 ALEX
GOPHER
only Austria, former
Yugoslavia & former “Eastern Block countries”
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Wuz:
First things first: Wuz is not
the new Alex Gopher album. It
is, in fact, a collaboration between
Alex Gopher and Demon.
It all began when YSL commissioned
3 tracks from Alex. They wanted
something a bit ‘clubbier’
than Alex’s usual style
and so, after writing 10 possible
tracks, he turned to Demon - best
known for ‘Lil’ Fuck’
and ‘You Are My High’
- to give them a harder sound.
Wuz is the end result.
Alex Gopher and Demon are both
artists who, unlike some of their
contemporaries, would never put
out a record that they had less
that 100% belief in. Wuz comes
at a time when French electronic
music is going through a strange
phase. In ten years it has gone
from being an exciting underground
movement to being virtually inescapable.
In the face of accusations that
the French dance scene is fast
becoming stale and unoriginal,
acts like Alex Gopher and Demon
are trying produce music that
on the one hand reflects everything
that’s gone on in the past
few years while at the same time
taking it to a new level.
Alex Gopher is in a good position
to do this. At Translab he was
the engineer behind a ton of house,
electronic and hip hop albums
and in 1994 he got together with
Etienne de Crécy and Pierre-Michel
Levallois to set up the dance
label ‘Solid’ followed
by the sub-label ‘Poumtchak’.
1999 saw the release of his first
album on V2 - ‘You, My Baby
and I’. The album spawned
one hit - ‘The Child’
(sampling Billie Holliday) - and
his face made the cover of a number
magazines, albeit hidden behind
dark glasses.
The10 exuberant tracks on Wuz
have beats that firmly root them
in house music but samples that
take them off in different directions.
Highlights include the feelgood
‘post-disco’ of ‘Use
Me’. Chosen as the first
single off the album, it is destined
to be a hit.
In Wuz, Alex Gopher and Demon
have created an album that manages
to look forward to the future
of French dance music without
losing sight of what made it so
good in the first place.
Wuz. By Alex Gopher and Demon.
Show dem how it’s done. |
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