Two years after releasing Bird Brain, his second album of original music, DJ Claude VonStroke is still touring the world playing a mix of his own music and other tunes he loves. Back in his home of San Francisco after a trip to Puerto Rico, VonStroke was already getting ready to head off to play a series of gigs in America’s northwest, and then he’ll be heading off to play in Europe.
Amongst all this global ping-pong Claude VonStroke found a moment to give OUTinPerth an update on all the different things he’s working on.First up is a new CD, Makeovers. It’s a collection of VonStroke’s a collection of his best remakes or as he often refers to them re-twists. VonStroke’s style is to chop up the tracks vocals and bring up the beats, it’s party music but it’s not too cheesy.
Makeovers features a range of mainly underground artists like Gonzales, Warpaint, Mikael Weil and a few more recognisable names like British artist Katy B who’s been lucky enough to get to VonStoke re-twist treatment. Vom Stroke explains why these tracks made the cut for the collection,
‘I just felt like these were the most interesting or remade tracks and maybe some of them were chosen because they were looked over a little bit, I didn’t always choose the most obvious ones that maybe everyone was expected.
‘I wanted to put The Rapture remix in there and there was a couple of others, this Arcadia remix on [label] Brique Rouge, there was a couple that were right on the border’.
Von Stroke’s label Dirty Bird has been bringing a whole heap of artists from around the world to the attention of lovers of electronic music. The label recently celebrated their 50th release and Von Stroke tells us there are heaps more to come,
‘We got a lot of stuff coming out right now, it’s like really busy, Justin Martin just came out with a new one a follow up to the Mr Spock track with Ardalan and next week it’s this new guy Eats Everything has a new track with Worty. He’s a new guy from Bristol who I think is going to be really big. Later, like next month he has a full EP coming out. In the middle of that stuff is a guy called A1 Bassline whose got a real UK-centric Pearson sound style like banging.’
A new EP of original material is also due soon from VonStroke and he expects his third album to be available early next fear.
VonStroke is also heading down under for the festival season on the Stereosonic line-up which is set to tour around the country and being part of a touring festival is something the Dj is fond of,
‘I like meeting all the other artists who are on tour and I like being able to play for a much bigger crowd that I’d normally play for. Bigger energy, but it’s more challenging to get it to go off, you really have to concentrate.
With a promise of new tunes just around the corner, a fresh album full of his best remixes, a busy record label and a forthcoming trip around Australia, it seems VonStroke has a finger in every pie.
Graeme Watson
