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LOOKING FORWARD TO 2011: An interview with THE producer – Dillon Francis

24 Dec

 Far East Movement – Like A G6 (Dillon Francis Remix) by DILLONFRANCIS

To say that Los Angeles native Dillon Francis is the most motivated producer in underground electronic dance music at the moment is the understatement of the year. His ascension to the top of the pack of hungry and progressive minded producers was so quick, so effortless and ultimately so great that if you didn’t notice, it’s quite okay. Francis didn’t make the made the tracks this year that crushed the party, he made the tracks that pushed it to higher levels of impressiveness. In a career spanning less than five years, Francis has worked with a list of production luminaries that rank in the top percentile of the most fertile creative minds in this history of dance music. In 2011, the only thing holding back Dillon Francis is that there’s only 24 hours in a day to make things happen.

 Dillon Francis & Dj Ammo – Westside (Dillon Francis Moombahton Edit) by DILLONFRANCIS

He’s the youngest and arguably most important producer on Plant Music, the high end underground label started by legendary DJ Stretch Armstrong. Having spent time with the likes of Dallas Austin upon deciding to take a year of his life, lock his bedroom door and use his blessing of laser like focus to understand how to produce dubstep initially, Francis’ boundless creative mind that expanded to house and yes, moombahton, is at the moment one of the great treasures of the forward minded underground. “Westside,” his track with Will I.Am’s personal DJ, DJ Ammo is a killer. Made with a deep desire by the Black Eyed Peas front man for an American and West Coast leaning version of Sidney Samson’s Dutch winner “Riverside,” the Westside Connection sampling banger does just that and more. As well, latest track “Brazzer’s Theme” with Dave Nada has continued Francis’ ability to pick up on the impulses that makes a top producer unique, manipulate their sound , and make it entirely more melodic, propulsive and a DJ necessity. Francis is a musical sponge, both able to soak and be wrung dry with equal effectiveness.

 Dillon Francis & Dave Nada – Brazzer’s Theme (Original Mix) by DILLONFRANCIS

2011 finds Dillon Francis releasing an EP with Mad Decent Records featuring all of his top cuts, as well as some new bangers. He’s already confirmed to be at SXSW and WMC as a guest of the leading label and cultural identifier, and with a planned Murderer’s Row of collaborators and artists demanding remixes at the top of music at the moment, this is only the beginning. I had the opportunity to interview the top young producer, and in his answers note his joy, focus and sheer wonder at reflecting at the nature of his own rise. The best part about being great sometimes it when you’re not even aware of your own potential, and are just attempting to enjoy likely the most amazing moment of your life.

THE DROP: DC’s Starks and Nacey carve a niche

11 Aug



“Crunk suburban kids with humble swag who are extra nice with the production.” – a recent description by the author of the article’s subjects. 

A generation of kids drove around the suburbs as teenagers in hand me down whips getting lifted and drinking heavily while listening to Three Six Mafia and other hop hip hop of that day, and obscure house music. It’s an undeniable fact. Well, those kids have heroes now in the production booth, 2/3 of the playing this Saturday night at U Street Music Hall for the Nouveau Riche monthly with Gavin Holland, Columbia, MD’s own Starks and Nacey. The rise of the duo over the past two years has been an incremental climb in lock step with the development of Washington, DC as an underground music hub. Their 2009 debut EP only scratched the surface leading into 2010’s well received TRO on T & A Records. It showed their love of grimy Southern hip hop, as it really isn’t a great Nacey production if there isn’t a sample somewhere of UGK, The Clipse or Outkast. As well, Steve Starks’ twin loves of the aggressive edge of club music and the deepest and funkiest of house scratched the surface. Nacey made a poppy banger out of flipping the breakdown of The Emotions’ “Lose Your Love,” but that’s clearly not the direction they’re headed in. For a better idea, do take the time to check out their 30 minute workout from last Friday’s Faders East Village Radio show “The Let Out” where the crew shows off exactly where they’re headed over the next few months. Plus Steve drops some EXCLUSIVE STEVE STARKS GIT EM EP ON T & A RECORDS news, as we hear from the duo that is quickly ascending to the top of the rising new crop of young producers and DJs internationally.

It isn’t a far stretch to name Starks and Nacey, Dillon Francis, Munchi and Zombies for Money as being next in line on the underground. Fortunately for us, all of these names have already started working together, and the creations are superb, and better for us, forthcoming.

Starks and Nacey productions evoke a particular mood. It’s like taking something very much out of the familiar and expected, say, the floating and intensely soulful sensation of an elevated mind state, the aggressive wanderings of tribal house or the euphoria of a particularly tight break beat in the club, and hearing it ever so slightly altered. Not so aggressively that it sounds like an intentional or ironic diversion, but just a quality interpretation, mirroring the work of those like Green Velvet, KW Griff, Blaqstarr and DJ Booman that the duo idolize in many ways. Always keep an eye and an ear out for Starks and Nacey, as this truly is only the beginning.

S*** I’M DIGGING THIS WEEK: Feel Good Edition

25 Jul
 

1. Get familiar with Dillon Francis. He’s kinda great. – Legendary DJ Stretch Armstrong’s NYC imprint Plant Music has compiled easily one of the deepest and consistently solid rosters of talent from across the EDM universe. In the 100+ degree pit of fire that U Street Music Hall felt like on Saturday night, nobody’s tracks stood out brighter than 22 year old, Los Angeles residing production wunderkind and Plant labelmate with Bliss spinners Dominique Keegan and Will Eastman, Dillon Francis. Keegan, of electro pop band The Glass dropped a DJ set on Saturday night highlighted by Francis and DJ Ammo’s track “Westside,” which, if you saw Major Lazer at Coachella, or have caught a Will I. Am/Zupher Blaq DJ set, you would know the banger as one of the highlights of either set. Combining sonic elements of Major Lazer’s “Pon de Floor” and Sidney Samson’s “Riverside” in the percussion heavy build to an assault of trance synths, electro noise and excited exhortations, the track is a dance floor workout with legs, the perfect sound to escort a set into pure magical delirium. Take a listen and become a believer. This kid is a key element of the future.

Dillon Francis and DJ Ammo – “Westside”

2. Rick Ross’ “MC Hammer,” and the anatomy of a feel good hit of the year –

Take a cultural reference that everyone understands of the height of MC Hammer’s dominance as a pop cultural icon, add in hip underground criminal references to the Black Mafia Family and Gangster Disciples, and sprinkle liberal doses of drug dealing, mafia, money, hoes and clothes, and you get the inescapable hit of the hip hop and expectantly the mainstream year as well, Rick Ross’ “MC Hammer.” We haven’t had an emcee so unabashedly wax poetic about and proclaim a devotion to the glory and beauty of the gangster lifestyle since the Notorious B.I.G. We are all aware that Rick Ross is not Biggie. That’s patently obvious. But for people who loved “Juicy,” “Warning” and the “Ten Crack Commandments,” Twitter’s @rickyrozay has arrived. Yeah, he’s fat, black and ugly as ever too, and in making a full embrace of the pop sensibilities of the gangster aesthetic, has in many ways become the cultural, if not lyrical progeny of the legacy of Christopher Wallace.