- This time, you've shared a wonderful mix themed around music from the Antilles in the Caribbean, including genres like gwo ka and zouk. To start, since these genres might be unfamiliar to many music listeners in Japan, could you briefly explain their musical characteristics?
First of all thank you so much for having me on your lovely channel! I first discovered you guys on youtube through your “Whole Earth Record Store Map” series, which was a bit of an inspo for me to come back to do some more digging in Japan.
These are two genres from the Caribbean, primarily Guadeloupe and Martinique. Gwo-ka is traditional, hand-drum percussion often performed communally and is deeply rooted in spiritual expression and Afro-Caribbean identity. Zouk emerged in the ‘80s combining similar rhythm with electronic instruments, synthesizers, with vocals in Antillean Creole.
- Could you tell us about the thoughts and ideas behind this mix? Even the spelling of the title, “Kreyòl”, seems to reflect your attention to detail and personal touch.
This music is almost entirely in French Creole as a result of 17th century colonization. The mix begins with several long form spiritual jazz tracks, and eventually progresses into more synthesized, sun dripped, and cosmic sounds.
- What drew you to these genres, and what initially sparked your interest in them?
I must have first discovered this genre circa 2018 through various dj mixes or compilations coming out at the time and have been digging and collecting it ever since! From deeper exploration of it, I started buying many gwo-ka records that I managed to find over time as well.
- Are records of gwo ka and zouk difficult to find?
Surprisingly, I managed to find an original copy of Ka Lévé (which I played in the opening of this mix) along with many others here at Tower Records Shibuya right after recording this mix! It’s a super rare record so just the fact that it was there nearly made me lose my marbles.
For someone interested in starting out digging this genre you can still find a goldmine of these records in both Paris and Marseille, which I’ve been so many times to places like Crocodisc and Marché Dauphine (the weekend record fair with many sellers with the UFO in the middle) definitely recommend to go and spend the whole day there digging and chatting up people.
- You seem to have a wide-ranging taste in music. Aside from the genres you featured in this mix, what kinds of records do you usually play in your DJ sets?
I think it really depends on the space and venue, for example here for my recent tour in Japan I’ve been playing a lot of spiritual jazz and only music with organic percussion, no synthesized sounds or drum machines at all which is quite a departure from my usual sets that were almost entirely based on that. I feel as though being able to play different kinds of sets altogether in different contexts really helps you grow and improve as a selector.
- Could you tell us about the record and DJ culture in Lisbon, where you currently live?
Lisbon is an incredibly musically rich place with so many records from Angola, Cabo Verde, Brazil, and elsewhere that can really only be found there and hardly anywhere else.
It is a rather small city comparatively so the scene is rather diy focused with a lot of people running their own events, venues, or soundsystems, and seemingly no shortage of natural wine listening bars.
While I do think that people are possibly less attentive about selection compared to the events I’ve played at in Japan, and there is a lot of focus on high energy dance music, I hope I could try to help bring more focus back on creative selection once I start running my own events here.
- Did you enjoy visiting record shops during your stay in Japan this time? Also, what kinds of records were you mainly looking for?
Actually a surprising amount of jazz and independent spiritual jazz records that I realized were so abundant here, especially JP pressings of them that are usually high quality and accessible.
It’s my 2nd time back to Japan overall and also this year, so I wanted to revisit a lot of places as well as a whole bunch that I had maybe missed back during my first trip in January that I also happened to discover through your guys’ channel.
- As a DJ, what do you think is most important? We’d love to hear your thoughts both from a technical perspective and a mental/spiritual one.
Stage presence. It’s probably the area I'm working the most to improve upon, so hopefully my answer will be different someday.
And I don’t mean like dance djs pumping their hands in the air or something like that, just the overall way that one presents themselves.
- Besides DJing, what stimulates your creativity?
Restoring and building hi-fi equipment, building musical instruments, learning to play synthesizers, analog recorded music production. Also home interior space design and cooking creatively.
- Do you have any advice for those looking to start a career as a DJ?
I’m more of a record collector so probably someone else is better suited to answer this.
- What plans do you have for 2025?
I’ve just recently started my new radioshow “Sol Infinito” on Worldwide FM and I’m currently building a very natural sounding Klipsch hi-fi soundsystem to run my own event series!
