An Interview With Black Van

When James Murphy decides to sign somebody new to the DFA roster, you know they're serious. The combination of Kris Menace & KoweSix could be open to debate on how good the results would turn out. But they've brought some excellent ideas together and put them through some awesome analog gear and you guessed it, the results are rad.

You probably first heard wind of Black Van when their inspiring Yearning got signed to DFA, the track did excellent things for the pair and the pace really hasn't eased off much since. Having their Moments of Excellence EP signed to Permanent Vacation, you could argue that they are currently signed to two of the best disco labels in the world at the moment.

I got to share a conversation with KoweSix via email and was lucky enough to ask some questions for your pleasure. Check it out :

Thanks once again for taking the time out to do this interview for us, you guys must be super busy lately, how has the response to this new project of yours been for you?

The last year was really busy and since we both have other projects it' s a little complicated to make time for black van. But the work is really fun and the feedback so great that the extra hours don' t matter….

Black Van is quite an abstract name, where and how did the name come about, and how did this collaborative project actually happen?

Well, the name is been in my head (koweSix) for quite a while, I don' t know why and where it came from. When kris and I met playing one night in the same club we had such a great time that it was perfectly clear something would have to follow this. In our first studio session we produced "yearning" in one night. That morning we decided to do this project and the name came in handy.

Yearning seems to us like a massive leg up for you, it was such a well received track across the board with support from Chris Baio to Shadow Dancer. And obviously the fact that it got signed to DFA, was this a planned success of yours?

Kris knew James Murphy from remixing Lcd Soundsystem and when we produced "yearning" we thought right away that it would fit perfectly to DFA. We sent the track to james and he replied immediately. That all happened within hours.

The Moments of Excellence EP signed to Permanent Vacation too, which is no doubt another stand out label in the electronic music world at the moment. Do you have any plans of staying with either PV or DFA or is it a matter of taking the best offer that comes up?

We are really happy with where we're at right now. We like the output of both labels a lot and think we fit in perfectly. You never know what happens but at the moment we have no intention of changing anything!

Feel free to prove me wrong, but your sound as Black Van sounds quite distinctly analog, is this the case and do you feel as though producers should be reaching back to the vintage gear to escape the generic soft synth sound that has flooded the internet in recent years?

You're right, we use a lot of analog gear and your also right when saying sound is suffering from digital production. on the other hand there are a lot of kids doing some great songs with crappy laptops. and a lot of people can simply not afford the expensive analog gear. that all would not matter because if you know how you can get proper sound out of digital gear but it needs time and practice. people don' t have time and labels keep on releasing all these wacky produced tracks. not to mention all those laptop - djs who play 128kbit mp3's…. so who is to blame?

What is your most used piece of equipment in the studio apart from your monitors?

Lets put it this way: our analog mixing desk and our compressors are really important!

Undeniably 2010 has been the year of Black Van, what can we expect to hear and see from you guys in 2011?

Be sure, you' ll hear more from us. A collaboration with "Holy Ghost!", some remixes and maybe even our first album!

We've heard you artists like Robbie Williams and Aeroplane, are you not restricting yourself to just the electronic music scene for remixes or was the Robbie Williams one a once off kind've thing?

Restriction is not our thing, generally speaking. but time is always an issue. We really have to use our studio time reasonable which is why you won' t get a black van remix every two weeks or so. and of course we just do what we really like but when we were asked for the robbie williams mix we knew right away: we have to do this!

Do you have yourself a few artists new or old that you would call a reference or inspiration?

Too many to name actually, from the isley brothers to tom moulten and many many others...

Are there any artists of today that you think are doing great things, or that inspire you?

There are some, of course. Tensnake, the revenge, shit robot to name a few...

Also what labels do you think are doing good things for electronic music right now?

Well, at least dfa and permanent vacation are doing really good….

What music did you grow up listening to?

Soul, Fusion Jazz and Hip Hop… and a little Disco!

Do you recall the first time you fell in love with music, if so when was it and what song was playing?

I come from a family were music was not playing a very big role but when i heard kool & the gangs "summer madness" for the first time it changed everything...

Did you start out as DJs at first and head into production later or was producing always the path that you wished to take?