It’s about time for another exclusive interview on SHA and today we have a man who has just released his second artist album while also dropping a feast of EP’s and DJing Worldwide. SHA’s Craig asks the questions as we steal a little time out of DJ W!ld’s incredibly busy schedule…

DJ W!LD

Hello Guillaume Duchatel de Montrouge aka DJ W!ld and welcome to SHA. How are you today?
Perfect!!! Feeling so happy to play everywhere and be able to release my music and produce new talents.

Your second artist album D!rty has recently hit the record stores on Cabin Fever. How does the album differ from your debut LP Palace?
It differs a lot from Palace for sure – when you produce music every moment, then every aspect of life and surroundings makes what you produce different. The idea of D!rty was not to lose the direction of Palace, but be an evolution of time and space… and as the title says … More D!rty than Palace

With track names like All I Want Is You, In Love and Dream Of Me there appears to be lots of emotional themes and love imagery. Was this a deliberate reflection of your current mindset as a producer and in your personal life?
Yes for sure I’m in love! This album reflects my life at this moment and is a mixture between my feelings and emotions in my personnel life and music experiences.

The overall album shows your distinct raw, primal sound, with nods to hip hop and funk in equal measures. What influences you when you set out to make a new track or remix?
What influences me is other types of music for sure, as well as sex, love, art … everything that makes life and death.

The album also features many short musical intro’s and interludes. It isn’t until the fourth track that we get the first ‘full’ track, in the traditional sense. What is the story behind these?
Everything is my voice and friends from my DJ trips. Whenever the time is right I record them and add synths and effects to recreate what ambience I feel in that moment.

Your previous album spurred on a wealth of remixes from wealth of International artists. DJ Sneak, Kerri Chandler, Art Department, Radioslave and Jay Haze were only some of the artists who graced the remix. Can we expect to see a another influx of big remixes from D!rty?
Well Palace was released on my own label so it was in my plan to ask all my friends and people I respect and love their music to remix my first album. For D!rty I’m not sure the concept is about doing remixes but who knows

You were raised in Dijon, France heavily into the hip hop culture of the time; basketball, breakdancing and graffiti culture. These influences have lived long and are evident in the new LP. Outside of hip hop, how did you make the transition to electronic music and what early influences did you have?
The transition was pretty easy as the first step of making hip hop was using the same machines and beats as in techno culture. So they were really close then there was a big crash and hip hop and techno culture went their separate routes.

Also back then, funk, disco and all kinds of music were giving more space to the beat, the loops, the long edits… For sure l‘enfer in Dijon was the best club in France at that time where Laurent Garnier was resident and all the big names from Detroit and Chicago came as guests.

You have played across the World from your Circo Loco residency to WMC and Sonar while also being a constant fixture for the Cocoon roster and even playing in the legendary Twilo in New York. Couple this with a discography that dates back to 1997, do you have any further goals you would like to achieve in your career?
Yes for sure, there are always so many projects that I want to do, people I want to collaborate with, so many clubs and festivals I want to see and play. Playing as a DJ and making music are drugs for me and I don’t want to be cured, never !!!

You also have your own record label: W which you used this to release Palace and the subsequent remixes. Is the label purely for your own material and remix of this or can we expect some new artist material to be released in the future?
For W its only my own projects and remixes. Other artist projects are going on my other labels – Catwash Records for House and Catwash Hors Serie is taking a more techy direction.

You have always been closely linked with the fashion World, handpicked to provide the soundtrack to shows from Mugler, Lacroix and Westwood. Are you quite fashion conscious yourself?
This is difficult to answer! What’s fashion? I like creativity and I’ve my own opinion of what I like or not. Even what I would do if I had my own brand. As my first plan was to be designer, create every kind of object and give a new aspect – my vision of it as I do for music. Creativity is the key of all type of art I think so there is no limit and you just have to work hard to get skills!!! So fashion conscious yes maybe, but I’m not victim of it!

Finally, I once read that you don’t like to follow a plan, is this still the case and with that in mind what is the plan for your summer?
No I’m W!LD! I follow my instincts not a plan

For the summer, well a big D!rty tour all over Europe and the USA, and the Circoloco season at DC10. Plus lots of releases remixes and who knows what else!

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