Beatnique Article — abracadabra-radio.com

Podcast

Le Beat-qui-nique
Episode 05

For the 5th episode of Abracadaba Radio, I'm super happy to host the Brussels based selector,
Le Beat-qui-nique.

_{Gabriel aka Le Beat-qui-nique is a young music lover who comes straight from the Parisian suburbs. His inherent eclecticism has been cultivated through experiences in diverse settings, including urban cities, underground parties, festivals, and record stores around the world. With his passion for vinyl, he launched his first house and techno parties in Paris with his friend Aymeric Duvi in 2017. Very quickly, their appetite for music pushed them to collaborate with fine diggers, each one crazier than the other. Today the Azi Chuicho vibes are also spread in Belgium after Gabriel moved to Brussels in 2021. Those parties are nothing but a good dose of musical slaps and bad puns picked up between friends.}

^{1. Musical Background:}

Firstly, how are you today?
_{I’m quite fine thanks 🙂}

What have been the highlights of your summer? _{Except for my birthday and a weekend in Amsterdam for a VBX party, I would say everything which wasn’t linked to music and party. I went a few weeks on vacation with my girlfriend and I enjoyed doing calm or sports activities because I won’t have a lot of time for this in the incoming months.}

What was your first introduction to music ?
_{It’s violin. I don’t remember why but I know that I was quite fascinated by the violin when I was very young. So when my mother asked me to choose an instrument at the age of 6, I directly said violin, instead of the other children who went first to an initiation class before choosing their instrument. And then I had violin lessons until the age of 14 or 15, where I decided to stop because I was more into sport at this time and also I was a bit bored to play only classical and country music.}

What was your first introduction to electronic music ?_{I think it’s my little brother. In Highschool I was exploring my musical taste and I listened to a lot of Rock and New Wave from the musical collection of my father. But next to me my little brother was listening to Fun Radio and used to put a lot of EDM tracks in our MP3s. Example, Cascada, David Guetta but also some EDM without vocals like Tiesto, Madeon, Deadmau5, etc. Then I became a big fan of the music of Deadmau5. Actually this is the first artist in electronic music I loved and I just noticed that he is Canadian. And now my first interview about music is for a Canadian website and moreover my little brother (who changed his musical taste into French speaking rap) is about to collaborate with some Quebecois rap label. So apparently me and my brother are very linked to Canadian music !}

Tell me about a musical memory or moment that made you realize you wanted to start your own journey?
_{I don’t know if I started any musical journey somewhere but if I have to speak about any musical memory I would definitively speak about my first time in Robert Johnson in Frankfurt. It’s also the first time I saw Ricardo Villalobos playing. What a magical night. What a shock for me. The soundsystem of the venue was so good and Ricardo is such a master when he wants. Even if he’s known for his minimal productions he definitely knows how to make people dance juggling between old techno, house, micro and even pop tracks. This was very inspirational for me. Both on how DJing and Parties should be. I think I’ll tell my grandchildren about this night once.}

What’s your relation with vinyl?
_{If we are pragmatic, we should admit that mixing on vinyl is a whim and in absolute you can do the same performance on vinyl and on digital. But to enjoy doing a thing you need to do it in the way you like the most. And personally I prefer vinyl, mainly for three things :}

_{Things are more physical so it’s very intuitive.

It’s also way more challenging than mixing on digital so you’re never bored during a set

I love the collecting aspect. It’s a bit like collecting pokemon cards. It’s sometimes a quest to get a record and that is what makes collecting records exciting}

Do you remember what was the first vinyl you own?
_{Of course ! It was 7 years ago. I was mixing on CDJ during student parties but I wanted to improve my DJing skills. During a stay in Lyon visiting friends, I had a free afternoon to kill so I went to a record shop for a few hours and got two industrial techno records. This was the underground music I was fascinated by at the time. Here are the discogs references :}

