Tag: soulwax

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Topical Dancer by Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupul

Charlotte and Bolis look very happy in this picture and so they should because they have just released a stunning debut album. They also look happy because that also happens to be how they naturally are. Chock full of positive vibes that pour out of them and into any audience they perform to. This shot was taken at the record launch in-store gig at Rough Trade East on Saturday where they played to a devoted and joyous crowd. It was the best buzz for a gig inside a shop I had ever been to. Charlotte thanked us ‘for our energy’ but really they were the ones generating the electric atmosphere which has become a hallmark of their gigs.

these other shots were taken at previous gigs over the years.

I have watched their trajectory since Charlotte’s first release in 2017 (they only officially recently became a duet but they always have been really) and it has been great to watch them grow as both performers and songwriters. Just before the pandemic I saw them at Oslo in Hackney and they were absolutely on fire and it felt like such a shame as they were just getting to that point when they felt like they were gonna blow up and then everything just stopped.

Obviously this happened to everyone but natural momentum is very hard to build as a new music act and even harder to keep as there is often a limited window of opportunity when you are ‘hot’ and can break through. I shouldn’t have worried. Charlotte and Bolis have come back in full force and have lost none of their infectious enthusiasm. And much more to the point, they used the downtime of lockdown extremely productively by making this superb album.

Firstly there isn’t a duff track on it. Every single one is a winner which is very rare these days. Each one tells its own story, each one has its own character and yet all somehow work together to make a truly satisfying whole. It feels like they have created a complete world and one which is uniquely their own. The music sounds so fresh and not quite pinnable to one genre. It’s pop and it’s also electronic (so I guess you could call it ‘poptronic’ which isn’t a thing but sorta making it a thing).

The hooks and melodies in each track are dynamite and they weave in all these contrasting elements, splices of R’N’B, house and techno that all somehow fuse together beautifully. And yet it is very much it’s own thing and has a genuinely unique feel and really doesn’t sound like anyone else I know. The production is in a class of its own and sounds better fully cranked up (which I recommend) than anything I have played on my stereo at home before but as the album is produced by Soulwax for their own Deewee label that does obviously makes sense. But what gives the record its charm and character are the lyrics which are personal. pertinent, poignant and just proper funny.

Tracks like ‘Esperanto’ and ‘Blenda’ exposes the racism they have received over the years whilst ‘It hit me’ deals with unwanted sexual attention growing up. But it is all done with a sharp wit and a humour that both disarms and then delivers in an infinitely more effective way than being too serious or preachy.

“Siri, can you tell me where I belong?”

In that one single line they brilliantly highlight the ridiculousness of trying to work out where you identify with if you are from one background but grew up somewhere else.

“I look like them but not to them/I sound like you but not to you”

They also downright take the piss. ‘Ceci n’est pas un cliche’ is a compilation of all the trite and generic statements you get in dance tracks.

I throw my hands up in the air/And I wave em like I just dont’ care.

It’s actually way too good to be a pisstake and has one of the most killer basslines ever. It makes my hair stand on end and generates such a dopamine hit I actually have to start the album at this track cos I can’t wait for it to come on.

The other track that takes the absolute piss is ‘Thank you’ which shines a very humorous light on all the bullshit advise and ‘constructive’ comments that have been thrust upon them along the way..but it is all done with a playfulness and warmth (which runs through all their work) that stops it being too catty.

Yes, I prefer my first Ep too!/Uhh, maybe I should make it less complex

And you discovered me right?/You’re the Columbus to my America.

I think it’s important to state at this stage that I am not really a lyric man. I can listen to a song a million times and still have no clue what they are saying and when you do finally work out what they are singing it is generally a deep disappointment . I actually lay on the sofa when this record first arrived and read the lyrics on the cover as I listened to it. I haven’t done that since I was a teenager. I should probably point out that they sing in both English and French so you might need google translate at the ready.

This album should get a ton of attention and acclaim and reckon it deserves a Mercury nomination at the very least. And hopefully it will sell by the bucketload. It is at this point that I should state that this is not an endorsment. I am not on the payroll, just a fan.

