{"id":24329,"date":"2015-10-30T16:38:22","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/?p=24329"},"modified":"2017-01-15T18:29:42","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T17:29:42","slug":"full-premiere-interview-benoit-sergio-dancing-shoes-clarian-dub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/full-premiere-interview-benoit-sergio-dancing-shoes-clarian-dub\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Premiere & Interview: Benoit & Sergio – Dancing Shoes (Clarian Dub)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is not unknown that there are ones who arrive into dance music industry, driven by reasons of exterior, duty or any other, but\u00a0one to\u00a0create due to an artistic urge. That urge, that takes over a creative person, which Mario Vargas Llosa, a\u00a0writer and a\u00a0Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, describes as “demons” that are\u00a0“exorcized” by telling the stories. The experiences which influence the fictional reconstruction of reality. Possibly that is what separates\u00a0the duo of Benoit & Sergio out of the many.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their story,\u00a0as described in\u00a0Pitchfork<\/a>, started\u00a0few years ago, when Benjamin “Sergio” Myers decided to make some changes in his life.\u00a0After his father was diagnosed with cancer, the Washington, D.C., prep school teacher quit his job, changed continents and started making music, all right at the time of recession. “If I went to a financial advisor with that plan,”<\/em> as he said with slight disbelief, “he probably would’ve been like, ‘This isn’t the best strategy for your life.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Since their early days releasing music on DFA Records<\/strong>, Benoit & Sergio had a tremendous ability to merge lyrical content with music synthesis, mixing happy with sad at the same time, which has set them apart from the rest. This time it shone through and resulted in a track constructed for autumnal melancholy.<\/p>\n

\u2018Dancing Shoes\u2019 (Clarion Dub)<\/strong> is the latest addition to our premiere series.\u00a0The track is part of their latest EP \u2018Old Streets\u2019<\/strong>, which they described as being “informed by a sense of loss detected in very small moments. [..] The first impulse for \u2018Old Streets\u2019 came from a moment walking home one night with friends from a bar in Berlin as summer was ending and the weather was becoming more autumnal and sad.”.<\/em><\/p>\n

This premiere, probably couldn’t get better that it is, starting with sharing probably one of the best gems of this autumn,\u00a0followed by the real story of how the two met could and a great conversation. Which, just like the track, insinuates like a seed of ink in the mind and quietly leaks, continuing the stories on its own, drawing from the moments from the past summers, lived and imagined. Thus listen & enjoy.<\/p>\n

“…we don\u2019t know why some stories have us meeting in Berlin. Maybe it\u2019s more romantic to imagine Berlin than DC.”<\/span><\/h2>\n

I read your heart-breaking post about, due to Sergio\u2019s illness having to cancel on so many gigs this month, including Closure on ADE. How is he feeling right now? With such packed schedules, how do you find the time to create?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019m ok \u2014 much better than when I was in a wheelchair at LAX \u2014 but definitely not feeling like I could go for a run up hills in the park. I\u2019m more, like, walking very slowly without a cane for half a block to get milk.<\/p>\n

Working together, touring, creating you probably know each other so well. Let\u2019s play a little game, could you each introduce one another?
\n<\/strong>This is Benoit, from Paris, former engineering wizard and track star turned dance music producer\u2014but more than that a man of great humor and heart.<\/p>\n

This is Sergio \u2014 shameless clown.<\/p>\n

I’ve read somewhere that you two met at an\u00a0after party in Berlin. What was the after party? And what really got you thinking, \u201cI want to work with this guy\u201d?
\n<\/strong>Like many elements of a band\u2019s history and lore, this bit is apocryphal. We met in Washington, DC, at a weird little dance club\/bar in Adams Morgan which is a very drunkardly area on weekends. Benoit walked by it the other day. It\u2019s a samba bar? No clue why we were there \u2014 we were drunk and young and in DC. And we don\u2019t know why some stories have us meeting in Berlin. Maybe it\u2019s more romantic to imagine Berlin than DC. At any rate, to answer your second question, we didn\u2019t think much about wanting to work together for like a year after meeting. We were busy in our normal lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cOld Streets\u201d is indeed like an Arthur Russel\u2019s experiment. Why the dreamy 70s, 80s with Talking Heads, Roxy Music had such an influence on you?
\n<\/strong>Not really a massive fan of Roxy Music<\/strong> \u2014 have always liked Brian Eno<\/strong> much more (so the very first Roxy Music<\/strong> and then Eno\u2019s<\/strong> solo stuff is more amenable). And then a lot of the albums Eno produced, including the Talking Heads<\/strong>, are wonderful. I even love \u201cJoshua Tree<\/strong>\u201d which he produced for U2<\/strong> \u2014 Benoit disagrees deeply on this point. But I would say what\u2019s attractive about the Talking Heads is their energy \u2014 that elusive magical supplement \u2014 that some bands and songs have. So trying to capture that energy, not so much dreaminess, is attractive. But I wouldn\u2019t say the Talking Heads<\/strong> are an influence because that would imply some proximity to them, whereas they are more like on Mt Rushmore<\/strong>, iconic and very far away and hewn in the stone of pop history.<\/p>\n

Who is writing the lyrics for the tracks? And how do they come in creation?
\n<\/strong>I write the lyrics usually after Benoit and I work on music. Or maybe I\u2019ve written something down on a winter morning, and we are working on a loop that beckons that morning back and those lines. The rare, good lines usually start from something that seems poignant in every day life, from something that seems to glow from a fragile absolute. Those are rare lines and times.<\/p>\n

Most other times, lines just come from being a clown: \u201cMy House is Bigger than your house.\u201d A primate could write that. But still it\u2019s fun to say.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The EP was inspired by a \u201csense of loss detected in very small moments\u201d. Who of the two owns this story? What exactly was that moment mourning for?
\n<\/strong>Some details are better shrouded in privacy and\/or mystery. But, in general, the origin of \u201cOld Streets<\/strong>\u201d came about 5 years ago in Berlin on one of the first cold nights at the end of a long summer, walking home with some friends, thinking about someone who wasn\u2019t going to be around much longer.<\/p>\n

The artwork of the release is beautiful. Could you tell us, how did it come to be and what do you like about it?
\n<\/strong>I was with a friend in Berlin at this very nice, small shop that had very nicely curated objects and art. She bought this print of a favourite street in Berlin \u2014 August Strasse in Mitte. The honesty and playfulness of its lines and angles just felt like the right vibe for the EP. We took a pic of the print and sent it to Soul Clap<\/strong> for the EP\u2019s art.<\/p>\n

The two last releases, \u201cHouse With 500 Rooms\u201d and \u201cOld Streets\u201d are of two completely different moods. What is the reason of this duality? Being Benoit versus Sergio, working with different labels or just musical stories describing different situations?
\n<\/strong>The latter \u2014 \u201cmusical stories describing different situations\u201d \u2014 seems closest to this duality in our productions. Also thinking about music for different contexts. At the end of the day, we play dance clubs\u2014not rock clubs \u2014 at 2am or 3am on weekends and we play a live set \u2014 we don\u2019t DJ so we think about dance floors a lot and we need to make music that nominally fits there. \u201cHouse With 500 Rooms<\/strong>\u201d is thinking more about a dance floor. But even when we are thinking about dance floors, we aren\u2019t thinking of pounding and abusing it with punishing kicks and frantic, jacking, manic percussion. Anyhow. That\u2019s how something like \u201cHouse With 500 Rooms<\/strong>\u201d comes about around the same time as \u201cOld Streets<\/strong>\u201d which is obviously more pensive.<\/p>\n