Belgians Vincent De Boeck and Jochen Sablon have risen from nowhere to bring their distinctive Sound of Stereo dance flavors to the world. Zul Andra finds out more about their latest EP Hurricane, “Singapore Swing” and playing in the acclaimed Pukkelpop festival.
I only know Belgium for their chocolates.
Vincent De Boeck (V): Belgium is a really small country with a really big scene. Sometimes we feel like it’s too big actually. On any given weekend you can see a lot of big names throughout the country. You can cross the whole of Belgium in 2 hours by car so it’s not that hard to find a good party near you. I guess it’s hard for promoters to throw their parties since there are is so much competition. In the summertime there are a lot of big and smaller festivals that offers a variety of good artists. You can party all year long!
Did you latest Hurricane EP blew critics out the window?
Jochen Sablon (J): It turned out to be very good! We are really glad with all the support and positive reactions we’ve gotten, We got played on Steve Aoki’s Radio show, charted by Brodinski and supported by the likes of Boys Noize, Fake Blood, Bart B More, Congorock, Djedjotronic, and many more. It has been a while since we made tracks straight for the clubs. So it’s awesome to see that it worked out the way we hoped it to.
Italo, disco, electro, techno…what’s your musical vibe?
V: It’s hard to choose some sort of musical vibe lately. We are into a lot of stuff; I really liked the Grum album from last year, Tame Impala, Yeasayer, Jamaica and many others. I also love the stuff Boys Noize is doing with its label lately, going back to proper techno vibes.
J: Totally agree.
What was your most memorably awesome/worst gig ever?
V: Most memorable was probably the first year, 2009 I think it was. We played Pukkelpop in Belgium. It’s a festival where we had some of our best memories as festival-goers. It’s a place where we went to see our favorite artists or discovered a bunch of new artists. First show we did there was on the first day of the festival at noon, first act on the dance stage. It was boiling hot, but the place was packed with people. We really didn’t expect that. Such an amazing experience!
J: I don’t think we can mention memorable worst gig. Sometimes stuff goes wrong you know. Bad promoted parties, having to wait for hours somewhere, getting stuck at the airport, technical issues… it’s all part of the job I guess.
2011 been treating you fine?
V: 2011 has been okay so far. We started the year of with a little vacation. We had some gigs in the USA, Belgium and now we are touring Australia for the first time together with Future Music Festival. It will also be the first time for us playing in Asia. Pretty exciting times at the moment actually!
Who have shaped your musical side?
J: We are influenced by so many different artists. Of course there’s the guys in our scene, Boys Noize records for instance who’s doing a great job on bringing back some great techno influences from the old days. Brodinski and Erol are also two names you just have to mention. They both keep digging deep to bring new and fresh stuff on the dancefloor and beyond. That’s what keeps it all exciting.
The remix of Shinichi Osawa and Paul Chambers’ “Singapore Swing” is banging. How did that come about?
V: Paul Chambers is a friend from Belgium. When he did the track with Shinichi Osawa, Paul asked us to remix it in exchange for the one he did for our track “Helium”. They are both great guys and producers so we didn’t really think about it. We made it into a real acid banger, we kind of felt like going that way at the time. It turned out really good!
What’s on the “to-do-list” for you boys?
J: We just finished a track for the new Mortal Combat video game, and we also finished a remix for ZZT. Other than that we are starting to work on some new remixes and ome new original tracks for the summer.
Zirca’s coming up and its your first ever debut in Singapore.
V: We are very excited to play there. We will try and do the same as we always do, try to make the people have a good time. That’s what it’s all about!
Sound of Stereo is on Mar 19, 10pm. Zirca, #01-02/05 Blk. C The Cannery, Clarke Quay, River Valley Rd., 6333-4168. $15.00-28.00 includes two drinks.
