Soul Clap, oh Soul Clap. They’ve been rocking our world ever since we started paying attention to the beautiful echoes filtering over the pond from the Wolf + Lamb “music community” in New York. Charles Levine and Eli Goldstein have been playing together since 2001, editing classics of varying tempos to “change the way people dance,” and releasing their own brand of genre-defying, beats-infused sexy house on Airdrop since 2008. It was their edit of Stevie Wonder‘s Love Light In Flight that caught the eye of Zev Eisenberg (Wolf), and after the pair attended one of the legendary Wolf + Lamb parties at the Marcy Hotel in Brooklyn they became part of the family. Alongside Gadi (Lamb) they set up the vinyl-only Double Standard label, releasing the first EP Joint Custody earlier this year, and have branched further out onto the Crosstown Rebels label for the Action/Satisfaction EP (released this week).
Now you know about them you’ll see them everywhere – on lineups, on remixes, on edits, and productions, collaborating with friends they’ve met along the way. SECT is their latest collaboration with flatmates and fellow producers Sergio Santos and Tanner Ross (one half of Voodeux). Their first EP Man Of Wisdom was released in May on Culprit. We thought we’d drop them a line.
Hey Charles and Eli, thanks for talking to us. We’ve been fans for a while now, your Baker Man edit gets me every time and Emily just goes crazy whenever she hears Beautiful Thang. We thought we’d ask you a few important questions…
You guys said you got to know each other in the Boston rave scene in the late 90s. Set the scene a little – can you describe your best outfits back then?
40″ wide-leg jeans with red fleece inserts and polo bear sweaters plus visors to the side and plug earrings. Polo ravers 4eva!
Your records are pretty sexy; you’ve described their purpose as “to make girls shake their butts and dudes say “oooooh”.” Is it all about making those asses shake? Whose in particular?
Please rephrase that question as an interpretive dance.
This question’s been knocking around national radio over here – would you rather have to fight one horse-sized duck or an army of duck-sized horses?
That’s easy. We’ve always been firm believers that a quack in the hand is worth two ducks in the horse.
You’re destined to be trapped in a room together indefinitely, you’re allowed two records to keep you going… What would they be? Imagination – Night Dubbing Goldie – Timeless
We were lucky enough to catch you guys at the Miami WMC this year. Our favourite video from the conference generally is this one:
Does that describe Miami pretty accurately for you too?
Yeh boat shoes and bats pretty much covers it but gotta disagree about the gross chicks, Miami usually lives up to its reputation. Seth was probably trying to score brownie points with his girlfriend for that one.
Use ‘soul’ and ‘clap’ in a sentence.
Soul sorry I gave you the clap. What are your plans for the rest of the year, you’re working on an album right?
Lotsa touring for the summer. More SECT music (check our first release here). Then we’re writing our album in the fall possibly at the Marcy or maybe on a island in Colombia. We’ve also got new music coming on Crosstown Rebels and Double Standard plus a buncha remixes.
The SECT Man of Wisdom EP is out now on Culprit Records, and the next EP from Soul Clap will be released in July on Crosstown Rebels, including an edit of Goldie’s Timeless.
Wolf + Lamb are New York based DJ duo Zev Eisenberg and Gadi Mizrahi, who have been together for almost a decade. Priding themselves on engaging with music from all over the world, they started their record label Wolf + Lamb Music in 2005.
It was also in 2005 that they also began the famous Marcy Hotel parties, describing the philosophy behind them as “a special place where we share our passion with discriminating music lovers from around the world. Though it seems like chaos to the untrained eye, everything about our space is carefully calibrated; the music, staff, artists, the sound, and you, our guests…” The Marcy Hotel itself acts as not only their party venue of choice, but their studio too; perhaps more surprising is that it is actually a five-star hotel!
Love or hate the concept, the parties were no doubt an exciting addition to the New York underground dance scene. When they first began the entrance fee set out not to make money, but to cover overheads and to filter out anyone not ‘in the know’. The message to their guests is as follows, “…while most of our guests are part of the wonderful New York dance community, some are there simply because it’s a good party that’s open real late with cheap drinks; we’re pretty sure they don’t know or care who Damian Lazaraus or Jamie Jones are. For those people, there are plenty of other incredible parties to go to, but with the limited space at the Marcy, they are taking up precious space that we’d rather have for more of you…” It’s controversial dialogue which presumably does just enough to intimidate those who aren’t considering it for the ‘right’ reasons…
Last month played host to a huge warehouse party in Brooklyn (reviewed here), which showcased label DJs No Regular Play, Soul Clap, Nicholas Jaar and Gadi Mizrahi himself, accompanied by a backdrop of performance art. Wolf + Lamb are also set to take on the Miami Winter Music Conference next week with a party at Electric Pickle in downtown Miami on the Friday, which is being hyped as the ‘most versatile Winter Music Conference party this year’.
Wolf + Lamb as a label have a fair few strings to their bow; initially starting out as a digital label in 2005, and in the spirit doing things against the grain, they have since moved into vinyl distribution (in 2008) to satisfy a diversifying, and somewhat retrospective, music market. The boys also keep it light-hearted with a further label Wolf + Lamb Black which pulls together a collection of edits and bootlegs including fresh takes on greats like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.
There are a number of tracks available via the Wolf + Lamb Music site which give you a taste of the eclectic medley of artists they select, as well as huge history of Wolf + Lamb podcasts. Below are my favourites of the free downloads up for grabs (most notable being Gadi Mizrahi’s remix of Seth Troxler’s Love Never Sleeps), as well as Nicholas Jaar’s incredibly different interpretation of Billy Jean (probably not one for die-hard MJ fans)…
