Getting Physical with M.A.N.D.Y. interview

Getting Physical with M.A.N.D.Y. interview

11 January, 2008 | 1.19PM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: get physical, mandy

After 22 years of friendship, you’d expect Patrick Bodem and Phillipp Jung to be one and the same person – after all, they’ve been pretending to be a girl called M.A.N.D.Y. for years.

At least, you’d think they would be on the same wavelength when they DJ together – they’ve been tearing up dancefloors and festival tents across the globe for a long time.

Unfortunately though, it seems M.A.N.D.Y. has a bi-polar disorder.

“Yeah, sometimes it doesn’t quite work out in the DJ booth,” Patrick tells Beatportal (he’s the “tall lanky one” of the pair).

“If one of us is in a happy energetic mood, but the other one is in a dark mood and wants to play dark music, there’s a clash.

“You can’t have one DJ playing a happy record and the other a dark record, so usually one of us has to sit it out and try to get into the mood of the other, and then when he feels ready to play in that direction he’ll jump back in.”

Musical Differences

There are noticeable differences between the two friends, musically.

Which explains why M.A.N.D.Y.’s music has always been a mish mash of flavours, energies and rhythms.

“Phillipp is deeper and darker, whereas I’m more energy,” says Patrick, in his strong German accent.

His energy is on display tonight at Denver’s Vinyl club, where he plays without his cohort.

Having lost his laptop at the airport (“I forgot to pick it back up after it went through the x-ray machine”), he spent much of his day rebuilding his record collection in Beatport’s offices.

For a DJ it’s like trying to repaint a masterpiece from memory.

All those folders and sub folders. Notes and categories.

Having to get a flight, rebuild a record box from scratch, and then play a three hour set at a club that night requires some serious alignment of the chakras.

But Patrick is bouncing around the DJ booth smiling and swigging from a vodka bottle, whilst he keeps the dancefloor chugging and throbbing, now more of a single entity than a disparate collection of bodies.

It’s a juggernaut of legs and arms, sweating and slobbering over itself with enthusiasm.

“For every DJ set we play, we always have a bottle of vodka on our rider,” Patrick says.

“If we don’t finish it at the club, we take it back to the hotel.

“If we don’t finish it at the hotel, we take to the airport where we sadly have to leave it at the security gates.”

He speaks about vodka like it’s a pet.

Booka Shade, the other duo behind Get Physical Music with M.A.N.D.Y., prefer a bottle of Jägermeister when they spin.

“I always tell them it’s horrible to drink, you wake up with the worst hangover, but they don’t listen,” Patrick reveals.

Fabric 38: M.A.N.D.Y.

M.A.N.D.Y. have just put together a mix compilation CD for London club Fabric, the 38th edition of their popular mix series.

And on one CD they’ve managed to cram in 25 tracks, surely that couldn’t have been done using Traktor alone?

“Actually we use Serato not Traktor when we DJ, but for the Fabric CD we had to use Ableton because we had lots of problems with licensing and the tracklist kept changing,” says Patrick.

Featuring artists such as the Wighnomy Brothers, Lucio Aquilina, and Deadset, as well as Get Physical favourites Lopazz, DJ T and Booka Shade, the mix represents the type of set that M.A.N.D.Y. would play at Fabric over a whole night, crammed into a cute 74 minutes.

“As we’re residents at Fabric, there’s a bit of ego mania when we play,” comments Patrick.

“We play what we want and it’s fun.”

Get Physical

As part of the brains behind the record label Get Physical, alongside DJ T and Booka Shade, M.A.N.D.Y. have had a major impact on electronic music well beyond their DJ sets and productions.

Their record label has helped popularize the electro house and minimal sounds that now make up the bulk of many DJ sets, and the label has released some of the scene’s most important records.

Interestingly, this year will see Get Physical branch out into a whole different musical territory – soft rock.

“We all grew up with different influences, not just electronic music,” says Patrick.

“So for the first time, Get Physical will be opening its doors not to just club music.

“We’re going to be releasing some music from a guy called Raz Ohara – it’s guitar music.

“It’s exciting for us, because if done right, it will add a whole new level to Get Physical, just like Jose Gonzales did for Peacefrog and Maximo Park did for Warp.

“Don’t worry though, we’ll still be doing club music.”

World Music

As influential tastemakers, Beatportal is interested to find out where M.A.N.D.Y. thinks electronic music is going currently.

“World music is having a big impact in electronic music, it’s very exciting,” reckons Patrick.

“Because laptops are becoming cheaper and electronic music is so global, we’re seeing some very interesting sounds coming out of countries such as Brazil.

“Producers are fusing world music with electronic beats and this is great for electronic music.”

Is Samim’s ‘Heater’, probably the biggest club record of last year, a good example of this new world fusion?

“Yes absolutely, but despite what people may think, Samim didn’t make that record for the money,” says Patrick,

“I’ve known Samim for years.

“He did it for fun, because he liked the Columbian accordion sample, and thought it would sound cool with a techno beat.

“You know he has been offered loads of live gigs after ‘Heater’, but he’s turned them all down, which shows he’s not in if for the money.”

New M.A.N.D.Y. Artist LP

In a couple of weeks, Patrick Bodem and Phillipp Jung will banish themselves away to a land of darkness for four weeks so they can finish a new LP.

They are going to a house about 100 miles from Reykjavik in Iceland, where “there’s nothing around except stones.”

“We want a place where there are no disturbances,” says Patrick, “and it will be very dark because there’s not much sun at this time of the year.

“So it’ll be perfect for working in the studio.”

Undoubtedly, M.A.N.D.Y. will be back soon then, with more thought provoking, body grooving music.

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