Not Crying Over Spilt Milk

Not Crying Over Spilt Milk

22 March, 2009 | 9.18PM

• Written by: deliriumuk
• Filed under: Music News : djuma soundsystem, malaysia

Djuma Soundsystem, stars of the March 28th Heineken Green Room at ODC in KL, dish the dirt on their aliases, performing to 50,000 people in the rain in Eastern Europe and why electronica is going to rule the waves for the next two years.

Their awesome minimally driven single ‘Les Djinns’ is online electronic music retailer Beatport’s (www.beatport.com) biggest selling track ever, and the #1 successes of follow-ups ‘This Sound’ and ‘Attila EP’ saw the band propelled into the big leagues of the 2008 festival and club circuit, as well as releasing tracks for labels including Neutone, Toolroom Records and IO Records.

Whether DJing or mashing up their sound live, Djuma Soundsystem have won a reputation for moving rooms big and small. That includes career making clubs like London’s The End, Ghent’s Vooruit as well as huge festivals like Denmark’s Roskilde, and playing to an unimaginable 50,000 people at the Ukraine’s Free Fat Festival, an energy they’ll be showing off at their live performance for Heineken Green Room.

Here we get personal with Lars B…

Why are you pouring milk over each other in your promo shots?
Lars B: [Laughs] At some point in our career we realised we are not models so what we tend to do is have some kind of prop to tell a really small story. This time it was something about milk.

So what was the story you were trying to tell with the shots in forest, staring deeply into each other’s eyes?
LB: [Still laughing] I don’t know, that sort of just happened. We’ve been working together for a long time and he is sort of my wife now…

How did you get together with Mikkas in the first place?
LB: I was resident at a club in Copenhagen [Rust, named after Mathias Rust who landed a plane in Red square in Moscow] and Mikkas played there one evening and we started talking. He was playing one of his own tunes and I was playing one of mine and we immediately [started] to work together on a track. And we were like, ‘wow this works’, and we haven’t looked back since.

So why the name Djuma Soundsystem?
LB: We release under many different names. This one was because of the track Les Djinns; we thought it sounded unlike anything else we’d made, so we wanted to have a new project name so as not to confuse people. We thought it sounded a bit Arabic so we went to where Mikkas lives, where there are a lot of Arabs, and we were sitting in a café, me with my Danish-Arabic dictionary and I thought that Friday sounded like a good day to party, so I thought Djuma [which means Friday in Arabic] is a good name.

Is it better to have different names for different projects? Doesn’t it just confuse your fans?
LB: No, it helps us. It’s actually to not confuse our fans. It’s because we love doing very different music. We have project called ben horn which is very loungey. We have one project called breather which is really strange, artsy music for art galleries, so people that are into djuma would not necessarily understand that.

But are genres becoming less important. Are people now just into music and caring less about what it is and where it came from?
LB: Definitely. A really good thing that happened was the electronic revolution so people don’t have to rely on radios anymore. Because they have painted themselves into a corner. Now, people go, ‘on Monday I listened to reggae, on Tuesday I listened to jazz, on Fridays I listen to techno’ because they can find it themselves on the Net and they can find what they like.

So is that what you and Mikkas are trying to do with all the project names: to make enough music for all seven days of the week?
LB: [Laughs] No, I think it’s for our own selfish little thing. It’s because we love music and we can’t stop. We’re bored if we’re sitting there making techno all day or making lounge all day so we tend to do a bit of both.

What do you think the dominant sound is shaping up to be this year [2009]?
LB: I can see the old techno, tech-house sound going more mainstream. It seems that there are more electronic clubs around the world. I’m in India now and believe it or not electronic music is really on the rise [here]. Lots of good Indian artists as well. It seems like electronica is definitely going to rule the next two years.

What kind of style has the crowd reacted to most strongly in India?
LB: We’ve been playing live here, so it’s our style and they really love it. Since the Internet there’s nowhere on the map that doesn’t know about this music. Everything is out there.

