Dop Talk

Music

Damien Vandesande, Clement Aichelbaum and Jonathan Illel make up dOP, the French trio on a mission to inject some much needed energy back into dance music. Kicking against a scene largely distinguished by acts confusing pressing space bar with having a stage show, dOP are multi instrumentalist wild men, playing countless rumbunctious live shows week in, week out, and working on countless projects that start from an electronic base and working outwards towards the cosmos. We caught up with Damian and Jonathan to find out the crucial dOP lowdown: what their favourite food is, who they'd have in a supergroup, and whether or not they'd have balls if they were a cat.

Where are you from, where are you now?

Damian: From Paris 13eme, in Malakoff with family.
Jonathan: Paris / Berlin.

What’s your favourite food?

D My grandmother’s cooking
J: My homemade pasta tomato sauce garlic basilicum cheese and one Coca Cola.

What do you wish you could cook but have never tried.

D: Pork gum.
J Harissa.

What’s been your biggest failure in the kitchen?

D: Making some borsch, traditional soup from the east.
J: La fondue.

What’s your favourite motorbike?

D: A German side car.
J: My scooter, a Typhoon.

Where’s the strangest place you’ve ridden a motorbike?

D: I don't drive, I like to be behind my wife in India.
J: In some desert in Tunisia.

What are you doing for Ebola?

D: Nothing unfortunately.

What’s your favourite flea market?

D: Arena Berlin.
J: Porte de Montreuil.

New Drugs vs Old Drugs – what are the best new ones, what are the classics?

D: I’m a young daddy so I'm not following the news. I’m more classic.
J : Less sensuality, more individuals experience.

Do you think that Ketamine and Mephodrone have changed dance floors? Have they broken down any unity that ecstasy united them with?

D: You think there's a drug who bring unity on the dance floor? And yes, those drugs are not really made for dancing.

Who’s your favourite fake Mexican?

D: Clement.
J: Bruno from Half Baked.

What was the first electronic record you ever heard? How did it make you feel?

D: First one I really loved was from Krause duo, really inspired me.
J: Jamie Little, it was mind blowing.

If your sound was a visual thing, what would it look like?

D: A great movie.
J: A movie by Wes Anderson.

What’s your favourite place on Earth?

D: To be near my wife and my daughter… and right after in a studio with Jo and Clem.
J: I can find joy everywhere.

If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

D: Astronaut, definitely.
J: Having a restaurant on the beach… but life is long…

How do you relax?

D: I smoke a big joint.

It's peak time at a party, you are lost in the music, you shut your eyes; what do you see?

D: A bottle of alcohol.

Strangest Display of Affection from a Fan?

J: Way too cool to say it.

What’s been your worst job?

D: Working at a supermarket.
J: Parking guard.

What was the music of your teenage rebellion?

D: Free jazz.
J: Like half of the planet, Nirvana and Cypress Hill, Body Count…

What’s the best piece of music you’ve ever heard?

D: Bach's Cello Concerto in D Minor.
J: The most recent was ’I Never Learnt to Share’ by James Blake.

If you were a cat, what type would you be?

D: A male with all his genitals.

If you had to send one record into space, to introduce extra terrestrials to human music, what record would you choose?

D: A Love Supreme from Coltrane, so that they feel they are welcome.

You can choose four members of a band to form a supergroup – who would be in it and what instruments would they be on?

D: Paul McCartney – Bass
Thelenious Monk – Piano
Elvin Jones – Drums
Bob Marley – Chant
Jonny Lee Hooker – Guitar
Gil Evans – Arrangement
Wayne Shorter – Saxophones
Freddy Hubbard – Trumpet
Jay Jay Jonson – Trombone

Which figure from throughout history would you most like to meet and what would you ask them if you had only one question?

D: Geronimo. Can I follow you?

What do you think the world will be like in 100 years?

D: A place without me.

What’s your greatest vice?

D: Cannabis.
J: Cunnilingus.

What piece of music makes you cry?

D: Hurt by Johnny Cash.

What’s your guiltiest pleasure?

D: Cannabis.

Complete the sentence: I'm proper techno because…..

D: I can dance for 3 days.
J: Because I’m not.

Are you a kick drum, hi hat or a snare? And why?

D: A hi-hat.

What are you obsessed with at the moment?

D: Work as usual.
J: Cleaning.

What's your answer to everything?

D: I'll call you back.
J: Yes.

Put these descriptions of dOP in order of importance for you:

D: Do it for me please;

Data-oriented parsing
Declaration of Principles, an agreement between Israel and Palestine, also known as the Oslo Accords.
Degree of parallelism
Degree of polarization
Delusions of Parasitosis
Denominazione di Origine Protetta, the Italian equivalent of protected designation of origin
Deoxypyridoxine, an immunosuppressant
Dermo-optical perception
United States Department of Peace, proposed cabinet-level department
Dilution of precision (computer graphics), an algorithmic trick used to handle difficult problems in hidden line removal
Dilution of precision (GPS), a term used in geomatics engineering to describe the geometric strength of satellite configuration
Dioctyl phthalate, alternate name of Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, a PVC plasticizer
Direct object pronouns, a type of grammatical object in some languages
Director of photography
Discrete optimization problem, a type of problem in mathematics
Discrete oriented polytope or polyhedron in computer graphics
Dominican peso, ISO 4217 currency code