French DJ and production duo W.LV.S, consisting of Manu le Malin & Electric Rescue’s Antoine and Emmanuel, has quickly risen to notoriety within the Techno scene. The two industry heavyweights return to the alias for the ‘Guilty’ EP, featuring remixes from Tommy Four Seven and Cuften as well as vocals from punk icon Louisahhh. Minimal Mag sat down with the pair to discuss the release and get an insight into the inner workings of the project.
W.LV.S - Interview
Welcome to Minimal Mag Emmanuel & Antoine, where do you find yourselves today and what have you been up to recently?
Antoine: After a long break due to the pandemic, I’m stepping back into life and music, step by step. On the side, I used lockdown to develop my label Skryptöm and also prepare the “Guilty” EP release with Emmanuel.
Emmanuel, you are known as Manu le Malin & the Driver, Antoine you’re the mastermind behind Electric Rescue, together you form the duo W.LV.S. How did this collaboration come to be?
Emmanuel: The idea came from Antoine after a b2b set we did at a festival a few years ago.
Antoine: This project was imagined by Gildas from Astropolis who proposed we play together at his festival and then the magic happened, afterwards I proposed to Emmanuel to push it further to vinyl, magic happened a second time and got us involved in different, huge and cool scenes
W.LV.S reads like an acronym, would it be possible to share what it stands for? While we’re on the topic, what’s the ethos behind the alias?
Emmanuel: It stands for wolves, simply because we love wolves (especially me), and the idea of writing it this way came once again from Antoine. There are so many projects where the word wolves is used that we need to find a solution to personalize it without leaving the idea that we are a band of wolves when we are together
Could you each please share something about how working together differs from working on your solo projects?
Emmanuel: It’s a combination of 2 different styles, Tekno for Antoine and hardcore for me, different approach, different grooves, and those differences work perfectly when we are together. Antoine brings ideas that I will never think of, and the other way around too. We have a common core: raves, deep, dark, industrial and sophisticated textures.
Antoine: With that strategy, it was evident that we could collaborate together, but it’s not enough, we are people who work with heart and sincerity and need to be in confidence as friends to be totally mind-free and give everything our 100%. In the end, Emmanuel has all the things I haven’t got and I have all the things he hasn’t, then everything is complemented very well and it’s working.
W.LV.S - The Pit (feat. Louisahhh)
What’s the story behind the title track and its monologue that sounds like an interrogation?
Emmanuel: For once the idea came from me, after watching a documentary about prisoners on death row, the character whose speech I chose, explains that he feels guilty and instead of a lethal injection he asks for the chair in order to slow down the date of his execution. He then explains that he doesn’t do it on purpose to win time as some people say. For me, it’s a crazy example of the fucked up American justice system and the death penalty which I am totally against, as is Antoine. And seeing a man in front of the camera saying he’s guilty and wants to die is just totally fucked up.
The record features vocals from the legendary Louisahhh and remixes from mainstay Tommy Four Seven and upstart Cuften. How did their contribution to the release come about?
Emmanuel: For Louisahhh she came to us for a spoken words project she had but the entire thing was never released, one day Antoine proposed to re-do the music behind the words and that’s ‘The Pit’ on the EP. We are really happy with this collab. About Tommy, I knew he really loved ‘Misericordia’ from the last EP, and after we saw each other at a gig, I asked him if he might be up to do a remix for the upcoming W.LV.S, we are glad he said yes. About Cuften, simply love the guy and his remix is great.
Manu, you have built up quite the reputation. You came up through illegal parties, do you have any favourite rave stories you are able to share? What was it like coming up through that part of the scene?
Emmanuel: I come from the rave scene, legal or not, I used to go to free parties because I had a lot of my friends there 🙂 There are so many rave stories I’m sorry but I can’t pick up one and my bad memory doesn’t help.
Antoine, as Electric Rescue you run your successful label and event series Skryptom – can you tell us something about that?
Antoine: Each year I have the chance to meet new artists that makes Skryptöm grow. We are not into the fashion and we don’t care, we are not into political subjects and we don’t care, we are just doing music, trying to find our future in the music we love so much. We are lucky that the label became a big family because I’m not only using the music from the artist, I first meet the music, but then I meet the artist and sense if they are into this friendly environment. Then we push further and all the artists from the label become friends, a few have left for various reasons but the big majority stay and release with us. We make musical experiences together and that’s the best life for a real musician, with no focus on business. Skryptöm is a family and we have a lot of fun and really intense musical moments.
Thank you both very much for taking the time to speak with us, before we part ways, would you like to leave our readers with any information on what’s next for the two of you? What can we look forward to?
Antoine: Of course that W.LV.S EP is the main thing we have in our heads.
On the side, I will release a solo EP on Skryptom on April the 22nd.
And Emmanuel will be collaborating with Scan X on a special 15 years anniversary project on Skryptöm I can’t wait to share with you…
W.LV.S - Links
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