some good “green energy,” as he used to call it, and he needed it so much.We started putting tracks together when I lived in New York. I still have all the handwritten notes. The Nuphonic compilation led to the London Loft parties. How hard was it to take an event ingrained in that particular New York culture outside of its natural environment? It was difficult to start with, especially with the sound. Some people didn’t think it was loud enough, or there wasn’t enough bass. You have to remember: there’s no compression, no EQ, in the Loft sound system. It has a very simple signal path, with beautiful Class A amplifiers, a Mark Levinson ML-1 preamplifier, the Koetsu cartridges David got from Japan, and three-way, horn- loaded Klipshchorn speakers. They go down to about 30Hz, but some people are just used to having more bass. But it actually eats into the other frequencies, and the music becomes less dynamic.
I wanted to talk about your productions. I remember going down to [West London distributor] Goya Music in the late 1990s and picking up white labels with Bitches Brew written on them. When I moved to London, it was 1999, and the broken beat thing was going on. It was something so unique to the U.K., you know. I was so into it. I met [Goya founders] Mike [Slocombe] and Spence [Weekes] going over there to pick up promos from them and, at the same time, I had met Nikki Lucas, who worked at Honest Jon’s, and we decided to start a label. We named it Bitches Brew because that [Miles Davis] album was a landmark that fused a lot of different things. I’ve always found that, whatever I do in terms of music, I try not to pinpoint the genre. I have a lot of different styles that I’m into. That brings us to your remixes as Cosmodelica. I’m thinking about the eclectic range of artists you work with, and if there is a Cosmodelica sound? Sometimes I admire artists that have a signature sound. I know it’s easier for people to market, and get their head around. But that wouldn’t be authentic for me. I’d lose interest. Plus, I was getting asked to remix a lot of different sounds, from Desmond Dekker to Phenomenal Handclap Band. I’ve done six remixes [in the last year], and they’re all different. There’s [“Alone Together” by] Saint Etienne, which has a very Dorothy Ashby sound. And then [“I Wanna Get Over” by] the Street People, which is more high-energy disco, almost Northern soul-ish.Then I just remixed Ada Morghe, a German singer, which is more of a downtempo Balearic thing, and I’ve done a similar thing with Santino Surfers. Then there was [“And Nothing Is Forever” by] the Cure.
How did Love Dancin’ Sound System evolve, and how does it differ from the Loft?
When Gilles [Peterson] started We Out Here, he asked me and Adam to host a tent bringing in our London Loft sound system, but with some tweaks.You can’t really bring the Loft to a festival. But we wanted to take things we had learned from the Loft, and amend it into a situation where other DJs could play, and that would work in a festival. And, with the help of our great friend Iain Mackie of A-Live Sound, who is kind of our Alex Rosner [Mancuso’s sound engineer/designer at the Loft in New York], and has been with us since we started the London parties, we have done that. You’ve paved the way for other sound-system parties and, similarly, Classic Album Sundays has been an influence on listening bars and all that. Where did the idea for it come from? After we bought the sound system for our Loft parties in London, two Klipschorns ended up at my house. Our playback system was really phenomenal, and I started to listen to all my records again. It was like,“My god, I didn’t even know that was in there!” So, when friends would come over, we’d sit and listen to a whole album. At the same time, Greg Wilson had started an online listening event called Living to Music with a classic album selected, and listeners sharing their impressions on his blog. In September 2010, he had chosen Dark Side of the Moon . I had this crazy Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab pressing, got the incense out, and it sounded sublime. I thought I should share this experience, but bring in a really great sound system, and tell the stories behind the records and give them musical context.
What else can we look forward to?
I’ve got this new project, Electric Eden, with Joe Goddard, Alexis Taylor, and Al Doyle [from Hot Chip], and [DJ and singer] Lou Hayter.We’ve done two songs so far, and I worked with them on the Cure remix. It’s really fun, they have a great studio, and they’re great people. I’m really enjoying it.
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( previous spread ) The Love Dancin’ Sound System tent at We Out Here in 2023. Photo by Ellie Koepke. ( opposite ) Colleen at home with her records, 2018. Photo by Eilon Paz.
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