But I would like to say Topical dancer is now available in all good record shops and a bunch of other places:

http://deeweestudio.com/charlotteborisig

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Wot I did in my summer holidays Part 4

Lost Village

 

 

I was only at Lost Village for one night but also thought it was a great lil festival, great crowd, perfect size, good vibes. Like Houghton, it was a small boutiquey event with a focus on delivering an enjoyable hassle free experience. Had been a bit gutted about not making Glasto this year but having been to a few smaller festivals this summer instead rather than one big monster event I have come to realise that you get most of the fun you woulda and not that much aggro. Whenever I go to Glastonbury I generally miss most of the bands on the line-up anyway so its not like being at a smaller event is much different. Generally speaking you get wasted and dance in a field to amplified music with like-minded people. All components need to be of top quality for maximum enjoyment but there is not necessarily an increase in pleasure the bigger the festival. Often the opposite…

Why smaller festivals work is that it is much easier to mingle and interact with the other punters which is half the fun and if you lose the people you are with, it isn’t insanely hard to find them again. This is a big bonus. The people at Lost Village were great and very friendly and laid back and definitely up for the craic. (irish speak for ‘avin it large). Not that I am done with big festivals completely, I just really enjoyed all the little ‘uns I did this year…and weirdly I did not miss hiking in the mud for an hour only to arrive for the last song of the act I had traipsed halfway across site to see…

All the photographs above are of crowds joyfully rocking out to the Dewaele brothers, first as Soulwax and then as 2manydjs.

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Me and my camera in someone else’s town, my barcelona, my sonar festival

to see the full Sonar Gallery please click here

Sonar is a gi-normous beast of an electronic music festival that takes place predominantly in an insanely large aircraft hangar on the outskirts of Barcelona. It has grown and grown since I was first there in 2006 and it was pretty massive then. It has built on its great rep and now attracts tons of thousands of dance music aficionados & partygoers from all over the world. As its name and success have grown it has inevitably attracted a more mainstream audience, especially a lot of Brit blokes and birds that might once have gone to Megaluf and Ibiza now also come here too for a bit of sunshine raving.

It has over time become a very well-oiled machine and together with its vastness and corporate tie-ins has resulted in the loss of some of its coolness. Everything is now contained within the area 51 style location and all the satellite parties around it (anti-sonar etc) have been shut down. Its still a magnificent weekend with a fantastic line-up showcasing the best dance music around and Barcelona as a festival destination is second to none. Disco nights  and beach/pool side days are a glorious combination.

I will undoubtedly be there again, even if its just to see our friend Mary who will seemingly only be met on this weekend at this festival which she has been attending to for a whopping 13 years in a row….as darth would say, impressive, most impressive.

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Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

This is Victoria Smith, one of the three drummers in Soulwax. She is an incredible drummer and as you can see has the best drummer faces in the business.

If you wish to see the full gallery of Soulwax from their gig at Meltdown, please click here

 

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Me and my camera on tour with Soulwax

to see the full gallery please click here

Soulwax are back after a hiatus of 12 years no less & they have returned all guns & drums blazing with both a magnificent album and a jaw-dropping live show. It is very rare for a band to come back after such a long period and not be remerging into the limelight for either the cash and/or to take a trip on the nostalgia train. It is even rarer for them to arrive back with new material this good. You know when you go back to see a fav band live after they’ve been away a long time, you normally have to ‘endure’ the underwhelming new tunes and wait for the old classics to be performed? This is most definitely not one of those occasions. Not even close.

But the reason Soulwax’s latest incarnation is so spot on is probably because the reality is that the Dewaele brothers have never really been away. They have instead been continuously evolving through a variety of different mediums. In the last decade or so they’ve been producing & presenting incredibly innovative and amazing sound & vision experiences in a variety of different guises and formats. Whether it was as the sound system Despacio, the 24hr audio/visual app Radio Soulwax, creating 15 fictional bands for the soundtrack Belgica, launching their own Deewee label and studio or jetting round the world playing to thousands of fans as 2manydjs they have been pretty flat out. And now they are back with a new version of their band Soulwax, featuring themselves, original band member Stefaan Van Leuven, Laima layton (mixhell)  and no less than three drummers, Blake Davies, Victoria Smith and Iggor Cavilera from Sepultura.

