Photo: Press
2ManyDJs and Soulwax member Stephen Dewaele has spoken out about their collaboration with James Murphy on their unique club night Despacio - hailing it as a 'life-changing' experience.
Despacio is the brainchild of former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy and David and Stephen Dewaele from Soulwax (known as DJ collective 2ManyDJs). Together, they have created their own soundsystem and unique disco experience. The shows went down well with both fans and critics at this summer's Manchester Internation Festival and will be coming to London for three nights at Hammersmith Town Hall next month.
Speaking to Gigwise about the origins of the project, Stephen said: "It's an idea that me, Dave and James have had for a while. We just said why can't we build a soundsystem so we can play the kind of music that we wouldn't normally play in normal DJ gigs. You know - a bit more of the rarer stuff and crazy vinyl that we have?
"I think that once James had finished with LCD, we bumped into him in London and he said 'I don't think you realise this, but I'm going to be in your neighbourhood a lot more so let's actually finish the things that we've been talking about for the last 10 years'. We went to our house, set up our laptops and started hanging out a lot more."
He continued: "Then someone said 'oh we're actually going to build it' and we went 'oh shit', then someone said 'you're going to need a name' and we said 'oh shit', then it became clear that we were actually going to do this and we did three nights in Manchester. The whole thing was an amazing experience."
Stephen said that the trio received 'amazing' feedback after it's residency at the Manchester International Festival this summer - with club-goers describing the sound quality and overall dance atmosphere as a 'life-changing experience'.
"The difference was that I could see they were dancing," said Stephen. "The cool thing about Despacio is that sometimes we would put some classical music on just to bring things down a little bit and people would wit then just start dancing again, giving us time to go into the audience to look at the people. People were just coming up to me and saying 'hey, I'm having such a good time'. It was just really nice. It's about us being involved with the people. The first one was completey different t the first one and the second one. We played different stuff, tried out different things and now we have our heads around it, I think that London is going to be even more special."
- Check back soon for our full Despacio interview
Despacio will be at London's Hammersmith Town Hall on Thursday 19, Friday 20 and Saturday 21 December, 2013 - from 9pm - late. Tickets are on general sale now. For more information visit Gigwise gig tickets.
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