Bicep Interview

You’re set to make your debut at We love this Sunday in Ibiza, having already played for them on their Easter showcase at MOS. Is this your first time on the island djing, or have you played before? Whats your feeling behind the club and the island in itself?

 Yea this is our debut as bicep on the island but i(andy) have been lucky enough to dj on the island a few times before for the we love guys. In our opinion its head and shoulders above the other nights on the island and has been at the forefront of rectifying that misconception of Ibiza. You just need to look at the lineups for the last 10 years and you can see it has always tried to push the Ibiza crowd as far as physically possible. The difference with We Love and the other promoters on the island is that they run the party in a genuine way, booking people like grace jones and caribou for probably more of their own enjoyment rather than big name bookings and making a quick buck.

Your blog has become a one stop shop for those looking for a particular brand of music, firmly linked to the style of your DJ sets and productions. How crucial do you feel this has been in establishing you as DJs?

In terms of establishing us it has certainly helped raise awareness, but kind of goes hand in had with what we do. Its really hard to get djs/promoters to listen to your mix if you are just starting out and the blog is kinda like one big long dj mix. From the start we never intended to use the blog as a sales tool to get gigs, if that had been the case we would have failed a long time ago. Me and matt have a combination of 25 years of playing vinyl between us, so both we and the blog have a lot more to give.

It is essential a place we still get excited to post new and old tracks and see what people think. The joy of having such a massive and intelligent audience just adds to the excitement.

What makes for a good blog?

Genuine love for what you post, no favors for mates, no mindless PR bullshit, no ulterior motives. 

Last time I saw you, you were out recording in NYC. How was that and have these recordings seen the cold light of day yet? Any of this make it onto your upcoming releases coming out in the next few weeks?

haha yea that seems like such a long time ago, since then both of us have spent 2 months out in the US. The stuff in the NYC studio hasn’t seen the light of day and is still quite a bit of time away from being ready. 

Want to talk about your upcoming releases and the sound they’re coming from?

In the next couple of weeks we have 2 remixes coming out, one for Toby Tobias and one for Wolf music’s Medlar, we’re also launching a monthly club night at Plastic People in Shoreditch, it’s going to be the first wednesday of every month and you can expect from pretty fuckin awesome lineups and some of our favourite producers and djs putting on something a little different. 

Your sound is firmly analogue. Does this extend to the way you play music, and does this represent a distaste for the digital age? 

Not at all I have no real problem with anything digital related probably as Im not really exposed to it that much. Most of the places we frequent people play vinyl and most of my friends still buy and collect vinyl.

With traveling a lot we now play a mix of both serato and vinyl. We have only ever used cdjs once whist playing out and it was a bit of a car crash scenario.

Production wise, the term analogue gets blasted about way too much by producers these days, just because you have hardware doesn’t mean you are gonna sound like moodyman or kerri chandler.

The thing with analog gear is that you spend wayyyyy more time getting stuff to work, making everything work in harmony is a goal in itself. The music you make is way more considered and thought out, not only because you listen to the track like 100 times more, but certain parts remain permanentonce you click record and unplug there is no going back.

Some people who make tracks digitally can literally bash something out in 10 minutes, clicking presets and not really thinking about structure or vibeyou can spot tracks like this very easily. After we make a track we sit down think if the people like Kano or D-Train heard our music, although not in the same league, they could realise the effort made.

My advise is next time you bang out a track in 10 minutes just imagine teddy pendergrass shaking his had at you. 

Disco music is certainly seeing a resurgence, as is one of the hallmarks of the genre the re-edit. Why do you think this is the case? 

Edits defiantly have a time and a place, we have wrote many a thing on the blog about edits and edit culturebothgood and bad. Think we tried to sum up all our views in this post gino-soccio-alright/ 

How important was your clubbing upbringing to the career you have today? Are there any pivotal moments from your past that shaped your outlook as producers and DJs?

Yea errr growing up going the club Shine in belfast seeing the likes of Underground Resistance, Richie Hawtin, Laurient Garnier, Green Velvet and Dave Clarke on pretty much a weekly basis when you are 15 is pretty amazing.

In our late teens watching and listening to Djs like Andrew Wetherall, Theo Parrish, Ivan Smagghe, Ricardo Villalobos and Moodymann convinced us not to move away from vinylwhich was huge.

When all those djs in the early 00s were forced by their wives to sell their vinyl collections in cash converters we were standing by, picking up their trax back catalogue for 10 😉

 Favourite club – period.

 (Andy)as a clubber – sankeys soap a.k.a the old oneMatt says Sub Club tho :S

Current Top 5

donno new stuff? Here is a bit of a mix of stuff we have been playing a lot;

omar s ft colonel abrams- who wrote the rules of love

MASSIMILIANO PAGLIARA- Focus For Infinity (tuff city kids remix)

mr 666 esteban

Loui$ – Pink footpath

Cookie – Can’t judge a book by it’s cover

Undiscovered gem we can expect to hear on Sunday.

Not undiscovered as it was a garage classic, but probably the most beautiful vocal track of all-time…everyone NEEEEEEEEDDDDSSS to hear

Alicia Myers – I want to thank you 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfIUiIYpDhU

Anything I should have asked you but haven’t here?

Yea as I Said before we are now running a monthly music party at Plastic People in the heart of Shoreditch. Each month well adopt a new theme, the first one being One Night In New York City…think Paradise Garage, Studio 54, red light sleaze, low slung cheese, epic vocal grooves and poppin freestyle moves. You know how we roll, its gonna be all about the music and getting some serious flexawn. For this reason, we wont be releasing any line-ups. This month were going to have several very special guests (yes…from New York). Rest assured you can expect someone big. The night will be on the first Wednesday of every month, this month being October 5th. The club isnt huge, so gae down early to avoid rejection. Were only open until 1am, which is probably a good idea, this being a midweek affair. The door will be free before ten and five english pounds after.