LAMP Weekly Mix #130 feat. CLAAP! & Santana: PART 1 (Californie)
LAMP Weekly Mix #130 feat. CLAAP! & Santana: PART 1 (Californie)
This week we have a very special installment of our weekly mix series with our Parisian guests CLAAP! & Santana. This is the first of a 2 part mix series the will be curating for us over the summer. The mix, titled 'Californie', is a collection of downtempo and chill tracks from the duo (including a few unreleased singles and edits), several of their favorite French producers and much more. The duo has recently been featured on Exploited Records's Secret Gold compilation as well as several other recent releases including a collaboration with Mike Simonetti on 2MR. I got the chance to meet these two talented producers thanks to my bud Birdee at our LAMP x Fortune 421 takeover a few weeks back. After chatting for a bit, having them come by our weekly meeting and listening to some of their work I couldn't resist having them on our Guest Mix series and it's a special one at that.MR PUZL: Bienvenue à la série LAMP Weekly Mix. Nous sommes très honorés de vous avoir! As we mentioned this a very special 2 part mix you'll be doing for us. What have you got in store for us in this first session?SANTANA: Merci! We are very pleased to be part of this LAMP Weekly Mix series. This first session is a soundtrack for California chillin'. We included some of our own laidback productions, such as 'Jacques', a french dub track to be released on Exploited Records early July. There are also a few other exclusive unreleased tracks from CLAAP! and I, such as 'Summertime', the musical cousin of Jacques, or 'Glue', a whispery mysterious collaboration with french producer Feadz.CLAAP!: Speaking of collaborations, we included also the track 'Looping' from our good friend ATTAR! featuring Santana on vocal duties.S: We also featured in this mix our latest release 'Danser' with French artist Santaoloria - part of Shir Khan's mini compilation 'Secret Gold', out on Exploited Records - and remixes we did for our friends Polo & Pan, Mike Simonetti and Yann Dulché.C: The 90's classic 'California' by iconic french singer Mylène Farmer naturally found its way in this session, as well as some cool gems from our friends and French producers such as CätCät, Neumodel, Greg Kozo, Rommates, Breakbot and DVNO - who is featured on "Elbo", a track from Matthias Zimmermann's awesome new album.MP: You've been traveling and visiting Los Angeles for quite some time and watched it the scene evolve. Being an active purveyor of events and music in Paris, what are some things you'd like to bring and share with the community here? Is there anything inspiring you here that you'd want to share with your fans and friends back in Paris?S: I would love to see more French female DJs in LA as I have the feeling most french artists booked here are guys. Also, I'd like to see maybe more DJs that actually tell a story through their mix and take you on a musical journey instead of playing all the popular tracks in no specific order. It's not the case of every party in LA, don't get me wrong. But I feel like that there could be more artistic input.C: Some of the parties we've thrown in Paris are known to mix all kinds of crowds, from underground music connoisseurs to party girls, to bottle service crowd, to regular people who just wanna have fun. I'd like to see maybe more of this here in LA. It's always a tricky balance to achieve but these are the best parties.S: As for what we'd like to take back to Paris, first and foremost I would say the sun!C: And the chill vibe, it's so relaxing here!MP: I just watched a trailer video from your inaugural Clap Ferret Festival. My French is extremely poor, but from what I could see there's quite a variety of activities and events surrounding the festival that aren't simply focused around music. How would you describe the festival in your own words?C: First, I have to say I'm not part of the festival anymore. It was a great experience but I decided to focus solely on my music and put all my time and efforts into it. That being said, Clap Ferret festival is a very interesting festival because it has this quality I talked about previously: it brings different crowds together. The eclectic yet consistent line-up consists in great popular artists as well as solid underground ones so that everybody comes for a reason but ends up discovering stuff they would never have discovered otherwise.S: The other interesting thing about it is that it's not focused on music only. Contemporary artists and great chefs turn it into something wider and higher end than any other festival in France I believe. Basically, it's a festival for hedonists: great music, great art, great food, great people in a fantastic location which I can't even begin to describe with words. Just go to Cap Ferret and you'll know!MP: Speaking of influences. How did you first get involved with DJing? Do you have any formal music training or play any instruments?S: I’ve always been into music. As a kid, I would record tapes of tracks from my dad’s vinyls and make my own playlists. I’ve never really thought about DJing though. I played the violin for 6 years at the Conservatoire when I was younger so my knowledge of music was pretty academic. But it’s when I started going out in clubs (a lot), hanging out close to the dj booths, exchanging and discovering awesome tunes with the djs, that I understood I could do more than just dancing my ass off on the dance floor and singing the tunes along. I felt that I could share this positive energy with my fellow night birds by telling a musical story. So when CLAAP suggested I DJ in his parties (La French), I didn't hesitate. He taught me how the decks worked and introduced me to Teki Latex (co-founder and boss of Sound Pellegrino) who gave me a 1 hour mix lesson showing me everything else I needed to know as a rookie. And my trip as a DJ began! I was very lucky first to meet someone who trusted me enough to play in front of a big crowd and then to get the opportunity to learn from one of my DJ stars! I’ll never be thankful enough for both.C: I started as a very young kid with electric organ, then