You have the biggest selling track on Beatport [Les Djinns]. Is online the future for artists like you?
LB: I think so. A little bit of both. People download a lot for free – and I think that’s a blessing in disguise. We can’t turn the clock back - I wish we could in some ways and then you could make some money on your music – it’s like yesterday when we were playing live here [in India], this young guy comes up and goes ‘I’m a big big fan and I’ve downloaded all your music on Pirate Bay [laughs]’. It’s like, ‘thank you, I guess’. But they mean well and for us it’s a good thing, I think.

Heineken Music is very much involved with developing grass roots talent in Malaysia. What advice would you give to aspiring DJs and producers at a time when their music may not be their principle source of revenue?
LB: It’s all about DJing and playing live. Even with rock [music], it’s what they have to do, they tour. What advice would I give? Work hard because that whole thing about inspiration coming to you, that’s not true. The more you work, the more inspiration comes to you. And I’d say think about finding your own voice. If you got to an electronic chart like Beatport’s chart and listen to the Top 10 a lot of it more or less sounds the same because people copy each other. I think what you need to do is find your own voice and work on that. Mikkas and I tend to like melodies and think that’s the way forward but some people tend to work more with grooves. If you find your own place, I’m sure there will be other people out there feeling it.

So is it important to get the right label behind you for a particular track?
LB: I think it did for us with Get Physical [for Les Djinns]. That label had such a presence and people respect their choices so that’s been really good [for us]. I think that’s something you should take note of as an aspiring producer: there’s no point having a record out if it’s lying in a gas station in Kiev [laughs]. You need to know that the distribution is there and that they can actually do something.

Can you describe how the Djuma live set works?
LB: We both have computers, Mikkas is running Ableton Live on his and on mine I have a sampler called Traktor and a keyboard and I control the samples with that. Mikkas has a MIDI controller and he controls the main tracks and they’re linked together so they’re in sync. And I sing. On this my voice is treated because we wanted a certain sound and I’m only singing on one or two tracks.

Musically what’s the difference between a Djuma DJ set and the live experience?
LB: We still play the same groovy melodic stuff but I think when we play DJ sets we tend to go a little bit harder and rougher at the end. And of course when we DJ we play for a longer time – we love playing long sets, five hour sets.

What do crowds most respond to, the DJ sets or the live sets?
LB: The thing is, if they understand that we’re playing fully live – and there’s a lot of time that they don’t because DJs now have computers as well and a lot of times they hide you up in the DJ booth even when you’re playing live so people don’t get that – but I think they like both. I think people are surprised when we tell them that it’s all our own tracks. I think they’re really into that.

So is the live set more of a festival or outdoor type of experience?
LB: No, we have two sets because it’s different to play a festival than to play a club. So we have different sets for different occasions.

How did it feel to play in front of 50,000 people at the Free Fat Festival in Kiev?
LB: [Laughs] We felt a little bit like U2. It was amazing. The thing is when there’s that many people you can’t really see them. It’s like a big wall. You have to work a lot – use your hands and your facial expressions, everything to get them going. You have to use the mic. Whereas in a club it’s a more intimate connection with the people. You can see what they’re feeling and where they’re going. It was a good experience, really fun but I think when it comes down to it I like playing clubs more.

What are your top 2 tracks right now?
We’re really into a guy called Kohlbecker right now and he’s made a track called Tabasco. It’s got a nice trumpet on that we like. And at the moment I guess I’m into everything by Thomas Schumacher.

What tracks never come off your iPod?
That would be Ghost Town by The Specials. I love that track. I’m really into ska when I’m travelling.

To obtain invites for Heineken Green Room, register at www.heineken.com.my. (Strictly ages 21 years and above only and subject to availability).

Heineken Green Room:
Date: Saturday March 28th, 2009.
Time: 9.00pm – 2.00am
Venue: ODC (aka Orange Dance Club), 1 Jalan Kia Peng, 50450 KL

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