The album ‘From Deewee’ is an epic voyage with a beautiful arc taking you on the most satisfying and mesmeric journey through a world of plush analogue synths and pounding beats, guided by the velvet vocals of Stephen Dewaele who draws you in and brings a human touch to this machine world. This is not cold electronic music. It is warm and emotional and wraps around you like a disco duvet. This is primarily because it is performed by people on instruments together in a room not on a computer with the flick of a mouse. In some ways it has a retro feel because of the instruments used and the way it was recorded but it has a very modern sound and sensibility and makes every system it plays on sound better than it should.

The album was in fact recorded in a single take in their Deewee studio in Gent and you can feel and hear the combined energy captured on the record. We live in a world of presets where we are essentially listening to the same drum beats over and over again and when we hear, as in this instant, something different, something real and organic and original and live, your ears naturally prick up. To hear non-computer generated electronic dance music is a rare and unusual beast in this day and age and Soulwax deliver this unique experience with extreme skill and also love. It is truly joyful. Musicians and instruments in a room together – who’d have thought it? (to get a glimpse into the making of the album check out this great trailer shot by Kurt Augustyns here )

For the live show they pretty much took the whole set-up from their studio and re-created it in entirety on tour. The amount of equipment on stage is quite staggering and not only looks highly impressive (resembling more a set from a 50s sci-fi b movie than a gig set-up) it creates a depth and quality of sound far superior to anything you would normally hear at a music show. As a live sonic experience it is breathtaking and you are utterly transported from start to finish. The crowd at all the gigs I attended veered from mesmerised to joyous to bat shit crazy and back again. Older tunes such as Miserable Girl, E talking and NY excuse got ’em going wild yet delivered due to the pulsating build up of the new tracks. In fact, its the seamless blend of the old and new that works quite so well as they enhance each other rather than clash, no mean feat considering the time gap between them. Yet for me, it is really the incendary performance of the new songs that lift you up and into the stratosphere. They just blow you away and have an even greater impact than on the record.

The new Soulwax feel like they are very much just getting started and it looks like there is a lot more to come. It will also be fascinating to see where they take this and it will definitely be a journey worth going on. Electronic music always needs a kick up the arse every now and again to stop it drifting into repetitive behaviour and somehow the Dewaele brothers are always there to do the kicking.

These photographs were taken in Paris, Brixton and Brussels and each time I saw them perform they got better and better. By the last gig of the tour on their home turf in Belgium they took the proverbial roof off. All the human members had synched up to become a machine in their own right, locked in to each other and meticulously jamming the shit out of every number. It is deeply satisfying to watch the 3 drummers in action as you seem them work seamlessly together yet with their own inimitable style and delivery. Going back to seeing bands with one drummer will probably now seem a bit lame by comparison and in  fact gigs as a whole are going to seem a tad dull in contrast to this captivating creation.

You can listen to ‘From Deewee’ here on Spotify and Soulwax have just announced they are performing at Meltdown on June 10th in London. If you can get a ticket, get one.

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Me and my camera on tour with Soulwax

 

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Me and my camera on tour with Soulwax

 

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Me and my camera on tour with Soulwax

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DESPACIO

Despacio is a custom built sound system devised by James Murphy (lcd soundsystem) which he, David and Stephen Dewaele (2manydjs) dj’ed from over the course of three nights in July in the New Century Hall as part of the Manchester International Festival.

What was it like?

It was fucking incredible is what it was. Off the friggin chart. Not like anything I have ever experienced before. In a world of repetition this was categorically something different. I have been to a million clubs and gigs and soundsystems before and nothing even comes close. It is a true evolution of sound. Sound guys are always banging on about perfect sound and what it would take to do it but rather than just being pub chat, someone actually went and did it. Optimum sound. In the flesh. And it was a truly beautiful thing. And it was a thing. For the first time ever I realised that sound was indeed a physical entity. It was like meeting an alien from another planet. I’m an atheist but its the closest thing I have ever had to a religious experience.