_{Binny - Shlagance EP}

_{Silent Otomo - 2}

Can you pick 1 record in your collection, and talk about it? _{Arf… It’s hard to choose one, but I think I would choose my album of Fila Brazillia - Old Codes New Chaos which I own on CD and not on vinyl because I can’t afford the vinyl ! Fila Brazillia is one of my favorite bands and this is their first album. It’s also the most electronic of their discography. It’s a mix between deep house, ambient and downtempo tracks which smell good the 90s. Also the album contains some interlude and the tracks are made in a way that the listener has the impression that the music goes on, a bit like a mix.}^{Questions about your sets in general:}
_{How did you prepare your set?} _{I took this set request as a good way to exercise my ability to tell a story through a podcast mix. I could decide to do a mix by only following my instinct and playing tracks I like and which go well together but I found it funnier to give myself some guidelines first. So here were my guidelines :}

_{Doing something progressive

Into the electro 2000s vibe

Going from something deconstructive and kind of complicated to listen to something kitschier and which give more the envy to dance}

_{I hope what I did is not too far from that. Also there are some tracks like the jazzy intro or a deep house track in the middle of the set which are not really respecting the rules but I put them in purpose to avoid making something too linear and people get bored. Anyway, in the end I especially hope that people will enjoy it !}

Any song in your podcast that you want to talk about? If you have only one to pick? _{If I have to pick one I would choose the last one : The Diogenes Club - Some other time. I like this track a lot because for me it’s a nice mix between the 2000s electro music (which is quite trendy today and played a lot by the diggers scene in Europe) and the electro pop rock I used to listen to when I was in high school : bands like Two Door Cinema Club, Pony Pony Run Run, Digitalism, etc.}

How do you prepare for a set or a night out? Do you have any rituals? _{No, I try to be a Swiss knife into DJing because I don’t always have time to prepare my set. Perhaps if I was professional I would have rituals but for that you need to be fully dedicated to DJing…}^{Future Plans:}
You are part of a Azi Chuicho collective, few words about it? How did you start ?
_{Everything started with Aymeric, who was my roommate for 1 year in Nantes during our studies. At this time he had his own collective and I was a member of the music electronic association of my business school. Then we ended up in Paris, each on our side. I was doing an internship and living at my parents place, he was there for his Master degree, but we were still in contact. After some months in Paris we realized that both of us were missing mixing and organizing parties. So we decided to organize one. So at the beginning it was just about organizing one party ! We thought about a catchy name for this party and that’s how Azi Chuicho came to our mind. The party went well. I remember : our main guests were G’boï & Jean-Mi, founders of the Chineurs Facebook trend. They were very nice ! The party went very well, so we decided to organize another one, then another one more intimate in a bar, then another one, etc. We were also joined into the adventure by some other friends. So in a nutshell that’s how Azi Chuicho started !}

Any words for Bruxelles music/art scene?_{Big things are coming ! Stay tuned guys. I’ve some friends who are opening a new club in town. The club is called Umi. The opening weekend is on the 20th and 21th of October.}

_{I will also have the pleasure to be part of the programmation team. I’m in charge of one line up per month. The other members of the programmation team are also great guys with a nice taste for music. We can’t wait to bring some fresh heads in Brussels and rock the Belgian electronic music scene !}

Any upcoming projects that you want to talk about? _{I think I’ve already talked about the project I wanted in the question before haha ! Also, perhaps I can add that I’ve to release other podcasts in the next few months for some (other) very cool Soundcloud channels. And about Azi Chuicho we will keep organizing events but it’s the end of our monthly residency in le Bar du marché in Brussels because we want to focus on rarer but bigger events in Brussels.}^{4. Others}
Do you love magic?
_{If what do DJs like Ricardo Villalobos or Onur Ozer is considered as magic : of course I like magic ! haha}

What does Abracadabra mean to you? _{Instinctively I would say that it makes me think about Mary Poppins or Pokemon (I think there is a Pokemon named Kadabra or something like that). So it brings me back to some childhood memories because it’s a word we don’t hear a lot as soon as we are an adult. Perhaps we should hear it more.}