose, smaller)

Prompt — A capsule-sized studio room. An upright piano against one wall, acoustic guitar leaning on its side; opposite, a small desk holding colored pencils in a jar and open paint pots, with a row of children’s-book pages pinned above it. Near the tall harbor-facing window, a turntable with its lid open and a blue vinyl record leaning beside it. A modest blue compass rose is painted on the floorboards between the two walls, linking music side to drawing side. Mid-morning sea light falls in one clear diagonal from the window, cool and bright; the piano top and the center of the floor stay bare.

Palette — ultramarine, cream paper, warm piano wood, sea-gray.

Lighting — One clear diagonal of cool bright daylight from the harbor window; soft shadow elsewhere, no lamps.

Negative space — Center of the floor open; wall above the piano bare; window third empty to the sea.

Variant C — Layered

Objects — 9 in three zones (music zone: upright piano, guitar, small modular synth · drawing zone: desk with pencils and paints, pinned book pages, ink compass-rose sketches · listening zone: repaired turntable, blue vinyl, hammock)

Prompt — A long room in three quiet zones. Nearest: a music corner — upright piano, guitar leaning, one small modular synth on a stool. Middle: a drawing table with colored pencils and paint pots, children’s-book pages pinned above, loose ink sketches of compass roses. Far end, by a wide opening onto a deserted quay: a turntable with a blue vinyl on the platter and a hammock slung across the corner, swaying slightly. The full compass rose is painted large on the floor at the room’s center, its blue arms pointing into each zone. Late-afternoon coastal light comes through the far opening and travels the length of the floor; each zone keeps bare surface around it, and the sea beyond the quay stays empty.

Palette — ultramarine, weathered concrete, paper-white, warm wood, sea-silver.

Lighting — Long low light from the quay-side opening at the far end, cool with a faint warm edge, stretching shadows zone to zone.

Negative space — The quay and sea beyond the opening; bare floor margins around each zone — about a third of the room.

Identity resolution

Case B (person-alias, cleanly resolved). “Mina Tindle” is the stage name of Pauline de Lassus Saint-Geniès — not a band, not a masked project. Evidence from her own newest surface: the Compass Rosa Bandcamp credits read “All songs written by Pauline de Lassus (SACEM)” while the artist page is Mina Tindle; Wikipedia and the Modzik credits block agree. The festival newsletter’s linking of “Pauline De Lassus” → minatindle.bandcamp.com is consistent, not a discrepancy. Convention applied: the room belongs to Mina Tindle’s world — which here is the person’s world, so no traces-only restriction beyond the standard no-people rule. Festival-facing name: Mina Tindle (their participants page uses it).

Source Ledger

Claims

Retrieval

Images

Process self-report

Sources: 10 fetched ok, 2 failed (festival photo page 404; official site DNS-dead — Bandcamp is her live canonical surface). Two independent French long-form interviews (Nov 2025) supplied nearly all self-stated vocabulary; Bandcamp supplied credits, bio, and the blue-vinyl detail; prior-edition place-history verified at eyewitness press for both 2016 and 2018. Threads they care about: 4 strong + a bonus cluster — blue compass rose → grandmother Rosa; the blackbird remark; the visual-practice pause (children’s books → National videos); deep PEOPLE/Funkhaus history (2016 choir, 2018 Lhasa-tribute lead, 37d03d label, her “same gang” quote). No wildcard treatment needed. Contested handled: five vs. six recording days (resolved toward her Bandcamp surface, flagged); Basque residence superseded by recent re-move to a city. Wall-clock: ~12 minutes, no browser escalation needed — plain fetch cleared everything reachable. Skill friction: (1) The festival’s own per-artist photo pages 404 from the participants list — prior-edition photo surfaces would have been ideal for place-history texture; worth noting as a known-dead surface for other PEOPLE 26 dossiers. (2) The upright-piano item shows a small gap in the marker taxonomy: “piano” is confirmed by credits but the upright form factor is my staging choice — neither †def nor invented quite fits a sourced object with an unsourced attribute; I marked it inline. (3) Char-count discipline for room descriptions still requires an external count pass; a stated tolerance (e.g. target 230–270) would make the rule self-enforcing. Retrofit to v4.1, 2026-09-15: format pass only — links, bullets, images (3 pulled), Sketch Brief; research unchanged. Reshaped to v4.2, 2026-09-15: reading order and paragraphing only.