Coucou Soumaya ! Or should I say dancemachine (have I read somewhere). 😀 How are you keeping yourself busy now that we can’t go raving anymore ?
I already had an intensive Web App Dev training planned before the situation, so now I’m concentrating more on coding a few games, website, Apps, some of them related to music and I’m learning more and more Live Coding. It’s hard but I don’t give up. If my body can’t be moving all the time, I get my brain stimulated. You always have to reinvent yourself, otherwise you will get bored and feel sorry for yourself, your situation. & above all, having to reinvent the artistic world in general in another way.
I’m also working on 2/3 music projects that take time to finish + I develop a fashion capsule collection.
+ I do boxing, running, cycling, yoga & chairdancing. Hyperactive, indeed!
I miss playing in a front of a crowd & organising parties, but I think it’s time for me to stop doing things halfway & focus on another cycle in music.
A little anecdote about DanceMachine: When I started mixing, my friends gave me this name DanceMachine, because I was a dancer before that, and I tend to dance behind the decks all the time (which I always do ). The only problem is that people always expected me to play Dance Music (like DANCE music). It annoyed me, so I changed.
You’re very well known in the Belgian scene with your high energy dj set and your versatile approach to music genre. How would you describe your style?
I think this is one of the hardest questions to answer. What I love about my sets is telling stories. A kind of journey of variations in tempos, style, feelings… I like to suggest that there are degrees of emotions that can arise, like a typical day. I like being able to get out of my comfort zone. to challenge my djing way. To play with loops, with 3 songs at the same time, with DJ tools, voices, samples, crossfaders, with filters (small big preference for dub echo / delay / simple echo), with different bpm … layering melodies, & above all, make the content chaotic, as much like the meaning of life.
I am fascinated by the culture of Scratch and Turntablism. An approach that I try to shape in my own way and rythm.In any case, a style must be able to evolve. to let it legitimize it to have imperfections, and also to try to make it accessible, because to make music only for a privileged audience « un public averti » is no challenging.
For schiev, we asked you to soundtrack a sport session. How did this theme influence your preparation ? You told us you’ve done it before.
In fact, to exercise is to focus on heartbeats. that’s why percussive music is perfect for that. The music must be warm and round, to make long, ample and sexy movements. It’s very important to have a sexy attitude when you dance, that the whole body moves. Even before you can dance, you have to listen to the music, dissect it!
Fast music (like slow music) can be dancing if we focus on a 4beats, or the offbeat, or the melody. & not all of this at the same time. We would have too chaotic movements 😉 but there are no rules in dancing, anyway.
What music should I listen to when exercising ?
It depends from one person to another, the exercise you do, what mood you are in, in what condition you are … I think we can even dance to classical music or the music you invent in your head f you don’t have the possibility to listen to music. There are no rules either.