Click on the name to read, see and listen.
Aguila (Brussels (BE)) - dj
Aguila is mad about vinyl. Over 1000 black covers are arranged in the best possible way in his private studio. He bought his first Technics at the age of 17 and hasn’t stopped to treat vinyls as rare oyster pearls.
As a boy of the late seventies, he is much influenced by disco, italo and wave. His mum however danced her ass off at the PopCorn so soulful gems are highly familiar to him. Add this to him being discotheque-born at the end of New Beat and start of House and Acid and you have a mixture of retro and new, from Aretha Franklin over The Hacienda to Inflagranti.
Currently playing in bars and basements, from private parties to events in metro stations.
Bottin (Venice (IT)) - dj
Bottin (Guglielmo Bottin, 1977) is producer, dj and sound designer based in Venice, Italy. After two albums (Chill Reception in 2002 and I Love Me Vol. I in 2004) and more than 20 compilations for Italian label Irma Records, he started working as producer and arranger for major Italian pop artists like Lucio Dalla, Rettore, Sergio Caputo and arranged a platinum-selling album by Chambao (Sony-BMG, Spain).
As sound artist he was selected for Fabrica, the Benetton creative research center founded by Oliviero Toscani. For Colors Magazine he curated the Color Music series, presented at the Sonar festival in Barcelona (with Carlos Casas). For the Biennale of Venice he designed audio for Spanish Pavilion by Antoni Muntadas and later for the shows at Biennale of Contemporary Dance directed by Ismael Ivo. The installation "Sciame" (produced by Meneghini and Bottin for Replay Foundation), was selected among the finalists at the 2009 Share Festival of digital arts in Turin. He has also written original music for the feature film "The Boy With The Sun In His Eyes" directed by Todd Verow (Bangorfilms, USA).
His work was featured by many cultural institutions and performed at venues such as the Cannes International Film Festival, Speak Truth To Power, Kennedy Foundation (Usa), Nouveau Casino (Paris), Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan). Villa Manin Center for Contemporary Arts, Centro Internazionale d'Arte e Cultura Palazzo Te (Mantua), Circuito Off Festival (Venice).
As a nu-disco producer he released "Fondamente Nove" on Eskimo Recordings (Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, The Glimmers, Aeroplane) and "No Static" for Mike Simonetti's cult US label Italians Do It Better (Glass Candy, Chromatics, Farah). 2009 was a busy year for Bottin with a fistful of releases: "Hot Ring" produced together with Stevie Kotey for Deep Freeze (UK), a remix of Codebreaker's new single (along with The Juan McLeans/DFA), "Disco For The Devil" with Douglas Meakin (Easy Going, Crazy Gang), a 4-track EP for Bear Funk and finally a full-lenght album (tentatively titled "Horror Disco").
His sets are an impredictable journey into space disco, italo rarities, electro funk and nu disco, a reckless blend of retro-futuristic sounds and contemporary electronica.
D.I.R.T.Y. Sound System (Paris (FR)) - dj
DIRTY SOUND SYSTEM is Clovis Goux and Guillaume Sorge, two discerning French selectors currently living in Paris. Involved in numerous musical activities since the late nineties, Clovis and Guillaume are well known for their extensive and exotic knowledge of music.
Dirty is now a full on label that draws attention from influential blogs, journalists and djs worldwide, and the boys are constantly touring the world since their first compilation "Dirty Diamonds" in 2003.
Their selector works, blog activity (more than one thousand daily visitors to alainfinkielkrautrock) and dj sets have gained them a worldwide following, recently increased due to the success of their "Dirty edits" series. This ongoing collaborative project with their pal Pilooski caught attention from everyone these last few months, from Justice to Laurent Garnier, Optimo, Gille Peterson and even Adidas who used one of the dirty edits for their recent worldwide campaign.
DIRTY SOUND SYSTEM dj sets cover an insanely wide spectrum from weird disco, jackin' techno, acid house to the best modern music around. Expect unobvious dancefloor craziness for party people with taste and style. In the last few months, DIRTY SOUND SYSTEM played with Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, The Emperor Machine, Theo Parrish, The Gossip, Maurice Fulton, Tim Sweeney, Mr Oizo, Metro Area and many many more. Past gigs include Club Transmediale (Berlin), Basel Miami, Sonar Festival (Barcelona), Blogger's Delight (London), Club2Club (Torino), Edgar (Istanbul), Astropolis festival (France) and a bi-monthly residency at Social Club (Paris).
