One particular genre of Electronic music, dubstep, is quite a peculiar beast, based on any number of its facets: its ebb and flow can confound the uninitiated, all the more so when surrounded by a crowd of fans who all seem to know exactly what’s happening preternaturally.

It’s easy to dismiss as a genre based on remixing (mash-ups), but seems to possess a tremendous amount of staying power. In other words, dubstep walks, talks, and acts like a new vein of popular dance music, but looks nothing like it. Part experiential, part experimental, and all of it a rollicking masquerade, the best advice one might give is to just go see a show, drop the lime in the coconut and drink it all up, and see where that leaves you.

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DJ SOLO (sometimes known as Dave Abrams), is neither an atypical figure in the dubstep scene, nor a stereotypical case; the very nature of the scene might demand a re-assessment of that sort of qualification. I caught up with Dave, Saturday afternoon at the Summer Camp music festival, in Chillicothe, IL, for a chat about him, his music, and the future of DJ SOLO.

Coming up in Chicago, Dave played in punk bands, starting off on guitar, and picking up the other mainstays like keys, drums, and bass guitar along the way, then went home at night to a four-track mixer where he started pursuing hip-hop and drum n’ bass music. With these in mind, SOLO came to the mash-up as a means of creating a hybrid between ideas.

“I wasn’t gonna do rap-rock, like, I wasn’t gonna be Limp Bizkit or something,” he says. Instead, Dave tried to weave together “what I was listening to coming up, but also just sounds and experiences.” He says there’s an element of nostalgia to the music.

Take a listen to his remix of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop,” and you’ll see what he means. Sound-bytes from Super Mario Bros punctuate the minimalist track’s rhythmically modular take on the punk classic. “It’s like, if you go to someone’s house, and they collect, like, Star Wars figures, they’re gonna have them all on display. That’s what I try to do with music, be a collector and display it all.”

This process, casting a wide net, and then weaving together something singular from the catch, has allowed  Dave to craft a pleasing hodge-podge of a resume. He’s produced for the Wu-Tang clan and is a member of Cypress Hill’s Soul Assassins, while also collaborating with Chicago’s Umphrey’s McGee and Cornmeal. Which seems to suit him just fine though, as there doesn’t appear to be anything outside his musical interest. I asked what he listened to on the drive down from his Champagne-Urbana home, and he looked up, maybe surprised at his own answer: “The Monkees Greatest Hits.”

His writing process is similarly disparate. “For drum n’ bass stuff, there are things you learn, things you gotta do, but they almost become like a formula. There’s so much…It can be overwhelming.” In other cases though, he starts off instrumentally, as is the case with his original track “Mile in My Shoes.”

“I started off writing that one on piano…I also perform the vocals.” Dave wears a lot of hats. Figuratively speaking, here. But also literally.

Looking ahead, Dave’s not shy about suggesting that dubstep might not have the staying power a lot of folks think it does: “As much as I love the music, the actual movement itself is over.”

He’s interested in making an album that’s “a whole experience,” as opposed to “oh here’s a single, here’s a single, and then put it all together, here’s an album.” It’s an organic development, for a guy who came to dubstep by way of taste and experience, and not the other way around.

The Vibe Tent is still teeming with sweaty, bedraggled hippies and club kids, come 2am. Painted girls in bikinis with neon hula hoops are hovering a few feet above the crowd. I get a glare from one when her hoop whacks the back of my head. Without a lull between artists, SOLO takes the stage, and there’s a moment when the ship feels like it’s come unmoored. It doesn’t last.

To be in a room surrounded by folks moving in unison, the sheer inertia too great to argue with, well, we hate to break it to him, but he might have already created that experience he wanted to with a new album. Here’s hoping he tries anyway.

The post DJ SOLO: Petere Magister Ludi appeared first on Quip Magazine.

Once upon a time, about four months ago, Misteur Valaire was offered the chance to play a DJ set in their hometown of Sherbrooke, QC. They turned their noses up, though, at the idea of getting on stage and spinning someone else’s party beats, so they decided to turn out an entire album of their own.

Thus, Qualité Hotel, the pure-party version of Misteur Valaire, was born. After nine-to-fivein’ it for a few weeks on the music for Motel Califorña, all they needed was some help from their friends.

“We sent the tracks to some friends, gave them the theme of the song and the album, and they took care of the rest,” mentions Luis Clavis (Louis-Pierre Phaneuf) at the album’s launch party. Surely an album with 16 collaborators must have taken a while to assemble, I say.

“About 20-25 days,” he replies. “It was actually accelerated by this party. We already had the date set with SAT, so we decided to use it as an opportunity to launch the album.”

SAT is the Société des arts technologiques, and they didn’t simply provide a space for Qualité Motel to perform; they provided a multimedia experience to accompany Motel Califorña.

Fourteen fire hydrants (bornes fontaines) were placed around the Quartier des spectacles in Montreal, so that with Invisible, the augmented reality iPhone App developed by the Metalab team at SAT, fans can take pictures of the hydrants and then be treated to a Qualité Motel song as well as the story behind it.

The SAT-proposed and -produced experiment fits perfectly with the band’s technology-embracing style. The three-song set they performed in the Satosphere on Monday did not feature a single “traditional” instrument, but rather five guys banging away on laptops and synths. The result is a party show along the lines of Girl Talk, with the addition of some live rap.

The launch party itself showed what is remarkable about the Québec music industry: its ability to promote their own. When I arrived a half-hour early, I was excited to be the only media there. Once the doors officially opened, I realized I was lucky to have had five minutes with Luis Clavis, as CBC, ArTV, and NRJ radio were all lined up for pictures and interviews. The band drank beers and soaked up all the attention, even posing for some shots with Mitsou, the Québecoise pop legend that appears on the track Honey Cruller.

Qualité Motel were not intimidated by the pop royalty, nor did they show any fear getting up in front of a stiff industry audience to perform dance music while the sun was still shining outside. After the band rattled off five minutes of mercies to the assembled crowd, they retreated backstage to change into costume. When they reemerged, they were sporting authentic hipster garb: short jean shorts, big fluorescent shades, and pastel tank tops. The outfits were the perfect representation of the band’s style, as were the incredible graphics on the Satosphere walls provided by Zef&Santo.

Despite the fact that the audience was close to 100 per cent francophone, the three-song set featured exclusively English songs. This showed the chink in the Québec music industry’s armor, in that if Québec groups want to keep growing, they will have to do so outside la belle province. Qualité Motel knows that, and they have their eyes on bigger prizes.

After they finish a tour of Québec in April, they’re off to Europe.

“We’ll be touring France, Germany,” Luis Clavis mentions, “and oh yeah, England. But we’ll launch this album in May in France.”

Those places are a long way from Sherbrooke, but they’re about to get rocked Eastern Townships style.

The post Qualité Hotel – Shaking up the Montreal music scene appeared first on Quip Magazine.