David and Stephen Dewaele are brothers bound intrinsically together by their love of the beat. Proud owners of a music archive that now exceeds over 50,000 vinyls, they are the 2many DJ’s with 2many records.
First establishing the experimental sound project over two and a half years ago, David and Stephen are the Belgium siblings with bold opinions on the way they want the world to digest DJ sets. Mashing up eclectic tapestries of tunes, from times gone by right up to today’s chart toppers, accompanied by mind-bending visuals, the 2ManyDJs’ experience pushes the realms of entertainment to brave, new territories. This is pants down, flat out, turn around, touch the ground, hardcore dance punk for seasoned ravers. i-D online caught up with DJ Dave to find out how they lay down their signature sound…
From Dave:
Each RSWX mix is an hour long (just about). There is a physical limitation to how many songs a DJ can fit onto a mix and sometimes you have to make sacrifices in order to bring a final selection down to between 35 and 55 songs, depending on the chosen theme. Library music, or hardcore punk songs for that matter, only tend to be about a minute long so there will be less editing going on than in a chicago house mix, where every song is over six minutes and you have to take the best bits and piece them together. Then it’s a matter of listening back a few times, even whilst making the mix, and finding out how the music flows because you have to remember that people have to listen to these mixes (hopefully more than once) and it can’t be too frantic and definitely not too boring and even though the balance is subjective, you’ll know when it’s too much.
All of our RSWX mixes have an accompanying film based on the record sleeves and sometimes we know that there isn’t much to be done with a particular sleeve so in order to keep the mix visually exciting we make sure the song isn’t in for too long. There are a few mixes Steph and I made that have about 500 tracks in them, but that is a different story, they are not the kind of mix tapes you would listen to without watching the visuals at the same time so they have a slightly different function. The majority of RSWX mixes can be enjoyed without the added visuals, but we have found that sometimes quite extreme types of music can suddenly appeal to a much wider audience when they are accompanied by a stupid pun, a dancing figure or a pretty girl. Toddlers dancing to Larry Heard whilst watching the animated sleeve, is a perfect example. We hope to do many more of these hours, if time and money allow, as they are a perfect way to feel less guilty about buying so many records all the time.
