So it’s time the hot-seat at YCCMP was graced with another rising sensation, and this time we’re under the spotlight with ‘Disco of Doom’ (AKA Tom Real & The Rogue Element). You can always rely on YCCMP for getting a legitimate and exclusive upload and incite into the heavy wobble thunder sounds of bass culture, and the boys of doom have brought us just that. Check their new single ‘In Effect’ which is available for download here at beatport, and they’ve also sent us their classic banger ‘Warpig’ which is also available at beatport too, and if that wasn’t enough we’ve got an exclusive mix just to ice the cake. With a string of heavyweight festivals and parties smashed and trashed last year, it looks like 2010 is set to plaster your face with their extra bass manifesto…
I saw your set at Glade last summer. To sum it up, it was destructive. I was somewhere within the mess, trying out my future skanking dance moves which I don’t think are gonna catch on. What’s the tone for Disco of Doom’s DJ sets this year?
Well to be honest although a fair bit of other people’s work worms its way in to our sets we’re erring more and more on the side of playing mostly our own stuff at the moment, we seem to have stockpiled enough weapons to be self-sufficient in that regard. Expect plenty of wonkiness and bass with a side order of 4am filth. If something of someone else’s turns up and we are blown away by it, we’ll definitely be including it tho!
It’s no secret that Disco of Doom comprises of an all star line up in terms of dance music credentials. How has your sound evolved from your various projects under ‘Tom Real’ and ‘Rogue Element’? Was there ever a specific direction, or do you guys just go into the studio with an open mind?
Obviously when you’re producing you have to have a vague idea of where you want to take things direction wise, although if you’re too dictatorial about it you end up stifling yourself or writing the same track over and over. In terms of recalibrating our direction, there haven’t really been any conscious decisions about it other than perhaps to emphasize groove over bosh slightly, putting a bit more space in our tracks and letting the ideas breathe – if an idea is strong you shouldn’t be afraid to let it stick around in the track and let people lock into it. That said, generally our planning process for a track tends to be me (Ben) sitting there getting everything set up to start and then Tom turning up with a box of teabags going ‘What about doing something that goes ‘baaaaaaaaaaarnnnnnnngh – ba – baaaaaaarngh’ or maybe something that goes ‘woorp woorp wooooo’.
Who’s on the Disco of Doom player right now? Any peeps or tracks set to kill it in 2010?
It’s interesting times out there for sure. The Disco Of Doom sound has always been about experimenting with new sounds that are exciting us and translating that into our own productions. Right now on the Stereo Of Doom we’ve got a whole mishmash of stuff from Jan Driver to The Subs, Popof, Noob, Mowgli, Solo, Etienne De Crecy to Switch, Brodinski, Felix Da Housecat, Cassisus, DJ Zinc to the sounds of Doc Daneeka, Julio Bashmore, Zombie Disco Squad and beyond. It’s funny that the shouty electro sound of the last couple of years seems to have disappeared and people are vibing off tropical house and garage.
The financial state of the music industry is in a degree of turmoil, as new solutions are being tried and tested to right it’s footing. Do you feel the scene has become over saturated and misrepresented? Or do you remain optimistic about the future of the industry?
I think it’s just been a bit arbitrary that music has been among the first industries (not forgetting photography) to pay the price for exponential development in technology, and the current fairly lawless nature of the Internet. The fact that song files are so small and easily reproducible is a major factor, as is the fact that the means of production are so commonplace and accessible compared to 10-15 years back, and at the moment these things are conflating to devalue the nature of recorded music.
There is a degree of saturation, mainly because in the world of dance music everyone wants to be a player rather than a punter – everyone runs a label, DJs, does parties, produces, and so on – and inevitably not everyone is good at it, so you do get a lot of very average music/half empty parties out there clogging up the system. I think eventually quality control will be reintroduced and the industry will sort itself out but when it does it will be a very different beast from before – however you’d probably need an PhD in Economics and a bunch of chicken bones and blood etc to see exactly what it will look like.
Now it seems that every disco has a disco ball hanging from it’s ceiling. Now I’m presuming that your disco would have a ‘Disco Ball of Doom’, apart from this being a great name for a funked out Indiana Jones sequel, how can we envisage your Disco Ball of Doom?
Our ball of Doom would be vast, planet-sized, and every glittering facet would in fact not glitter but would be a rip in the space time continuum leading to oblivion.
Right, now for some pointless future predictions. Is this new year likely to be consumed by Doom, with global warming and economic crisis. Or is it going to manifest itself into a happy Disco bloom and loads of big bass booms?
As we are the Disco of Doom, we’re going to sit on the fence. We predict that whilst outside the world convulses, there are droughts in Manchester and everyone’s bank balances proportionately invert, in the disco joy and abandon will prevail in the face of apocaplyse, like the last days of Rome but with less hermaphrodites.
There you have it. We’ve deducted what’s in the doom, and it’s in stark contrast to the booms. We’ll just have to see about the gloom, but as for now I’m more concerned about the bloom, as the Disco of Doom is most definitely set to resume with an abundance of sick tunes.
Darkly
Disco of Doom – In Effect
Disco of Doom – Warpig
1: Green Velvet ‘UFO’
2: The Subs ‘Mitsubishi’
3: Tai ‘Powerchords’ Disco Of Doom RMX (Coco Machete)
4: Jan Driver ‘The Rat’
5: Popof ‘Faces Uch’ (Form)
6: Mowgli ‘Paris To London’ (Deadfish)
7: Tiga ‘Sunglasses At Night’ DIM Remix (Turbo)
8: Friendly Fires ‘On Board’ Joakim Instrumental (XL)
9: LCD Soundsystem ‘ Get Innocuous’ Soulwax RMX (DFA)
10: Etienne De Crecy ‘France’ (Great Stuff)
11: Hiroki Esashika ‘Kazane’ Disco Of Doom RMX (Taste/d)
12: Disco Of Doom ‘In Effect’ (Gung Ho!)
13: Fuck Off ‘Too Late’ (Great Stuff)
