Next up we got one of our favourite Belgians in the mix Gratts. Like us he also curates a playlist for 22tracks for the Belgium edition. Now Berlin based together with Dj Kong he’s the founder of ‘ensemble’. He also runs various club nights there, including this party on Friday. We caught up with him to ask what he has on the horizon and what he has been up to.
“I’m moving house, which made me realize that I should probably let go off some records. Also my girlfriend Eluize and I started this new show in which we share some of our favourite records new and old. It’s called ‘Together’ which refers to ‘ensemble’, the name the Brussels based nights / label that Kong and I have been running for a good few years. Other than that I’ve been collecting some more studio bits and try to spend more time recording. October also saw the last edition of my club night ‘Beyond The Clouds’ in Berlin with some of my favourite London selectors, Toby Tobias and Jane Fitz. There haven’t been a lot of long walks on the beach, unfortunately.
The mix was recorded live at Spreewaldplatz on the very hottest day of Berlin summer.
Every day I’m pulling out records which always results in big piles everywhere in the room. One of those contained some dusty vinyls that I hadn’t played in a while and I felt like they could make sense together. So I spontaneously started recording and pressed stop a good hour later. Afterwards I threw in a spoken word favourite that I’ve been using in my dj-sets lately for good measure.”
Up next..
“Kong and I are releasing ensemble003 soon: remixes of two tracks taken from Belgian cult LP ‘Onze Danses Pour Combattre La Migraine’ (1977) recorded by Marc Moulin, Vincent Kenis and Marc Hollander. Actually the whole album was well ahead of its time, with elements of jazz, minimalism, ethnic music, classical and proto-techno. Parisian dj/producer Krikor spontaneously reworked two of the tracks to fit them into his dj-sets and we’re extremely happy to release them with the kind permission of Crammed (Marc Hollander’s own label).
The last two months of 2015 will be spent at various spots in cold Europe until I jet off to Australasia in January to escape the Berlin winter. There are some cool shows lined up in Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City and Melbourne among other places. I especially can’t wait to take a long walk on the beach.”
FMB MIXTAPE 28 | GRATTS (iTUNES)
FMB MIXTAPE 28 | GRATTS (320 DOWNLOAD)
