What a f*cked-up year, right? Last Spring, we published a series of edits to support artists we love and spread a bit of love. By this time, we would have never guessed that we’d be in lockdown again in November. As the situation for artists and music lovers has never been so tough, we are proud of starting this project again !
In this second volume, we'll post 3 tracks edited by artists we are supporting and who accepted to share their latest works with you. We'll provide the tracks and some small interviews so you'll also understand their artistic approach and background.
Joyeux de Cocotier - La Banane (Bongo Barns Edit)
Our first encounter with Barney aka Bongo Barns lasts from last year. We loved his ability to pick underated tracks and make them real bangers. We have played “I want a Fish" and “Bongo’s Break" so many times that we are almost ashamed when one of us drop them during a gig. Since then, he has done few noticeable releases with Running Hot and some crazy mixtapes for Lorem Ipsum, so it was time to catch up!
Hello Barney, what’s going on? How are you managing boredom at the moment ?
Hola, I’m doing good. Besides music, being a great lover and my day job, I’m trying to learn some new (cooking) skills and just make the best of the whole lockdown thing. Even exercising (LOL, yes really!). It feels weird though. Maybe this generation of DJ’s is gonna be the healthiest batch of DJ’s ever. I see nightlife people around me picking up healthy habits, getting enough sleep, healthy diets etc haha. Maybe this is also just the only way to stay sane, which is not funny at all actually. People, especially young people are missing out on so many things right now. We need to be able to flirt with insanity and go all out on club nights. But for now that’s just too dangerous. Excuse my philosophical sidepass, I just really miss a bigass soundsystem and a packed sweaty dancefloor…
You just recorded a 3-hour long mix for Lorem Ipsum, how did you become a DJ and a record collector ?
Well, I was producing electronic music first and the deejay thing came later. I was still a student, by 2009 or so, when “Minimal” and “DeepHouse" was the sound in Amsterdam and big warehouse parties like GZG were the go-to parties. Although I was intrigued I always thought the beats were so simple, surely any fool could produce them! So.. this broke ass fool cracked a copy of FL Studio and started producing, mostly replicating the sounds that were popular back then (still have some tracks on a hardrive if you wanna have a laugh).
Surely but steadily though, I started to develop my musical taste through the broad music and clubbing landscape in Amsterdam. My friend took me to the now world famous Club Trouw which was conveniently located around the corner from where I lived. I still remember the first night entering that building.. Mathew Dear was playing with a band (?) and even though there were only 50 people or so on the dancefloor the whole night was nothing like I experienced before. The lighting, sounds and the amazing industrial vibe of the building, all on a different level. I had to go back to this club, and so I did religiously as much as my student income could afford over the next following years
It was here, in the basement of Trouw on one of the legendary Rush Hour nights that I experienced a major inspirational moment. A moment that immediately put me on a new musical track. While upstairs bigroom Techno or House was being played, Antal was destroying the basement downstairs, quite literally. The pillars in that room were shaking, the speakers almost exploding after every knob turn of the grand master and the crowd was estatic, like a group of wild animals. How? He did so by playing 100BPM’ish bossanova tracks like Emilio Santiago – Vem Menina. I was absolutely stunned, how could this music, not intended for those big club sound systems (or so I thought) move a crowd like that… It was one of those moments you’ll never forget. The next week I obligated myself to learn everything about what had happened; the music, that way of deejaying, I was hooked. My Minimal and Deephouse fascination started to taper off and although I was still producing, at that time more Lo-fi House beats (Shed!!), I started to get into other types of dance music, from all over the world, mostly 80’s and early 90’s stuff and started deejaying on student parties. Then a really shitty thing happened, my computer crashed with all my projects (nothing backed up, always back up kids). After that I was like, okay let’s do the deejay thing only and become serious about finding deep digs and collecting music, which I was already slowly getting into more and more because of the amazing record shops we have here in Amsterdam. So thanks to Antal and my crashed laptop I jumped onto this new path, discovering music from all parts of the world, collecting and editing. I was hooked and never let go since.
You’ve released some nice edits these last years and you’re pretty active on sharing groups, what do you think of today’s scene ?
I love the current diggers scene! We live in this golden information and networking age with all this technology. Although it is really overwhelming as well. Youtube channels, facebook groups, what else you got, telegram groups? Some of those were insane and we saw some nice drama there. I had to leave those groups though, since I got over-stimulated and just couldn’t keep up. I now limit myself to a few channels and groups, and just 1 or 2 hours a week checking those. Anyway. Overall, a lot of friendly and funny people in this scene for sure! Had the pleasure to meet and host some like minded obsessed idiots over the years in Amsterdam. I remember chatting with this one guy for over 3 years through facebook messenger, just exchanging chunes every month, never had I even heard his voice, and then one day he stood at my doorstep and I hugged him. LOL. Shoutout to Callum Duff.
How did I come to focus on edits? I dunno really how it started, shitty vocal sections on compass and soca tracks I guess?
