There’s a scattering of locations around the world that hold a special significance for dance culture. The hedonistic clubs of Ibiza are one, while the Berlin streets where the Love Parade was staged was another. And for those of us who are fans of deep progressive house, we can look towards Warung Beach as our heartland. South America is a country that has always been drawn to the warm, lush and melodic side of house music, and this is something that crystallized perfectly in Brazil on the sands of Praia Brava, with a magical atmosphere to match the idyllic Atlantic Ocean views.
It was the place that inspired John Digweed’s seminal track Warung Beach, and now, it’s inspired the latest release from Holland’s future house heroes Aad Olieroock and Peter Kriek AKA 16 Bit Lolitas. Their keenly anticipated Warung Brazil #001 Presents The 16 Bit Lolitas is a double-disc release that includes one CD of the latest club cuts that are featuring in their sets, as well as a second disc that’s comprised completely of their own material. It’s all music that has a magical sense of warmth to it – not unlike the Warung Beach Club itself.
“We are obviously very honored to be associated with such a magical place. We’ve been very lucky that our sound has worked so well over there and have loved every second of every Warung gig we ever did,” say the 16 Bit Lolitas. “The overall theme of the album is to bring friendly, fresh, warm, musical, stimulating sounds that we like to play and that have worked for us in Brazil… A much more intimate album that hopefully people will keep listening to for a while!”
This weekend, 16 Bit Lolitas will be bringing a touch of that infamous Warung Beach magic to Australia, to play a series of club shows across the country as well as an appearance at Canberra’s Foreshore Festival. And touch wood, they’ll be recreating that same exhilarating magic that fans enjoyed on their past tours over the years. ITM’s Angus Paterson puts a call through to Warung Beach.
Hi guys, this is Angus from inthemix in Australia. Hope you’re well! How has 2008 been for you so far?
It has been a good year and we’re definitely hoping to end it with a bang in these last two months! Of course these are weird times with a lot of changes in the music scene itself and also in the world around us. With the financial crisis, the far-reaching consequences of internet downloading (both legally and illegally) and also the scene itself, which is rapidly changing. Through all of that we are still here and stronger than ever!
The last time ITM talked to the 16 Bit Lolitas, it was just before your tour as part of the Good Vibrations festival. That was your biggest tour of Australia yet in terms of getting out there to bigger crowds, how was the experience for you?
It was great! Good gigs, good responses. We love playing over in Australia! Not much more to say about it.
Things have been quiet since, but fans are bracing themselves for a rather large release from you guys in the form of Warung Brazil #001 Presents The 16 Bit Lolitas. Tell us a little bit about that project, and how you got involved?
The Warung guys had had the idea of doing a compilation series for years already. We were also looking for a good partner at that time to do such an album with. Because we had a really good relationship with them and Warung is one of our favorite places on the globe to play, it all kind of fell together at one point and here we are! The album itself has 2 CDs. The overall theme of the album is to bring friendly, fresh, warm, musical, stimulating sounds that we like to play and that have worked for us in Brazil. So don’t expect the usual collection of big sounding club tracks, but a much more intimate album that hopefully people will keep listening to for a while!
The Warung Beach Club is obviously quite a legendary venue. Tell us about your experiences there, what does it mean to the 16 Bit Lolitas?
We are obviously very honored to be associated with such a magical place. We’ve been very lucky that our sound has worked so well over there and have loved every second of every Warung gig we ever did. It is always nice to see things fall in to place!
It’s an interesting concept, because it’s the combination of a mix CD as well as a second CD that’s completely made of your own material. An artist album of sorts! What was it that encouraged you to take this approach?
We wanted to showcase some material from producers that we liked, and also some of our own new stuff. Through trial and error we decided to do it the way we did it. This way we could create two consistent storylines that were both different but had the same general vibe.
Were you concerned at all that by including an artist album worth of material on what otherwise seems like a traditional mix compilation, that it would perhaps get lost? Was there any reason you decided not to release a separate artist album?
Worrying never really helps anyone, so we try not to and just do what we like to do and see how it works out. We see this album as the buildup to our artist album, which we are working on now, which will hopefully be out somewhere halfway next year. Furthermore we really wanted to do something special, because Warung is a special place. And all in all it’s working out pretty well!
A lot of the material on the mix CD seems to be reflective of a trend that we’re seeing in underground house at the moment – prog/tech hybrids, were the deep rhythms of techno are being brought together with the melody of traditional progressive. Is this something that you guys are conscious of as DJs?
First of all we want to represent dance music, with the emphasis on music. Since the way grooves sound has changed a lot over the years, we tried to integrate music with minimal/techy kind of beats. And in a way it’s the next logical step. Where minimal/tech can tend to get boring because it lacks some warmer musical moments, we tried to get the best of both worlds. We’re certainly not the only ones going down this road.
There’s definitely some creative mixing going on there. Was it something that you spent a lot of studio time on, editing it up?
– Yes we try to go further and further with cutting up tracks and combining tracks to create new tracks. These days you can basically do anything, you just need imagination and time to make it happen. We want to take that concept much further still in the future. We’d rather make some weird soup from different elements of different tracks then create the traditional ‘track after track’ kind of compilation.
Looking at the artist album, it’s absolutely divine and there’s plenty of beautiful stuff on there that’s as good as we’ve come to expect from the 16 Bit Lolitas. The melodies are still there, but it’s definitely a lot deeper than a lot of the club material we’ve heard form you in the past. Did you guys see this as a chance to stretch your legs and take the music a little bit deeper?
Not really, the warm and musical stuff has always been a part of our sound. And in South America it’s all we play and it works really well over there. Because this album is for Warung it gave us a chance to expose that side of our sound. Had this been a compilation for an eastern European country, it would have sounded a lot different.
The track Sunset at Warung is definitely a gorgeous way to kick off proceedings, and it’s quite a visually evocative tune too. How much of the material here was actually inspired by your time spent on or at Warung Beach?
All of it is inspired by our times spent there. But Warung is such a great place because it still has that original underground feeling. A friendly group of folks coming together to party, listen to stimulating music, dance and do other wonderful things of which we shall not speak here. Anyway those are the parties we make our music for! And Warung just happens to be exactly such a place.
I’s a treat to be given access to so much new 16 Bit Lolitas material at once. You’ve definitely established yourselves as dance music royalty, and you’ve brought emotional experiences (both on the dancefloor and off) to many of your fans and otherwise. How do you feel to have left this legacy?
Legacy is a big fancy sounding word that is better suited for the ‘founding fathers’ of the scene today like Sasha, John Digweed, Nick Warren etc. We’re just the new kids on the block doing what we can to keep bringing honest underground music to the listening several!
Finally, what can we expect from your Australian tour in late November?
Hopefully smiling faces and a lot of new music!
Catch Aad from the 16 Bit Lolitas when he plays the following shows around the country…
Fri Nov 28 – Perth – Ambar
Sat Nov 29 – Canberra, Foreshore Festival (day)
Sat Nov 29 – Sydney – Chinese Laundry (night)
Sat Dec 6 – Brisbane – Family
Sun Dec 7 – Melbourne – La Di Da with Rene Amesz
brenly says...
cannot get enough of these guys!! can't wait!!!