Fabric 46 reaches our shelves on May 11, and for the latest installment of the consistently impressive mix series, the London club have got Claude VonStroke to take to the decks. The Dirtybird and Mothership boss has been making tsunami-size waves with his distinctive sounds for the past few years, so this mix album should be something of a treat. Barclay Crenshaw – as Claude was originally known – has certainly come a long way since his rap-obsessed days as a 16-year-old dreaming of an engineering job at Juan Atkins’ Metroplex studio in Detroit. Now has headlining gigs alongside Juan, and is one of the most sought-after remixers across every genre imaginable, from B’more club and drum’n’bass, to hipster rock and mainstream pop. For this mix, he takes the characteristic bump of Dirtybird and Mothership, and mixes it with more than 20 tracks from the likes of Detroit Grand Puhbas, DJ Deeon, Stimming, Italoboyz, Kiki, Marc Houle and Catz ‘n Dogz, as well as Claude himself (including a collaboration with Bootsy Collins).
Says Claude: “Everything is really tailored. The tracks aren’t really the tracks – it is all cut up, chopped and twisted. It’s challenging to do a project that has to say everything in such a small time frame because I play a lot of genres. So I worked hard on getting all the different sounds that I really dig into one mix. It wasn't made as a dancefloor mix, but if you listen to it and you don’t tap your feet, or move in some way, then it’s just a complete failure. I wanted to create a greasy, dirty vibe but also get melancholy and funky – a little hard here, a little soft there. I picked the best music I could find and put it together in a creative way that fully represents my sound and personality.”
Fabric 46 is out on May 11. Visit www.fabriclondon.com, www.myspace.com/claudevonstroke, www.mothershipmusic.com and www.dirtybirdrecords.com
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