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2ManyDJs Something’s got to give…
Writer: Reef Younis Photographer: Gabriel Green A solitary glitter ball hangs from Brixton Academy’s ceiling, rendered obsolete in the company of gaping confetti canons and a giant back screen. Below, a small army of technicians are busy preparing 2ManyDJs new visual assault, not that anyone who’s witnessed their live show has ever been left looking for a distraction. Arguably the ultimate party DJs, brothers Stephen and David DeWaele have been raising roofs for the best part of a decade, straddling the ever-difficult divide between AC/ DC and Dolly Parton and evolving through the now incendiary Soulwax, Radio Soulwax and 2ManyDJs guises. In the bowels of the Academy, David DeWaele is worried. Surprised by the power of a small Myspace ad and indifferent to the fact that tonight and Saturday’s shows (both sell outs) cleared in a recessionary week in February, the advent of a new audiovisual chapter in 2ManyDJs life has him on edge. “It’s nice that people are so willing to just come to a 2ManyDJs set,” he says. “It’s really odd how we went on sale with these two small ads and it sold out in a week. We were completely surprised it went so quickly but we don’t feel pressured by that. There’s always an extra stigma to the London show so I guess in normal circumstances there wouldn’t be any added pressure, but tonight we’re doing something we’ve only done four or five times.” Tonight’s show marks something of a 2ManyDJs matinee, showcasing their painstakingly compiled album cover animations along with trademark good time mash ups. For all the preparation though, David is still wary that they’re entering a new realm in live shows. “You have to look at it like this: Up until a week ago, DJing was the easiest thing in the world for
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us but now we’ve introduced this new concept, it’s more complicated. A few weeks ago we could turn up at a club with our CDs and play the tracks but now with the light show and the big screen…what you’ll see is, I don’t wanna ruin it for you but you’ll basically see animation based on every record sleeve. If we play, I don’t know, AC/DC, you’ll see elements of the cover animated in this crazy way. We’ve been working on it for months,” he explains. So it’s not quite the colossal Daft Punk LED pyramid, and David and Stefan still pack relatively lightweight equipment compared to some, but it’s a new method that demands an increasingly clinical approach to a set in both execution and selection. “Obviously if you play a normal DJ set, you’re a lot more flexible in what you can play but now we’re limited to about 120 tracks over the summer. On average we play somewhere between about 35 and 40 tracks, so we usually know what we’re going to start with and have an idea of what we’re going to end with but everything in between is up for grabs,” he says. Having long established themselves with Soulwax’s electro-tinged indie, 1999 saw the emergence of 2ManyDJs’ genre-bending sets and despite a frosty reception, David recalls getting by with a little help from their friends. “When we first started coming to this country in 1999, one of the first people we met was Erol Alkan and we thought very much alike in terms of music. Erol was very important for us, as were nights like Trash. I think the turning point for us came when we released our first compilation and we saw a big change. We’d be playing at these venues where Sasha or John Digweed were playing or we’d come on after
some guy who’d been playing trance and people would literally be offended, shouting at us and giving us the middle finger,” he explains wide-eyed. “But, I’d say about 2003, the whole world caught up. I think for the first year and a half, we were seen as a threat, not just us, but Erol, James Murphy and Peaches too because we were a threat to the big money making
people in the industry.” A seemingly harsh induction into the UK circuit it might have been but it wasn’t one that overly surprised the duo. Having been exposed to clashing genres growing up in and around the European club scene, the wide, segmented approach to genre in the UK was one 2ManyDJs looked to tackle head on. “I think there’s always been a division