DONOVAN
Formely producing music under the alias killdahype, Donovan decided to eschew the name becuase they want nothing to do with hype. David and Nicholas are in it for the long rung, with their smart, smooth electro sound, and are surpirsingly still unsigned to a record label. We sat down with Nicholas to talk about life on the road, searching for a label to call home and the current Parisian electro scene.
by KYLE MORRISON
 PHOTOS: ANA LORENZA |
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Is Donovan a full time thing? What else are you guys involved in?
When we are together the music stuff takes up a lot of time, but it's not a full time thing. David is a sound engineer for some rap bands, and other artists, and me, well I study Economics.
What music are you listening to now?
The new Poney Poney track, Siriusmo, Slave - Just A Touch of Love (some funky shit), NY Muscle (DJ Hell's Album ), LDC Soundsystem - 45'33, Bar-Kays, Scorpions...
Do you have any inspirations that come from places other than music?
Mostly music.
When there are two minds working together, there is obviously going to need to be some coordination. What is the process when you guys are remixing or producing a track?
The process is not the same when we're remixing or producing.
When we're working on a remix, first of all, we check all the parts of the track after listening to the track itself, then we keep only stuff that we both like. Once that’s done we can think about other stuff to do with it.
When we're producing, we begin form nothing so we got to bring some ideas with us. Sometime it's a project that one of us have been working on, and if the other likes it, we go on it.
What about your live shows? What do they consist of?
No live performances yet, we only do DJ Sets and they consist of burning the dance floors!
If I am correct, you are not signed to a label. Have you been looking/had interest?
Some labels came to us, and are waiting for some new tracks, but for now we prefer to do Remixes (Tellier, Teenage Bad Girl, Leonard De Leonard…)
But soon we're going to release an EP on WORK IT BABY (Kris Menace’s label) and a track we've done with a female MC from NY, G. RIZO, who has released an EP on International Deejays Gigolo. We're waiting for the remixer.
Any plans for an album anytime soon?
The album will come, when we'll find the right label for us, when we'll be more able to take time and focus on it.
What are your thoughts on the explosion of electro music coming out of Paris (Ed banger, Kitsune etc)? How do you feel about getting grouped in with that scene/those labels?
I don't think people have really grouped us with this scene. Of course we're a Parisian band making electro music nowadays, so the shortcuts are easy, but that's why we want to take our time to produce. We do not want just to be a part of a trend which might disappear.
Recently, you guys have been traveling quite a bit to DJ. Do you have any crazy stories?
It's always funny to discover a country or a city by doing a DJ set in its clubs. You find out how the people react when they get crazy. In Germany, once, during our set people were screaming like hell. We thought it was crazy. You know, German people are mostly quiet, and this crowd was going crazy on the dance floor. It was funny.
What other act was the most fun to play/tour with?
We DJ’ed with Princess Superstar last Saturday, and it was really funny. She jumps everywhere and screams on the mic. She also MCs while she's doing her DJ set. Nice set by the way, and she's very nice...
Check out Donovan online at myspace.com/0donovan0.
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