rider
Toronto based disco-outfit, The Patchouli Brothers inaugurate our 2018 season with this hot and steamy installment of The LoveBath. The DJ/Promoter/Production duo of Dylan-Thomas Childs and John McLeod are the reincarnated version of A Digital Needle, a duo that had made plenty of noise in the global scene with it’s popular disco re-edits and co-helming the Toronto nightlife dynasty, Beam Me Up.
With a new EP for Swedish disco imprint, Basic Fingers released earlier this month plus a bevy of fresh endeavors and exciting projects on the horizon, we caught up with lads to rap about 2018 and their new directions.
Hop in, the water’s fine ♥
The LoveBath XLVI featuring The Patchouli Brothers
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Interview with The Patchouli Brothers
With the retirement of A Digital Needle in mind, tell us more about the new directions of The Patchouli Brothers and whats in store for 2018?
We felt that it was time to shed our ADN skin, and have been enjoying life as the Patchouli Brothers! We’ve already felt the positive winds of change working their magic, and are happy to have so much on the go at the moment. Original music, sample-based music, new edits and a series of compilations are on the horizon for the next 12 months. Most of the aforementioned has already begun!
Your party, Beam Me Up has become an institution in Toronto and even expanded to Montreal. Can you give us a quick history lesson of Beam Me Up’s beginnings and a glimpse of it’s future? Any highlights you may like to share as well?
Beam Me Up began as a venue for us to play some of our favourite underrated disco music. Mark Penner (Cyclist) joined us very early on, and together we have built it into a weekly jam with a real positive energy. We are honoured to have such an amazing crowd every Friday and have made many a friend on the dance floor. In the beginning we booked a lot of guests, highlights include Al Kent, Tom Noble, Psychemagik, Eddie C, DJ Bruce & John Morales. We’ve also had the pleasure of playing in NYC & Detroit, the later of which followed Ron Trent and was attended by a real who’s who of Detroit techno and house royalty. That one made us all real nervous, in the best way possible. We’ve been loving our monthly jaunts to Montreal, the city where disco really thrived back in the day, much down to our friend Rob Ouimet, who we try to hang out with every time we are there. The people of Montreal are really wonderful. They walk in the door dancing, where Toronto always take a little warming up. But both are amazing groups of people for different reasons.
Huge noise for The Patchouli Brothers with your recent EP for the illustrious, Basic Fingers label. How did this EP come about and what was the inspiration behind the tunes?
Yeah! We feel really lucky that Basic Fingers would put out our edits, and I think we have some more edits to come out with them. We’ve also got another four track edit EP coming out on an equally illustrious American label. The tracks are two personal DJ faves. One an early night party starter and the other some peak time disco-funk. It’s nice to have both ends of the spectrum represented, and to include some gospel disco, which is something we both love.
Any other tidbits to you care to share? this is a chance to plug anything you’ve got coming up?
We’re really excited to get our original music out in the world, but that’s still a little way away. We’re in the process of putting together a five track disco record that we wrote and co-produced, featuring some of our favourite local vocalists. We’re probably still about a year away from showing any of that off, but have two demos in the bag.
#1 sure-fire party starter in your DJ bags currently?
Too hard to narrow it down to one! We’ve been rinsing Divine Situation’s Born Again on Moton Records, any edits by the criminally underrated Gary Cummings, and classics like Gayle Adams & Lenny Williams!
PURCHASE THE PATCHOULI BROTHERS’ NEW EP
– rider
Davey Schacherl
Contributing Editor