Shazam Meets… The Revenge
Graeme Clark AKA The Revenge is one of the fastest rising stars of underground dance music. His eclectic style blends everything from classic soul to 80’s chart music but is sewn together with a unique slow-motion house groove. His productions have been sending tastemakers doolally for about a year and heavy weight DJ’s such as Pete Tong, Danny Krivit, Radio Slave, Prins Thomas, Gilles Peterson, Kissy Sellout and Tim Sweeney are all noted fans. We catch up with Graeme to talk about his thoughts on edits, his forthcoming album and his summer DJ sets at the much talked about Garden Festival in Croatia.
It’s been a pretty great year for you. Tell us a little about the last 12 months.
It’s been crazy. I’ve been producing for about 10 years in various projects on and off but I think last year it was the culmination of a few records that went off and people got into, and then joining the roster of the Warm DJ agency. They’ve got a fairly eclectic bunch of people and I just slotted in there. I think the combination of those things – sort of right place right time.
What have been the highlights of the year so far?
Record wise it’s been good for me because I’ve been able to spread the different production things over disco, house and things like that. It’s hard to pick a favourite; they’ve all been good in their own way.
Gig wise Australia was a real eye opener – just getting away and going by myself and doing a little tour over there. I thought it’d be a real black hole for music but it was exactly the opposite. They’re really into their stuff and a lot of guys have paved the way – Greg Wilson, Danny Wang, Maurice Fulton – they’ve all been over and so they were kind of ready for the stuff I was playing. It was great!
So were you quite surprised going to places like Australia and getting a positive reaction to obscure disco and house.
I just didn’t expect it to be like that – I don’t know why! Perhaps because there’s not all that much music like that coming out from there; I certainly didn’t expect people to be putting on their own little nights and bringing people across. Everyone was really open-minded which was great for me.
So what made you want to get into production and messing about with other people’s records?
I was always interested in music and sound when I was a kid. Just listening to the charts on the radio and going through mate’s record collections and all that kind of stuff. My Dad was a bass player in a band. I had access to a couple of drum machines and a 4 track and all that; we just used to gather round and try and create things. Just really experiment. I got a sampler when I was a bit older. I just tried to mimic what I heard and try and mix it with my own stuff.
I suppose you’re best known for your edits and remixes of other people’s tracks. What do you look for before approaching a re-edit?
With edits generally the focus is on the dancefloor. When you’re playing out in a club or a bar – I started DJ’ing in bars in Glasgow – they are always really specific. There will always be things you can and you can’t play. For me an edit is a tool which gets you to play bits of the records which you want to play but you can’t play. You can take things that you think aren’t going to work and cut those bits out, or extend bits , or put an acapella over the top. So you can go from a funk record into a house record to a drum and bass record or whatever – just those little things that you can use to join the dots between records. There may be a record you like but you only like aspects of it but it may not be your style of play – it’s all down to your own taste. There’s this misconception that you do edits to throw them out on vinyl and make money off them. The thing is all these things (my edits) have be sitting around in my studio for years and I’ve played them out and maybe put them out on record later. They (edits) should be for your own DJ sets – that’s the main objective really.
What’s your favourite edit by another producer?
Probably the best edit that I’ve ever heard is Todd Terje’s edit of Paul Simon’s ‘Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes’. (‘Diamond Dub’ by Tangoterje ) That encompasses all the great things that an edit can be. It takes the record in a different context and you can play it where ever. At the start of the night, at the end of the night, pubs, clubs – whatever. What he’s done to it just takes it to a different place. You can even put a house track into it – it just works.
You’re playing at The Garden Festival in Croatia. Have you been before?
No I haven’t. I’ve heard great things about it though.
What are you looking forward to most at the festival?
I think it’s the whole atmosphere. It’s seems to be like when Ibiza started. It might be different in a few years when everyone starts getting on board but for me it just encompasses that whole kind of free spirit. People are still embracing disco and funk and good black music rather than…. I don’t know…. forcing themselves to have a good time. People I know and who’ve been always say it’s very relaxed and people are getting into all different kinds of music and I think that’s the most you can ask for when you go to a place like that. There the kind of gigs you can play whatever you want. That’s the pinnacle really. Sometimes there’s things you can’t get away with, but from the YouTube videos I know people have been getting away with crazy stuff over there. People are up for wherever you want to take them. I think Rub N Tug played Enya! I don’t know if I’ll be playing that but maybe something close.
What’s coming up next for you?
There’s still quite a few remixes to come out. We’ve got a couple of things for Buzzin’ Fly for Ben Watt, some bits for Dave Lee (AKA Joey Negro), we’ve still got our own Instruments Of Rapture label and we’ve got an album I’m doing with Craig Smith as 6th Borough Project on the Delusions of Grandeur label. The 6th Borrough album will be later on in the year – maybe August or September. That’ll be good; we’ve got loads of bits that have just been lying about over the years and we’re going to put them all together. It’s quite exciting. We’ve got loads of ideas we still want to incorporate into it. Some of things will be following on from the singles we’ve done for Instruments Of Rapture. We’re trying to do different tempos and different grooves; some slow-mo stuff, some hip-hop stuff, house stuff – just a good mixture really. We’ve been into everything over the years and I think the opportunity with something like this is to get a few people in and keep it pretty raw and kind of just continue what we’ve been doing.
So just quickly before you go. Shazam is all about discovering new music, have you got a secret weapon you could share with us?
Bob-A-Rella ‘Money’. It’s an obscure Pink Floyd disco cover. Everyone knows the original so it works really well.
Dowload The Revenge’s latest DJ Mix below:
The Revenge : Feel Up Mix by The Revenge
The Garden Festival takes place 2-11th July in Petrcane, Croatia. This year the event features performances from the likes of Âme, Greg Wilson, Henrik Schwarz, Jamie Jones & Horse Meat Disco. For more info and tickets click here
