So, even though I didn't end up using his comments in the end, they were hugely influential on the finished article.
I caught up with Bok Bok last week to ask him some more questions about his label, their recent US tour, and the expansion of the ballroom sound:
How was the recent Night Slugs tour of the States?
Great, thank you. The Night Slugs and Fade To Mind crews played a lot
including a lot of back-to-back lineups mixing up the two crews. The synergy was
felt by all.
Ballroom seems like a big part of the NS sound now, how did the US crowds react to that?
The sound makes the most sense over in the US, so yeah people tended to react pretty well. Certain tracks from the ballroom
scene just tend to work really well in clubs in general, so people
usually react pretty well to them, and theres a lot of influence from ballroom in our stuff too, so it all crosses over. And MikeQ was with us DJing on this tour, so bounaries have become more blurred.
Did you see ballroom culture being approariated by more mainstream clubs while you were there?
I wasn't playing in massive clubs, so I'm not sure really.
People dance and have fun at the nights I play, I have seen people
voguing at the nights before in New York, for example, but whether that's
appropriated or perpetuated culture is unclear and not that important
when they're in a club dancing.
What is the attraction to the ballroom sound for you?
For me the sound really nails
everything I love in club music - it's minimalist and devastating, it's
an extremity of house so of course I'm gonna love it.
Beyond ballroom, what is floating your boat right now?
I've been locked away in my
internet-less vault of a studio so I'm not sure what's going on in the
outside world lately. Not to seem self-aborbed, but one thing that's
doing it for me is our sub-label Club Constructions. There was a set of
guidelines that was set out when we started it, and now the sound has
really come into its own. It's amazing to watch the series develop.
There's a definitely a Jersey Club and ballroom influence running
through the series lately, especially with the forthcoming Jam City
one.
Who are your current favourite producers?
Current top producers off the top of my head: Deamonds, Helix, Jam City, Neana, Rushmore, Divoli S'Vere, Beek, Tom Trago, Hysterics. Fiedel is killin it.
What's up next for Bok Bok, and also for Night Sugs?
Stuff coming on Night Slugs; a new Egyptrixx LP,
a new Jam City release (an EP called "Jazz"), a new Girl Unit release, and loads more Club
Constructions stuff etc etc
Stuff coming from Bok Bok: a new EP on Night Slugs. hopefully before the end of the year is out!
A series of 12"s culminating in 'Night Voyage Tool Kit 2' with Tom
Trago, and a subsequent compilation of stuff on Night Voyage. And watch out for my productions on the forthcoming Kelela mixtape on Fade To Mind also : ) BONUS
Here's some of the initial Bok Bok interview mentioned above that went on to shape the direction of the finished "Welcome To The Ballroom" piece":
What is "ballroom"? How do you define it?
To me, ballroom is a style of music influenced heavily by House
and Club (Bmore, Jersey, Philly), made primarily to be a soundtrack to
voguing events. There are also House tracks that aren't ballroom per se but are a staple of these events. People like Robbie Tronco were doing the a prototype of that sound
years ago, but in my eyes its Vjuan Allure who pioneered the current
hard, stripped back sound that replies on sampling "The Ha
Dance".
It's not enough to simply sample "The Ha Dance" though. There are a
ton of tracks that do that that aren't anything to do with ballroom. The truth is, a ballroom track will simply have the right feel, whether
it can be performed to or not is in its vibe and how its put together.
It's a little bit intangible, I'm also not fully qualified to make the
call being a DJ not a dancer! But a lot of the stuff being made
currently that's influended by the ballroom scene I can confidently say
wouldn't work in that context.
How did you discover this scene/music?
I discovered the scene through Kingdom years and
years ago, when he showed me Mike Q's music, and I remember thinking it
sounded a bit like the harder more stripped down UK funky that was
happening at the time, and also like Club, and also even occasionally
like grime! It was tracky, stripped down, raw. I was addicted straight
away.
My top 3? It's really really difficult because the
tracks are really great in their multiplicity.
Current off the top of my
head top 3:
Vjuan Allure - Silo Pass remix
Mike Q & Kevin JZ Prodigy - I Feel Like
Mike Q & DJ Sliink - The Bitch
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