piano, then went to the percussions class at Conservatory of Music until I graduated. I also played in rock bands, marching bands, symphonic orchestras, etc. I play the drums, a few keyboards and enough guitar to record basic stuff. As a kid, I listened to tons of eclectic music from Chopin to Boulez, Nikhil Banerjee, Frank Zappa, The Beatles, The Cure, Michael Jackson, The Smashing Pumpkins, Public Enemy, Prodigy, etc. Then I met a friend who lived in Lille and he took me to those crazy belgian clubs such as H2O, Fuse, etc. That's where i discovered artists such as Green Velvet, Laurent Garnier, Armand van Helden... I started DJing at my school parties and loved it. Then I started La French parties in Paris where I met so many great artists - many of which became good friends.MP: You've been working really closely with Santana, who's voice we, at LAMP, are already enamored with. Tell us how you first got involved in projects together.S: Merci!C: I met Santana when I was throwing La French parties. I quickly realized she had great musical taste so I convinced her to become a DJ. She would end up opening almost every La French party with her girls duet 'Les Aristochattes'. Then I realized she also had a great voice. So we started recording and producing some stuff together for a while, then forgot about it because we were too busy with the parties, until our friend ATTAR! heard some of the stuff we did and convinced me to send it to a few label. That's how we released our first EP, 'Dimanche'.MP: There's a really cool remix of 'The Braeke' that you and Santana made for The Grind that is listed as Part 1 & 2 and is over 11 minutes long. Can you tell us a bit about this, and why it was titled that way? Was this originally conceived as 2 separate tracks?C: Thanks man! Basically, we were messing around the track, finding ideas and stuff at the early stage of the remix. And we came up with two main elements for the remix: an afro vibe with percussions that you can hear until roughly 6:00 and a very interesting noisy sound with great texture that you can hear after. Since it would have been too much to have them both play at the same time we decided to make a long remix in two distinct parts: the afro part and the deeper, darker part. Depending on the crowd and on the DJ's personal taste, one can play the first part only or start in the middle and play the second part only, or play the full track as a long hypnotic trip.MP: I'm a big fan of Mike Simonetti and 2MR and really enjoyed your collaboration especially with its unique take on acid house and vocal pairing. Can you tell us a bit about the process you went through working on this EP?S: We first met Mike through la French parties in Paris when CLAAP booked him. Then, when we signed our first EP "Dimanche" on La Belle Records, we decided to include a remix and we all agreed Mike was the best candidate for this. He did a fantastic acid version of the track and said he really liked my voice. So he suggested we worked together on a new project. He sent us an instrumental, we wrote some lyrics and recorded the vocals, sent them back to him and he told us: "Those vocals are too good! I have to make a new, better instrumental". That's how 'Release Your Body To The Best' was born. Then we did a similar process for 'Slave' and CLAAP! messed around with the vocals for fun and ended up doing this deep afro remix that Mike loved so we put it on the release as well.MP: You traverse many genres within house in your productions, sets and mixes. At the same time you enjoy hosting events back in Paris focused on hip-hop, called 'La Pizza Chaude'. With such an eclectic mindset, how do you approach your songwriting and composition? Do you sit down and say I'm going to make something downtempo today or is more organic?C: It depends. I record vocal memos all the time on my phone, with any kind of idea that crosses my mind: melodies, rhythms, lyrics, chords progressions, production ideas, concepts, etc. So when I get back to the studio I can dig in these memos and develop an idea that I like. Another way is that I imagine a situation, for instance I would be chilling at a specific beach that I love and I try to imagine what would be the perfect soundtrack for this. Or I can imagine myself DJing in this dark techno club or at that balearic disco party and try to feel what would rock the crowd. That's for my own productions. Remixes are a whole different thing: I only keep the vocals and sometimes I even ask Santana to cover them so that she can bring a different vibe to them.S: For instance, the original vocals on The Braeke were high energy hip hop breaks. CLAAP! and I both thought it would be fun to cover them in a softer, more sensual way. Then we built a whole new track around it, starting with some rhythms and afro-ish sounds that we both love.MP: You mentioned you'll be heading back to the studio in July. What have you got in store for future releases that you can tell us about?C: We're working on a second EP with Mike Simonetti, we have a cool remix for Yuksek on the way...S: We're working on some great stuff with Luke Million from The Swiss, we also have some very grainy and dark slow techno tracks for a side project as well as some pop gems with our super talented friend Yousef from BeirutC: We're doing some music for the awesome video game "Duelyst" and, if we dare, we might also produce a little something for LAMP, who knows?
Tracklist
1. Bob Marley — Dylan Taite Interview (1979)2. CLAAP! — Jacques (feat. Santana)3. CLAAP! & Santana — Summertime [Demo]4. Breakbot — 2Good4Me [Original mix]5. Mylène Farmer — California6. Polo & Pan — Plage isolée [CLAAP! remix]7. Feadz — Glue (feat. Santana) [Premaster]8. Yann Dulché — Gare du Nord [CLAAP! remix]9. Matthias Zimmermann — Elbo (feat. DVNO)10. CLAAP! — Flash (feat. Santana) [Vibradub]11. Roommates — Sativa12. Polo & Pan — Bakara (feat. Patrick Bebey)13. CLAAP! — Danser (feat. Santaoloria & Santana)14. [Track Id]15. Greg Kozo — You16. CätCät — Pioneer Canyon [Neumodel remix]17. CLAAP! — Oh [Original]18. ATTAR! — Looping (feat. Santana) [Piano mix]19. Mike Simonetti — Slave (feat. Santana) [CLAAP! remix]Enjoy,<3 LAMP