Electro loving souls would be well aware of Ivan Smagghe by now, whether it be through his spectacular dancefloor stunners with Black Strobe as they ripped out our hearts and souls with their deeply seductive dance thumpers ‘Me & Madonna’ or ‘Chemical Sweet Girl’. Or maybe we were first enlightened to the sound of his ventures with Mark Collin in Volga Select? No? Well then it must have been as one of your well-informed friends introduced you to his own amazing mixes, as he took the reigns of ‘Suck My Deck’, ‘FabricLive’ and ‘Death Disco’ releases.
This summer, it’s our chance to experience his pure spinning brilliance first-hand as he touches down in Australia to hijack our stages for the first time, with a string of shows set to blow us away with his chic dancefloor knowledge and know how, as he leaves us hazy eyed and tired for the first few months of 06.
ITM’s Semone Maksimovic was surprised to find a relatively easy-going Smagghe on the other end of the line, as he braved another cold, wet day in downtown France. It seems that today he’s ditched his famous firey-temper for a relatively lax chattiness, which has him opening up about career choices, finding himself on the other side of music journalism now and of course Black Strobe’s new album set for release in 06.
Most of us would have first become familiarised with Smagghe’s work through his infamous dancefloor classics with partner Arnaud Rebotini, as Black Strobe. Which you can usually recall hearing for the first time, sprouting out somewhere between Tiga and LCD Soundsystem, as the stage lights get brighter, the crowd gets blurrier and the visiting International sets out to freak us all out between tracks. This is the most instantly engaging electro pop track you’ve heard rocking a soundsystem in years and instantly you find yourself dashing off to find out who’s responsible.
Although they’ve remained a relatively well-kept secret to this day, the amount of eager fans the world over, is growing by the day and the demand for their new album is high. The good news is that it’s all said and done, with the final touches being completed back in March of this year and shelved awaiting it’s 2006 release date. It’s a selection of 12 well thought out tracks that tread water between, dance, rock and pop, but never really filling in any main genre for the duration. Another release of just 12 straight up dance tracks was never in the duo’s vision and if we knew them well enough, shouldn’t have been our expectation either.
“If you do 12”s their main function is to make people dance, whereas when you do an album it has the potential to do a lot of other things. There are some dance tracks on the album, but it’s not like 12 4-to-the-floor tracks, while it could have been quite interesting for me to do, it’d just be boring after the first 3 or 4 tracks. So we went the other way, not because we wanted to be different, just because it sounded better” shares a contemplative Smagghe “Actually, I can’t remember the last time I heard a proper ‘club’ album, I think the ‘club’ album has become a DJ mix these days.”
With a rich and colourful background of musical styles he found himself obsessing with as he was growing up, playing the likes of New Order, Joy Division, Sonic Youth along with Chicago House records, rather than buying in to the likes of the French Disco scene, which ruled supreme at the time. It’s not hard to see that he is all the more enriched for it, able to take the best from each and then adding the most underrated from all different sides of the musical spectrum to cough up something shiningly simple and exquisitely original for us to enjoy in this day of copycat artists and annoying repetitiveness.
“I never had any problem buying acid house and something by a whining indie band, if I trace it back to a younger age, from the bands I was brought up with like New Order for instance. They were making dance music that was pretty strongly rock based at the same time back then, so that link has always been fairly important for us” explains Smagghe “Especially since the scene is kinda getting back to New Order times, where The White Stripes can also be considered part of the dance pack at times, like 7 Nation Army was a club hit, and same with the first single by Franz Ferdinand. So people don’t so much care anymore, as long as it’s interesting and has them dancing. Like what is LCD Soundsystem? Are they a dance band or punk rock band?” asks Smagghe “That’s what’s great, is people aren’t so elitist about their particular genres anymore, they’re happy to embrace whatever they think sounds good. Then the only problem is that once something new and exciting comes along, people always try to jump on the bandwagon and copy it. But in the end there have and always will be good bands and bad bands, there are bands with ideas and bloody bands that just copy from others. But that’s the way it’s always been.”
Through his years of growing up and wearing different hats in the industry, it’s little wonder that Ivan finds it hard sometimes to be on the receiving end of interviews, as he was so used to being in control of these situations.
“I was always making music or being a DJ when I was a music journalist and I’ve never felt that I had to switch from one to the other, it was all a bit mixed and blended in for me a bit” he eludes, before answering “The funny thing is now that I’m answering the questions rather than asking them, is that sometimes I wish I could do my own interviews and ask myself my own questions. There are good journalists and bad journalists, I like a journalist that can actually write and say things in a way that is not straight down the line. I would rather disagree with a journalist that writes really well than agree with a journalist that writes really bad.”
Since those days his DJing schedule has sped up somewhat and he’s become a household name in the world of remixing and outstanding DJ sets around the world, as he regularly visits the likes of Fabric, Pulp, Bugged Out, Manumission. So there was no time to keep up with his high-rising career as a DJ and with his radio show, but after handing in the reigns to his ‘Test’ radio show, he still maintains the same ethics and that is to take the underground to the people. To educate them with unknown sounds from afar, something his chuffed about having the power to do as a DJ now.
“The more famous you get, the more chances you can take in terms of what you play. I have a friend who isn’t just beginning, but is just smaller and he says ‘You can play whatever you want, even if people go ‘what the fuck is this?’ because it’s you and you’re famous.’
So I can definitely take a few more risks now than I could, say five years ago. So I’m happy with that, cause that’s what I feel DJs should be doing educating their audiences, not playing them the commercial top 20- which just has a lot to do with their fucking greed for money” spits a disgruntled Smagghe about the scene at hand.
Be sure to catch Ivan in action as he heats up dancefloors around the nation, in a thrilling string of selected dates not to be missed. And make sure to keep your ear to the ground for any further release news regarding Black Strobe’s new album, it’s set to make 2006 even hotter!
Ivan Smagghe Tour Dates
December 31- Chinese Laundry, Sydney
January 1st – Sunshine People, Melbourne
January 1st – Sun Electric, Perth