Besides being functional for mixing purposes, creating your own DJ edits is a lot of fun I think. It brings a personal touch to stuff you find and it’s so great for spicing up your mixes. It has always been a big part for me in preparing DJ Sets and being able to mix a lot of different genres. Also I always loved producing and fiddling around with loops while deejaying. Once I started to have more serious DJ gigs I also felt I needed to bring more of my own edits to make it more personal and unique. I have hundreds of small edits never posted or published that are just waiting for the right moment to be played in some moment (maybe they never will). Some edits are made of sections of tracks as short as 30 seconds, and I expanded them to 3 minute tracks which is enough for me since on average I have a track around 3 minutes in my set (excluding the mix in part). Example this 30 second intro of a shadow track expanded: https://soundcloud.com/bongobarns/shadow/s-Ys5W2XxxDZm
The eclectic style of deejaying that’s popular in Amsterdam was always a great inspiration and reason for me to create and use edits of weirdo stuff you find over the years. It’s very liberating to know that you can literally play whatever you want. Good music is good music. And I believe the Amsterdam crowd and venues have been very early in adopting music from all parts of the world. Of Course through the amazing record stores and festivals like Dekmantel and Strange Sounds from beyond as well or just the sheer open mindedness I dunno. So yeah why just limit yourself to one or two genres or the whole track for that matter? Just cut out what you like and build on that. In that sense I see a lot of similarities of the sampling culture and the current edit culture, and yeah I think that’s a good thing! More of it please!
Regarding edits, can you tell us how you find the material for your work and what’s your creative process once you found it?
Here’s the big secret: I find most of my material via the internet. Haha, it’s not as romantic as some people think when they think about “record diggers” but yeah it saves me a ton of time (and money) and nowadays you can find infinitely more stuff online then you ever could offline. There’s more to internet digging than Youtube channels and Discogs of course, although those are great. I try to check online inventory of record stores across the globe and yeah I’m a big fan of CD’s as well. As people close to me know, I found so much stuff released on CD’s the last few years. “Blind” buys can be great as well if you’re willing to lose money, they take some experience in determining potential though so def. not for everyone.
My creative process.. When it’s just a simple copy paste edit, I would only need audacity to rearrange the parts. If I do a rework, I go into Traktor DJ, Yes that virtual DJ program, on my mac, and start making loop / cue points of the parts I like, sometimes as small as 1 beat. After that I start jamming away with the cue / loop points. This way I get a pretty fast idea on whether there is potential for a killer edit and how the edit should look like, what the arrangement should be etc. Or if there is too little material or instrumental parts. I then use FL studio to work out the edit and add drums, pads, keys or other elements if needed. I also use Izotope for mastering if needed.
What’s the story behind this edit of Joyeux de Cocotier ?
It’s a simple extension of a 90’s CD version from Joyeux de Cocotier’s hit song: La Banane. Finding the track proved much more difficult since there are many different versions of it. Even though there was this youtube clip since 2013, it took me a long time to find this version.
When I was first introduced to Joyeux De Cocotier via the Digital Zandoli gentleman I wanted to hear more of his songs. Once I heard this amazing lush version of “La Banane” on Youtube I was blown away and needed to have it. I’m just such a sucker for those tight productions, that bassline and horn section! I asked almost every french digger I knew around me if they had any leads on this youtube version, where I could find it etc. But no one knew. Since it wasn’t on any of the records or CD’s by Joyeux that had obvious titles like La banane Club Mix. I went back to commenting on the youtube video and writing the artist directly, of course in French! But no luck.. I bought several other comps with Joyeux on it to try and hunt down the track further but all leading back to the CD’s and records with the wrong versions on it, after three years I gave up. I thought it must be one this CD called Bananga Zouk – C’est bon pour la Doudou, as I saw an expired listing of it on Tweedehands.be. I still have the screenshots in case I would ever find the CD in the wild so I could remember it!! The listing or any other entries of that CD (Bananga Zouk) have now been deleted.
Makes you wonder how much more music is not listed yet on the internet or has already been delisted. Anyhow… I gave up… Then, what happened, I resold one of the Joyeux – la Banane CLub mix records via Discogs, the one with the wrong versions on it, to a fellow who was also hunting down this dope version. Go figure! He was complaining to me about the version of youtube not being on the record I sold him. I know!! Feeling his pain, as it literally was my pain all over again, I was fueled again and I promised him I wouldnt rest until we both have it. This was the beginning of 2020, haha. The interwebs. LOL. Then one day when I was just browsing CD’s again on Discogs and came across a CD listing of Joyeux, it was his CD album “D’Ile En Ile” which I had never seen listed before on the Cogs. Only then I saw that it also contained a track called La Banane and the timestamps matched with the youtube clip! How da fuck did I miss that!!! I was soo close, I knew it. I took the gamble and jumped on it. And tadaaa there it was. The 90’s CD Album version of La Banane. Extended and in high quality now for your listening pleasure.
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