Horse Meat Disco consists of three other DJs apart from James. Jim Stanton, Severino and Luke Howard help him carry and channel the massive demand for their DJ skills, resulting in the urge to split the line-up when they’re understandably asked to cover corners all around the world. Take 10th May as example; they have a gig at Te Talk in Norwich, and at the same time in a club in Germany. “We travel around in pairs. Tat doesn’t mean we’re playing the same set everywhere around the world at the same time though; we just turn up and play to the crowd”, says James. Te fact that every single set HMD brings is totally different, contributes to the exclusive brand they made of themselves throughout the year. If you’re going to a Horse Meat Disco gig, you’re always in for a hell of a surprise.
Tis M.O. even cleared the way for them to invade the fashion world. “People in the fashion world like to party and go out dancing. It’s a place where a lot of designers, I think, get their inspiration from. I guess music and fashion kind of go hand in hand.” After an agent from a fashion company saw a gig of theirs, the DJ ensemble got their golden ticket to a whole new world. “You could say it’s kind of our job to bring some humour and party atmosphere to the serious fashion world”, says James. “It was an entirely new thing to do at the time, but it’s a place where you can really seize your creativity if there’s place for it.”
Not that discovering new worlds is an exception for this guys, in the contrary. Whereas DJs and television might sound as a strange mix, HMD succeeded in bringing a massive party to the television screen in 2012, when they were a host for Channel 4’s House Party. “Most of the time, watching a DJ isn’t very entertaining. We quickly realised we had to add something, so we added a few more visual performances that summed up what we do and what we’re about. A few dancers here, some overly enthusiastic DJs there. In the end it was a very fun thing to do.”
“Lots of disco music and lip syncing”, that’s how James Hillard From London’s Horse
Meat Disco describes one of their gigs. He’s undoubtedly right, but possibly forgot to add another crucial characteristic in his description: a massive party. Horse Meat
Disco’s known all around the world for their ecstatic, disco-worshipping and very
entertaining performances. They got where they are now with their weekly residence at The Eagle in London, taking a place on
Channel 4’s New Year’s Eve House Party in 2012 – yep, on telly – and being a regular face in the much observed fashion world.
Apart from that, Horse Meat Disco has a weekly residence at Te Eagle in London, a place where they say they’ve had their favourite gigs so far. And that’s something, seeing as this band literally has been everywhere. Teir compilation albums take us back to the 70s, and their newest, Horse Meat Disco 4, will be released in June this year. Apart from at the turntable, the band has also been in the studio lately, hoping to create their very own sound. “We’re constantly traveling around, and then there’s four of us, so it’s really hard to get us all in a room with any kind of regularity to come and really make it work. I mean, we’ve got some sort of demos, but it’s a slow process.”
What these demos will sound like is the big unanswered question. We can only hope they will give a perfect insight into what HMD’s about: combining four different backgrounds within the wide, vast borders of the disco genre. “Disco now is quite the same as in the 70’s. It’s the same records that we played then. I think it’s just the enduring nature of this kind of music. It’s just a testimony to how good the music really is. Tere are always new generations that fall in love with it and we’re bringing it to them in the format of entertainment. Tat’s what we’re all about, and what we hope to keep on doing.”
Yarreth Plysier
Dirty Rotten Disco Club presents Horse Meat Disco at Te Talk on May 10th. Tickets are available from
www.skiddle.com or from Soundclash Records / Phillip Browne’s in Norwich.
20 / May 2014/
outlineonline.co.uk
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