CLASSIC ALBUM
Soulwax Nite Versions
PIAS, 2005
Words by Roy Spencer
© Benedict Johnson/Redferns
When co-producing their second album, Any Minute Now, the man known as Flood noticed an increasing duality in the Dewaele brothers.
As Soulwax, Dave and Steph Dewaele were making indie rock. But, as 2ManyDJs, they were reshaping the concept of the bootleg, and taking gleeful new strides as electro and dance music producers.
“You should remix this whole album, like that,” he suggested, feeling these riffs and beats could be pulled apart to make the banging dancefloor anthems they were clearly loving right now.
“Flood picked up on that,” says Steph. “He could see our personalities split between the rock world and the dancefloor. He saw us struggle with that. After we finished the record we just said, ‘Why don’t we just make a version that’s us just having fun with it?’ It all sounds now like a preconceived idea. But, it just all happened organically, at the time.”
Any Minute Now was reconceived as a dance album, and Nite Versions was born. Their approach was a mix of the 2ManyDJs ear for maximising the meat of a track, and that of bands like The Human League, who famously reworked their albums under the name The League Unlimited Orchestra.
“We loved how they did it,” says Dave. “Essentially stripping their songs down to the bare essentials for a dancefloor. A lot of what’s happening in the transition from Any Minute Now to Nite Versions is simplifying things. We used to say, ‘dumbing down’. But, it was a lot more effective because you don’t have all those chord changes and intricate parts.”
Nite Versions was specifically made for the world they lived in, at that point. They were hanging out with DFA, with James Murphy, with Erol Alkan, playing at the club night, Trash. These were the pioneers of the indie/dance crossover, and Dave and Steph were slap bang in the centre of this rave new world.