P: “Some of my fondest memories from that time were when we did a series of parties on Brian’s rooftop in Bushwick on various Friday and Saturday nights during the summers of 2006, 2007 and 2008.”
B: “One Memorial Day Weekend we brought a 15,000 watt Turbosound system up there. Other people tried to set up soundsystems around us, but with our Turbosound system it was already game over for anyone else in the area [they all laugh]. ”
P: “Jumping forward a bit, we eventually moved Percussion Lab to its current Monday evening time slot around 2009, which was the same year that Sepalcure
formed. My girlfriend Sougwen Chung, who does Sepalcure’s and the record label Ghostly International’s visuals amongst many other clients, was studying in Sweden at the time and I was trying to stay as busy as possible in her absence [laughs]. Travis and I were already sitting around in my studio working on music so, during that time period, Percussion Lab became a continuation of the two of us sitting in my studio where we followed a radio show-style format that was very similar to what I was doing when I started out in 2002. We would play music, invite friends to do guest DJ sets, and then sit them down for interviews afterwards. There were some pretty hilarious shows and interviews which, for better or worse, are all available for download on the website. This takes us up to when Nooka joined the fold.”
N: “I was introduced to the guys by a good friend of mine that I did a weekly radio show with for two years while we were attending Boston University. When we graduated, she was interning for Percussion Lab and I was getting ready to move to New York City, so she put us in touch in the hopes that I could help with the radio show and the website.”
P: “We thought that he was a programmer at first! However, on his first night working for us, he showed up with his record bag. I was pretty confused, but then...”
B: “Then he dropped it like it was hot!”
P: “We went from rolling our eyes as he played his first few records to saying: ‘Ok! You’re our new resident DJ!’”
B: “This really set the tone for what happened next. It put the pressure on to get back out of Praveen’s living room and have our new resident DJ play out. We also had a lot of friends coming by, Sepalcure was getting bigger, so more guests started showing up and it wasn’t long until the parties were too good to not have in a venue.”
P: “Travis had been to this place, that was then called Sweet Revenge and eventually changed its name to One Last Shag, and they were down to have us throw parties there. I can’t stress enough how important he was in helping Percussion Lab’s growth during the years that he lived here. If he wasn’t living in Berlin now he’d be sat at this table being a part of this interview.”
N: “So we started throwing parties there in April of 2011. Dorian Concept was our first guest
032
Praveen aka Braille
and SBTRKT was on the next week. Scuba played there. It was great, with a special community that showed up. People could see their favorite musicians in a small, no-pressure situation and get really cheap drinks. It worked really well.”
B: “It was also last summer that Dave Q and Drew Lustman [who produces music and DJs as FaltyDL] went from being regular Percussion Lab guests to becoming our rotating residents. It works out really well for us. Drew especially gets to enjoy playing relaxed shows for his friends, which he doesn’t get to do that much due to his popularity, and often plays under a series of humorous aliases to ensure that things remain relatively low-key.”
P: “Those parties were great and were the building blocks to most of Percussion Lab’s present community. There are people who’ve been around since 2006, or earlier, but last year definitely raised the bar for us. We tried to replicate the same vibe going into the autumn of 2011 through to the spring in our living rooms again, and of course with our parties throughout the past summer.”
N: “Things worked and didn’t work. Especially this past winter as we kept moving to different places and got into scenarios like the night that my neighbors yelled at me because Jackmaster dropped Janet Jackson and a bunch of people were singing along at the top of their lungs. It was a blast, but it wasn’t foolproof.”
P: “Autumn of 2011 was also when we started a relationship with François K’s Deep Space party. Dave Q hooked it up since he had been a resident the previous summer at our Sweet Revenge/One Last Shag parties and then came into the Deep Space family via his Dub War party. We’ve had a couple of amazing guest DJ sets there and all- night takeovers.”
A few weeks ago you decided to stop the weekly summer party. How come and what’s next?
P: “Doing the party, and even the radio show, is really hectic to do weekly, especially since we have so many opportunities to book amazing
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