Disco Bloodbath (Damon Martin & Ben Pistor) (London (UK)) - dj
Disco Bloodbath began life as an irregular speakeasy party in the basement of a Caribbean restaurant on the wrong end of East London's Amhurst Road. The party and its resident DJs quickly gained notoriety for the unique blend of raw disco, spaced-out italo, vintage house and proto-techno being played. Their skill in blending these sounds together has taken Damon Martin and Ben Pistor to some of the UK's most discerning dancefloors. In the last couple of years the boys have also traveled globally to gigs in Japan, Berlin, Ibiza, Paris, Croatia, Dubai, Barcelona and now in Brussels ! Not one but both Damon and Ben !
They have also completed mixes at the request of Resident Advisor and Beats in Space, while keeping busy on the remix front for the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Little Boots, White Lies, The Monarchy, The Aliens, and more.
The guys are currently working on original material to be released soon. We can’t wait!
In Flagranti (New York (USA) / Basel (CH)) - dj
Since the beginning of their record label Codek Records, Alex (graphic designer, fucker-arounder, nightlife stalker, crate digger, the "weird guy" in the corner) and Sasha (the DJ, beatmaker, dubmaster, former Organic Grooves band leader, former seamster (is that a word?), and a chill human) aim to explore the cosmic background in every possible way by creating and putting together different elements of art/graphic design and styles of music in to a seamless flow, which ultimately leeds them to create "In Flagranti", an act that would reflect all that, and continue to explore the endless possibilities of a 'cut and paste' aesthetic.
Their DIY attitude, which came in many forms like "Organic Grooves" Sasha's long running weekly party and "SMYLONYLON" tapes, Alex's by now legendary mix tapes, gained them a lot of street credibility in New York and abroad.
In addition the CODEK sleeve design is a big part of the whole aesthetics, especially some of the early hand silk screened sleeves, which the Wire magazine calls "the best in the business". In Flagranti pushes the envelope further by adding video clips that accompanies each song showing the visual influence. Woman-Glamour-Trash-Chic is the identity which brings out the new punk attitude.
From the electronic disco sound of Gorgio Moroder, Patric Cowley to punkfunk of Liquid Liquid, A Certain Ratio and more contemporary sounds of todays dance music, In Flagranti is an erotic funny collage of all the above.
Johan Agebjorn - producer Sally Shapiro (Stockholm (SE)) - dj
Johan Agebjörn is a DJ and musician from Gothenburg, Sweden. As a musician his style spans from piano music and ambient to electro and italo disco, though he is most known as the songwriter and producer of Sally Shapiro. Sally's album "Disco Romance" (Diskokaine / Klein / Paper Bag), a nostalgic trip back to romantic italo disco of 1984, was released in 2007 and received numerous excellent reviews (Pitchfork, Vice, XLR8R, Der Spiegel) as well as a U.S. Plug Awards nomination as "electronic/dance album of the year". In 2008 the project continued with several new 12"s (Permanent Vacation, Lo Recordings) and remixes by Lindstrøm, Junior Boys, Juan MacLean, Tensnake to mention a few.
As a DJ, Johan mostly plays italo disco from the 80s mixed with neo-italo disco of today. He has toured in North America and his mixes have been posted on web sites like XLR8R, Pig Radio, Pitchfork Media and Tokion FM. Johan has also made a few remixes - most notably a Nintendo game bootleg remix - forthcoming remixes to be released are for Glass Candy and Lindstrøm.
Kinky Afro (Venice (IT)) - dj
Kinky Afro is a brand new music project by two Italian Disc Jockeys, paying a musical homage to late 70's, rare groove, the golden age of Disco together with Italo Disco and Hi NRG as a passionate extra.
The couple plays also an Electro/Crossover DJ sideproject which has been appearing throughout Europe and Italy of course, but when it comes to Kinky Afro they are for low key, this typical old school attitude helps explaining why this international couple of DJ's prefers not to reveal identities. Does it mean they should be struggling for visibility now? Who cares.
Nonetheless, they want to target a difference audience, being far from those shortlived wonders, blatantly transient as only some clear sunny hours in Ireland can be.
Kinky Afro Disc Jockeys will probably show you the obvious, that is the Chic got one of the most impressive rhythm bars on Earth, there is more to Disco Music than the embarassing Village People and the Bee Gees, the Soul music gave lineguides over the best output in late 70's, the Incredible Bongo Band had virtually written what Stone Roses later called Fool's Gold, the Kraftwek influenced almost all of what you've heard electronic in the 80's and Italo Disco is nothing to do with Sabrina Salerno or some new wave guitars over echoing voices and woeful machine drums.
Should we mention who nowadays could beat Grace Jones' impossible charisma?
