DJ Yellow & Flowers And Sea Creatures – Deep Into Neon

DJ Yellow’s real name Alain Ho has been around for ages. When he met Chris (Bob Sinclar) in the early 90’s during a night out, things took a turn. They started their label Yellow Productions in 1993, to critical acclaim. An underground label at first, it was perhaps Yellow’s search for personality and his ear for quality that opened the door to a colourful palette of signings, that included artists as diverse as Dimitri From Paris, Kid Loco, Bang Bang, Joe Claussel, Salome de Bahia and of course Bob Sinclar himself, all of which have helped to shape the French sound, as it is today Montreal’s Flowers And Sea Creatures have been building a formidable reputation since their debut EP ‘Test Pressing’ in September 2010. Together with the follow-up ‘A.M’ in Feb 2011 and their full release album in 2011,
they have been turning some serious heads in both the electronic
underground and the alt-rock overground.

They deliver a deeply atmospheric and cinematic sound – Graham Baxter’s vocals and crystalline acoustic guitars riding over Kosta Megalos’ atmospheric synth work. Baxter was born in Belfast and Megalos was born in Athens and both immigrated to Montreal with their respective families in their youth. The two met in the 1990s and they started writing together and playing the local bar scene while always working away at writing their blend of acoustic and electronic original music. Record deals nearly came and mostly went and it was in the early 2000s that the duo began in earnest writing the exploratory music that would become Flowers And Sea Creatures staple. Baxter had decided drop the vocals in favour of their new instrumental direction. Ironically however, it was an instrumental track that caught the ear of Buzzin’ Fly label boss, Ben Watt but Watt, although impressed with the music, thought the track needed a vocal.

Ultimately Baxter sang on the track leading to their signing with Buzzin’Fly. To date the duo have collaborated with Ewan Pearson, Fred Everything, The Revenge and Ytre Rymden Dansskola. Inspirations include Chet Baker, Bowie, Bjørk, Everything But The Girl, Giorgio Moroder, The Art of Noise, Kraftwerk, The Cure.

Tuff City Kids is a duo consisting of Phillip Lauer and Gerd Janson. Ordinarily, you would put J before L to preserve alphabetical order, but in this case the amount of work done by Lauer necessitates some sort of nod – rhetorically or otherwise. With releases on highly ranked labels such as Unterton and Delsin + remixes on Mojuba, Live At Robert Johnson, Créme Organisation, Suol and many others the duo certainly understand not to make a big fuzz out of their obvious talent, but let the music do the talking. Janson and Lauer live in and around Frankfurt and can often be found at the city’s finest club, Robert Johnson.

Konstantin Sibold is a Stuttgart-based DJ, producer, mastering engineer and cofounder of the COMMON SENSE PEOPLE event series. Back in 2009 he became the youngest resident DJ of the club Rocker 33 in Stuttgart, where he was asked to play with people like Ellen Allien, Adam Beyer, Marco Carola, Josh Wink, Michael Mayer and many more. In 2011 he became responsible for a sophisticated part of the booking for the club. Since then Konstantin Sibold and his friend Leif Müller have been inviting acts like Soundstream, Levon Vincent, Todd Terje, Shed, Move D, Efdemin, Roman Flügel, Redshape, Smallpeople, John Roberts, Session Victim, Christopher Rau, Moomin, Axel Boman, The Mountain People, Sven Weisemann, Oracy and many more to their COMMON SENSE PEOPLE event series at Rocker 33. As a result, Rocker 33 peaked in the beginning of 2012 to place #4 and #7 in the top ten list of best clubs, right behind Berghain and Robert Johnson (Groove Magazine and De:Bug). In 2010 his first vinyl “Neuland” was released on Salon Rosi Rec., which was founded by the same guys who were responsible for the techno imprints Neue Heimat and Mutter in the mid 90s. Kompakt Köln was so stunned by the
demo files they’ve heard that they asked for an exclusive distribution deal for Konstantin Sibold’s release. With the support of Kompakt, it became one of the big techno records in the Cologne scene 2010, with people like Michael Mayer and Âme playing it. In 2011 his much-noticed classic house release “Leif” / “Mariam” followed on the french label Caramelo and reached place #6 in the Decks house buzz charts and was and still is heavily played by acts like Move D, Soundstream, Sven Weisemann and Lovebirds. Move D was asked in an interview for a favourite track and he answered: “Leif by Konstantin Sibold.” In 2012 his second house release “Aleks” on Caramelo even reached place #2 in Decks house buzz charts with place #1 in the categories Disco, Chicago House and Detroit House. Following in June 2012 Snork Enterprises released Konstantin Sibold’s Stuttgart EP, which became the labels best selling record up to today, with all three tracks being in the top 100 Minimal Charts. “Matze P” even reached place 8 of Beatport minimal charts and “Nils” peak position 11. The release was charted by Joris Voorn, Steve Bug and many more and was one of Innervisions most beloved records of the summer. Dixon & Âme even played two of Konstantin Sibold’s tracks in their Ibiza season opening set at We Love Space 2012.

Attracting the attention of Dixon & Âme has led to his next release “Madeleine” on their Innervisions imprint, which will be followed by the “Aristoteles” release on also Berlin based Mojuba and then later in 2013 to Konstantin Sibold’s Remix of Jazzanova “I Can See” which will be licensed by Dennis Ferrer from Universal Music for his New York based label Objektivity.