As they release their debut album, Warung Beach 001 – a dazzling artist/mix hybrid – on Hope Recordings, EQ talks to Dutch duo 16 Bit Lolitas. Plus the boys deliver an hour-long MP3 mix for your listening pleasure…
For a while now, South America has been the place that every DJ cites as their favourite place to place. But if there’s one club south of the equator that gets more kudos than any other, it’s Warung Beach, a Brazilian hotspot that only ever seems to get glowing reviews. So it was only a matter of time before the club started to develop its own albums, and this month, they kick things off in style.
Warung Beach 001 is no dodgy Ministry Of Sound-style package designed to sit happily on the shelves of Woolworths. Far from it. Just out on Nick Warren’s label Hope Recordings, it’s a two-disc package that showcases the DJing and production talent of one of the hottest double acts around: the 16 Bit Lolitas. The Dutch duo of Ariaan ‘Aad’ Olieroock and Peter Kriek have been making waves for some time now with their lush, melodic house tracks. Unsurprisingly, their label boss Nick has been including their tracks on his mixes for a while now, and they always come as a highlight. So for the boys to get a shot at their own album is something of a treat. CD one is a mix that captures the Warung feel, while CD two is an artist album of sorts – a collection of exclusive 16 Bit Lolita tracks that’s perfectly shows off their distinctive sound.
“We always had this dream of creating a Warung CD series,” says the club’s Gustavo Rassi. “For the first album we decided that 16 Bit Lolitas were the perfect artists, considering their history at the club and their amazing tracks and remixes. But above all is the friendship and respect between us and Ariaan and Peter. When we heard their idea for the album, we knew we were right about this feeling.”
And with Gustavo’s glowing endorsement ringing in our ears, EQ set off to talk to Peter of the 16 Bits to find out more…
Was it daunting putting out the first album in a new series?
Not daunting, but I was a little bit anxious just to get it out. I was a little bit afraid because it’s not the usual banging stuff that you hear a lot at the moment. It’s a little bit more warm and friendly, more of a listening album. But it seems to be going down well. We did an underground mix album a couple of years ago called Bodywarmer which had a lot of downtempo stuff on it, but this is our first official compilation. And our first artist album.
A lot of people must have been a long time for an album from you?
Us too. We’ve got so much music and so many ideas, and we were ready to take those and combine them into something like this. And it was quite an honour to get the chance to do that on the first Warung Beach album. It’s such a great place in every way.
Is the club really as good as everyone says?
Probably better. For us, it’s the best place in the world. It’s great for our sound, it’s a great club, it’s full of great people, and it’s got an amazing atmosphere.
Was it hard trying to capture that on CD?
Yes and no. For us, Warung Beach is a chance to play some of the tracks we love, but can’t play in other clubs because they’re not peak enough. The tend to work really well over there. So a lot of them were a natural fit with the CD. The hard thing was to come up with a sound that represents Warung and Brazil, but is still going to work for listeners in the rest of the world. When we play in Eastern Europe for instance, our sets are significantly different to what we play in Brazil. So the CD had to sound Brazilian without the rest of the world saying: “OK, that sounds cool, but it doesn’t do much for us.” Finding that middle road was tough.
Is there plenty of music around at the moment for you to choose from when it comes to playing out?
Yeah, it’s getting better for us at the moment. There was a lot of minimal around at one point, and not a lot else. We always like to stay close to melodies, and not stray too far from them. We love music and make dance music. We always want to play something warm.
Have you felt any pressure to move away from that warmer, more melodic sound?
It has been tough. We sort of found our sound about four-and-a-half years ago. Then a year later the whole Prydz thing came along and everything sounded like him. Then minimal came, then Deadmau5… We’ve just tried to stick to doing our thing consistently no matter what. We have incorporated some elements from those sounds, but intention has always been the same.
The musical element in your tracks really does make them stand out from the crowd, especially with the new EP.
That’s what we’re trying to do whenever we produce tracks. We want it to sound like music, but with that dancefloor energy. That’s especially true of Murder Weapon – it’s really simple but it works really well. It generates some vibrations through the woofers.
Have you got more tracks in the pipeline?
Oh yeah, a lot of stuff. We actually held back a bit last year with our productions, so now we’ve got a really big batch of things in the pipeline. We’ve also being doing some collaborations which venture off into styles like minimal and techno. I’ve also been working with Jennifer Horne who did the vocals on our track Nobody Seems To Care. We’re working on a song-based album that’s completely outside of dance music – it’s more like Massive Attack or Coldplay. We’re really taking our time with that, and it’s starting to come together now. She’s very talented, so it’s going to be cool.
Warung Brazil 001 is out now on Hope Recordings. A three-track EP taken from the album, including Nobody Seems To Care, Murder Weapon and 5 To 12 is also out on Hope. Visit www.myspace.com/16bitlolitas, www.warungclub.com.br and www.hoperecordings.com
TRACKLISTING
The Field - Kappsta 2
DJ Koze - Mariposa
Tom Pooks - Docker
Dale Anderson - No idea
Supermayer - For Luzie
Nick Muir - Tenko
Tom Pooks - Pablo Assan's
Markus Guentner - Oceans Day
Slam - Staccato Rave (Silicone Soul mix)
Alex Costa - Pull & Bear (Komytea remix)
Ralph Falcon - The Dig
Distaff - Abduction Mind (Glash remix)
Way Out West - Spaceman (Robert Babicz remix)
Dubfire - Grindhouse (Terror Planet mix)
Steve Mill - Wipe Out (Kosmas Epsilon mix)
Texi
Danny Tenaglia - The Space Dance (That Kid Chris dub)
Darren Emerson - Crash Jack
Sag Alles - Ab
HAVE YOUR SAY
