Set to play this year's epic Lovebox Festival, the Radio 1 duo craft an hour's mix specially for us and speak out about their love of indie bands and French filter house
Starting off with humble beginnings as two young club promoters in Lincoln, Jaymo and Andy George and brand Moda have in five years exploded as a mark of partying excellence. Alongside to their duties now as Radio 1's resident rapscallions, the lads are shifting it all up a gear with their first ever indicatively energetic compilation, featuring close friends such as His Majesty Andre, The 2 Bears and Fenech-Soler, as well as some more-mammoth-than-ever events in London, Ibiza and the rest.
Below is a familiar foray into 'French filter house' exclusive to Dazed Digital for your pleasure as the guys discuss the past, present and parties to come. Catch them playing on Friday 15th August at London's Lovebox Festival alongside the likes of Metronomy, the Ed Banger crew, Kode 9 and many, many more.
Dazed Digital: What was the first compilation you first remember owning?
Jaymo: I guess the first proper compilation I ever bought would have been the Ministry Of Sound Annual. I think it was in a burgundy leatherette case or something. Before that it was rave tapes and stuff.
Andy: I actually think it was a really old Chillout Sessions compilation, it had stuff like Zero 7, Lemon Jelly and Nitin Sawhney-I remember thinking that it was super cool but i yearned for something harder after that!
DD: Discuss the selection/ordering process of the Moda compilation...
Andy: Part 1 is all about songs, from kind of electronic indie stuff to disco really. There's a couple of electro bits in there, but it's mainly music to listen to whilst you're getting ready to go out, in the car, or knocking back Magners at the park. The second CD is more club focused, hitting all the elements of dance that we love, hitting on French house, Detroit house and moving towards more techno edged stuff as it progresses. It's almost entirely exclusive material, so it's pretty special. And most of the artists are friends of ours - new skool people who are pushing through and doing big things.
DD: Do you feel that the Moda audience has evolved over the last year or so? How so?
Jaymo: I think the sound of Moda certainly has-and people are still coming to Moda parties, so I guess that means our audience have too? Part of the reason Moda seemed like a good name is because we knew our tastes were evolving all the time. Now feels like a really good time for music, so many artists starting their own labels so they can do whatever they want.
DD: What's on Moda's agenda for the summer?
Jaymo: Our event focus moves to Ibiza for the summer where we're doing parties at We Love… Space. We're running the Sunset Terrace, which is probably my favourite room in the whole club - it gets totally rammed and everyone is completely bursting with anticipation. We had Greg Wilson to do the opening night and it was nuts, but also an honour to have Greg play at Moda. History is such an important part of music and the music scene in the this country. We know that if we lived in most places in Europe we'd never be able to have a radio show like ours, where we can literally play what we want. We're really proud of the UK's musical heritage and Greg is a big part of that.
Andy: The focus of that room is much more on disco and house, so we get to play really unique sets, which is massive fun for us. As well as Greg, we've got Retro:Grade, The Magician, Russ Chimes, Thomas Gandy and Alex Metric doing a disco set.
DD: What advice would you give someone starting up their own night?
Andy: If you're just doing it to have fun and build your profile as a DJ then just do what you want and have fun! Don't make it too glossy or over the top. You'll find your feet as you go along. That's not really very sound 'business advice'; but if you overthink a party it loses that spontaneous feel. But the reverse of that is you'll get out what you put in. We've always spent a lot of money on design, venues, sound systems - stuff that we feel matters. For a long time we ploughed all our profits straight back into Moda and I think people appreciated that. Complacency means you've lost your passion - and we're about as far from that as possible. We're always plotting the next project.
DD: Why is filter house so awesome?
Jaymo: Ha, I love that everyone knows we're massive French house geeks. You're kinda asking the wrong person cause I will literally talk for hours. There's the nostalgia value for me, the first time I heard the Daft Punk remix of Chord Memory I nearly exploded. The first record I ever beatmatched was the Sneak mix of Burnin. So yeah, lots of memories. But I guess any music that stands the test of time is special. Disco in any form is amazing, as it can simultaneously appeal to the tune spotters and the party kids all at the same time. It's feels familiar, even if it's not a well known song. Although we don't necessarily plays lots of French house in our DJ sets definitely part of our musical DNA.
DD: Explain the premise of the mix you've put together for us.
Jaymo: This is something we've been threatening to do for a while but there's never been a right time to do it…. until now! I'll be honest, we've made full tracks in less time than it took to do this mix. We're calling it a biography mix, as it catalogues a lot of the music that's influenced us and helped shape our musical tastes. We ripped some old white labels, dipped into 70s disco, 80s electro hip hop, Italo, deeper house vibes, French stuff old and new, techno, then it gets quite nasty at the end. It took quite a lot of prepping to make a one hour mix cover so many bases but still sound coherent - but I think we got there in the end...
Check out the preview playlist for a taste of what's to come at Lovebox Festival, 15th-17th August 2011, Victoria Park, London, E9