Pilooski (Paris (FR)) - dj
Paris born, Cédric Marszewski, first started as a dj & Hip Hop producer in the mid 9O’s, providing futuristic soul beats to various French & US indie rappers such as Mike Ladd. His influences ranges from the 60’s Motown sound to Detroit Techno pioneer such as Anthony Shakir or Chicago house shuffle master, Green Velvet.
After producing a few 12 on various French & foreigh indie labels, he joined Benjamin Diamond’s Diamond Traxx label (of Stardust fame) in 2000. He produced a few well acclaimed tracks for the label amongst them, « Can’t there be love », a soulful cut-up track, and a hip hop 12 « a Peu Prés ».
The same year, he met the infamous D-I-R-T-Y crew, with whom he shared the same love for leftfield pop music in general. Together they started the Dirty edits serie, a serie of limited 12 displaying their taste for trippy music with soul.The serie was aimed to highlight forgotten tracks they love, whatever style of music The idea was to apply the Disco editing process to non-disco tracks. From Can to Edwin Starr, Jackson Jones to Del Shannon, The D-I-R-T-Y edits started to gain recognition amongst music lovers worldwide, & big support from everyone in the dj world from Laurent Garnier to Simian, Tiga to Yvan Smagghe. Uk
Major companies started to show high interest and Warner Uk decided to re-release Pilooski’s edit of Frankie Valli’s classic northern soul tune, « Beggin’ ». The track got worldwide exposure, as well as airplays from well established radio such as Radio 1, BBC, and the status of a cult song in the pages of the very official The Guardian UK newspaper.
In 2007, The D-I-R-T-Y crew launched the Alainfinkielkrautrock blog with a few friends & teamed up with Joakim’s label Tigersushi to release The Space disco compilation, a selection of spaced out originals & PSKI edited tracks as well as a 12 on the same label, (including the « Hai Samurai » edit). PSKI’s production skills led him to do remixes for labels like 679, Domino, Warner, Atlantic, & upcoming productions for labels like Stones Throw, Peacefrog, Rush Hour & the well-established Verve jazz label.
Earlier this year, PSKI & fellow D-I-R-T-Y producer, Pentile released The first 12 of their Discodeine project, « Texas Gladiator », a mix of Ennio Morricone dark cinematic atmosphere & the techno/funk of early electro pionner, Georges Clinton. Again they got immediate support from main djs everywhere, and were voted freshest upcoming Artists of 2008 in various French & foreign magazines. They’re putting the finishing touch to a Discodeine lp at the moment, that should see the light pretty in 2008 on the D-I-R-T-Y label. They also finished remixes for people like Cosmo Vitelli, Photonz & The Chromatics.
As a dj, PSKI has been touring the world & played clubs such as Fabric, The End, Sao Paulo’s Vegas, Lisbon’s Lux club, NY’s APT, Sweden’s Berns amongst others & is about to perform & tour in Australia, Moscow, Barcelona Sonar’s festival, Greece’s Synch festival. Les Nuits Sonores festival, France’s biggest Electronic music festival…
His sets are an ecclectic mix of soul, Disco, electro, rock & techno, highly influenced by the power of funk.
Rob 'n' Zoopsie (Brussels (BE)) - dj
Rob N Zoopsie met ten years ago at an underground rave, Rob (the male half) and Zoopsie (the better half) formed a unique alliance built on their love for the sound of disco and the pioneering electronic pop of Visage, New Order, The Human League and Depeche Mode and the industrial sounds of Front 242, Belgian techno and new beat.
This results in a quick, fire hot, tough yet thoroughly girl-friendly mix of electro, dark pop, new wave, disco, high nrg and italo. Served with lots of energy, targeting one genre or mixing it up. Rob N Zoopsie sets always deliver rocking, catchy tunes and oodles of atmosphere.
The Belgian duo has cut their teeth in production with their Moderne and Textolux (along with CDRK) labels. They have released killer tracks under the monikers “The Revolving Eyes” and “Tetra Plok”, did several remixes and edits and appeared on many CD compilations.
Expect in their dj set a mixture that crossed the shaky foot bridge of “musical education” and still gets your body efficiently tickled and your brain mashed.
The Michael (Brussels (BE)) - dj
hi! i'm the michael. i'm a silly rabbit. this is a random sentence. jd twitch is the coolest dj i've spun with. i played in noise and punk bands when i was a teenager, so james murphy gave me thumbs up to dj in my twenties. which is awesome.
italo disco house edits electropop wave are some basic words possibly applicable. awesome horny joy bliss drunk are others. i kept it short, but i wear it long and hard, i swear. wave at me i'll wave back, we'll have a moment together, it'll be grand.