First time I walked out onto the floor, before I’d even been able to register the magnitude of what I was hearing, I saw the smiles on people’s faces. They were in awe, raptured, they just looked deliriously happy. I always had this notion that I had only ever heard bad sound but couldn’t prove it. Until now. When I heard the Despacio sound system I knew I’d been right all along.

Weirdly the first thing I noticed was the air around me, it just felt different. It felt clean. Empty. It was because the sound waves were all in sync. Everything flowed in perfect harmony. Normally in clubs you feel like you’re literally being hit by the sound, bombarded from all sides. And no matter how big or powerful the system is there is always distortion. There was none. At all. Total clarity. It was jaw­dropping. Immense power. Total clarity. It was out of this world. The nuts thing was that you could talk normally without raising your voice. It was seriously loud but at a perfect level. I still don’t know how that works. Even when you walked right up to a speaker it was still the same. I was spinning out.

I am a lower rung dj and live in a world of bad sound and to hear this optimum experience made me overwhelmed with emotion and even a little teary. It was like meeting sound for the first time. And thanks to the selections and exquisite mixing from James Murphy and 2manydjs I had the most luscious music wrapping around me like a duvet, enveloping me, making me feel warm and gooey all over. I have always been a massive fan of the glory days of disco from the likes of Larry Levan and the Paradise Garage and had read how he used to spend hours perfecting the sound before he would let anyone in and then finally he would treat the crowd to hours of seamless dance grooves. I always lamented the fact that I would never live to see something like that. But I was wrong. Here I was in that experience but it was so much better. Levan never had tech like this. He’d have killed his gran for this shit.

Despacio means slow…gradual…and as I looked around the crowd were lovin these laid back tunes. Shuffling around in a chilled back bliss. It felt right for these times. Everyone’s a little bit over the doof doof of hard hittin bpm blitzes. This was something way cooler. 2manydjs and James Murphy played spectacular music over the course of the two nights I was there. The friday was a bit more laid back with just a glorious groove throughout the night. On the Saturday, the last night of the festival, they cranked it up some more and started to push this state-­of-­the-­art system, although not to its full capabilities. This baby was capable of a whole lot more but they were restricted to a db of 100. This is possibly because heads would have imploded if it had gone full welly. Most systems are maxed out on the night, pushed to the limit. This monster was in 2nd gear and had a bigger punch than anything I had ever heard. But never even a smidgen of distortion. Total clarity all the way.

There were many people involved in the construction of the Despacio sound system and they were the sound equivalent of a Formula 1 team, working together to create the ultimate fusion of technology and performance with the best drivers in the business. And on the Saturday, having got used to their “drive”, James, David and Stephen put their foot on the floor and delivered a powerhouse set of the highest magnitude.

If you stood dead centre of the floor you felt the bass as if it had got inside you and taken over your central nervous system, filling your veins and arteries where organic tissue once was. You might have felt bass at other clubs but that would be the equivalent of an arse pinch compared to this all-consuming possession. It was insanely intense and completely overpowering. And I didn’t want to leave.

I actually found it very difficult to leave the floor. Why would I? This would be over soon and I would have to return to dull normality. I literally had to be dragged away. The only way I was enticed was by the prospect of meeting the men behind the machine.

I got taken backstage and first met John Klett, the designer that had taken James Murphy’s concepts and transformed them into the reality I had just experienced. It was very clear within moments that this wasn’t just some sound guy. He was clearly a mad brilliant scientist who had taken the idea of optimum sound to its ultimate conclusion.

He explained to me that there were different sound experiences depending on where you were standing on the floor. Go to the centre, walk four tiles and a third forward and you will hit the “front egg”. At that point certain speaker pathways converge creating something unique. I didn’t need encouraging to go back on the floor. I was there in a second. It truly felt different to what I had experienced elsewhere. My body and brain responded with sensory ecstasy.

