IN FLAGRANTI LAID BARE
The future sound of retro
NEW YORK IN THE ’70S AND ’80S is shrouded in legend as a period
of unparalleled musical and artistic revolution, spawning the dextrous
beginnings of hip-hop, the glamorous decadence of disco, and the no-wave
dissonance of the arty downtown scene. So having experienced it fi rst
hand, it’s not surprising that it still drives the sleazy, discofi ed vision of In
Flagranti.
“I moved to New York in 1984,” says Alex Gloor, the group’s artistic director,
now based in Switzerland, who picks over the era’s cultural detritus,
scouring records, VHS and magazines to create their vintage collage record
sleeves, YouTube videos, and sampladelic tracks. “One of the fi rst clubs I
went to was Paradise Garage. Keith Haring had his fi rst ‘Party of Life’ there,
post-Studio 54, pre-Aids: sex, drugs and disco.”
“It’s the ’70s in general,” adds Sasa Crnobrnja of this retro fascination,
the London-based producer who cuts and pastes Gloor’s sound fi les into a
modernistic take on these roots, before transferring the audio to reel-to-
reel tape to recreate the warm, hissy recordings of his youth. “It had so
many different styles. Drum & bass in the ’90s was something new, but most
stuff — heavy metal, disco, reggae, dub and punk — started in the ’70s.”
Bonding over Daniele Baldelli’s famous Cosmic mix-tapes in a Swiss record
shop in 1994, Crnobrnja followed Gloor back to New York, where the pair
started their own record label Codek in 1995. But it wasn’t until they began
recording together that they collided with the burgeoning new disco scene.
“In the ’90s we were listening to disco but it wasn’t necessarily something
you’d play out,” says Crnobrnja who ran the club, Organic Grooves, in New
York for 10 years. “It started to get rediscovered at the same time as some
of the records we were working on. I put out ‘Just Gazing’ from New York in
2002, and I had no idea there was a crowd for it over here.”
Having now completed three albums and a series of cult EPs, with each
release a conceptual whole of art and music, united by overt sexuality and
dirty, tongue-in-cheek humour, they’ve won plenty of fans, and completed
remixes for Permanent Vacation’s Jackpot, Crystal Fighters and Headman,
whose ‘Gimme’ was given a superb twist reminiscent of early Daft Punk.
Next release, ‘Ex Ex Ex’ (out 25th January on Codek), a glam-rock-inspired
stomp featuring Natalie Smash who previously appeared on their ‘Sex Piss
Tool’ EP, sees them come to collect with Riton, Headman, DJ Wool, Golden
Bug, Bottin and Hercules & Love Affair’s Andy Butler all dropping versions
that vary from narcotic heartbeat house to mutant techno.
A fourth album is ready to roll, though as with everything, not until it fi ts
into the unfolding of their grand artistic vision. “It’s a different sound,
darker,” says Sasa. “We make stuff all the time, but we need a theme to put
it all together. Otherwise they’re just individual tracks. And we’re not into
releasing tracks just for the sake of it.”
008
www.djmag.com
DJ482.upfront2.indd 8 18/1/10 13:21:23
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