There was also a “back egg” which I also checked out. It had less of a punch but even more clarity. John Klett then told me there were even “easter egg” sound spots that were hidden around the floor that produced something else entirely but wouldn’t tell me where they were. I mean, who does this shit? It was insane. I mentioned to him about the air feeling different around me and he said I was basically “a bag of water” and went on to explain how the molecular structure of the human anatomy had been taken into account in the design. In a normal club, they just crank it up and make your ears bleed. And now I know why. They had failed to take into account I was a bag of water. Thank God someone had…the results were awesome!

I then was introduced to the guys at Mcintosh who had supplied the stunningly beautiful, phenomenally powerful and mind­bendingly expensive amps that were the engine of the beasts. They had had the clarity and foresight to understand the potential of Despacio when most other companies had passed on it and they were all the happier for it. They had got on board the project with a giant leap of faith fuelled by a total belief in their gear, the concept and the execution. As I chatted to them they were feeling pretty smug about it as they had been proved correct. And some. To say that it exceeded everyone’s expectations was a massive understatement. They were overjoyed that their amps were getting an opportunity to unleash their true potential and deliver the power and perfection they were capable of.

The Mcintosh amps are a thing of beauty to look at as well as to hear, as are the speaker stacks themselves. The entire room was in fact a masterclass in purity and aesthetics. If Kubrick had built a niteclub it might have looked something like this. Just one massive black and white tiled floor surrounded by the Stone Henge of sound systems. And that was it. There was nothing else in the room. No bar, no bullshit. Just a dancefloor and some glorious speaker stacks.

Throughout the night you would often find people just staring at the stacks, marvelling at their structure and components. PBS Audio were the company responsible for building the actual casings for the system and had worked tirelessly over many weeks doing insane hours to get them complete in time. They were a team of young lads who had never done anything like this before but they had seriously stepped up to the challenge. I met them on the dancefloor and they were all stood their with massive grins that only come from people with a true sense of accomplishment and a marvel at what they had been a part of. Chris Walker who had been a driving force in the orchestration of the entire event glided around the floor all night, beaming from ear to ear, knowing that his work had all been worthwhile.

I don’t think there was anyone there, whether they were a part in the construction or a part of the crowd that did not feel touched by the experience. I certainly had and everyone I spoke to had. On many occasions throughout the two nights I was there I had caught the eye of those around me and just gone..what is this thing like? its out of control. Everyone just shook their head in agreement, slightly slack jawed by the enormity of what they were feeling.

The overall vibe of the place was just amazing. Such an incredible positive mood throughout each night. Mancunians are a lovely friendly bunch anyway but the joyous experience had made everyone warm and mushy. This was mostly thanks largely to the incredible array of uplifting soul soaring tunes that James murphy & 2manydjs played over the course of their 3 night run, all on vinyl. As it should be. It was old skool attitude delivered with hi­-end tech – a killer combination.

Even though they were the stars of the show they had made a point of stating that it was not about them, it was all about the music and James Murphy on each night actually made an announcement over the mic asking people to stay away from the booth and not take photos. And just to get out into the middle of the floor, enjoy the music and live in the moment. This was the declaration of the anti-­ego djs. Stop staring, start dancing.

And people did exactly that. For one night they forgot about their facebook pages and their youtube uploads and revelled in this glorious moment. They played Talking Head’s Naive Melody as the last track on the last night and as I gazed at the joy around me I couldn’t remember a moment on earth when I had felt happier.

Thank you to the Manchester International Festival for commissioning this extraordinary event and to everyone involved for giving me and all present an experience they will never forget. And I will implore anyone who is reading this…do whatever you can to get to a Despacio event. Maime and murder if you have to. It will be worth it. You have my word.

I would like to say a special thank you to karey fisher who not only organised the whole thing but is the reason I was there. I am her plus one and it gets me to the coolest things on the planet.

 

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This is from a series of photographs I took at Soulwaxmas at Brixton Academy on Dec 21st. I was down in the pit and it was mental! To see full gallery click on picture.