Circuit Sweet Interview, Feature, Reviews

Rad Releases ’17 – Damien of QDRPD / Serguei Spoutnik

December 28, 2017

It’s that time once again, as the countdown to the end of 2017 rapidly approaches we take a personal look back on familiar names, features and musicians’ best releases of the past 12 months. In what has been a crazy year of highs and lows it’s the releases that have pulled a lot of people through the year. Now in it’s 7th year, Circuit Sweet will be hosting takeovers from the featured artists/musicians/labels and promoters of the site with their personal top 5 releases of the year.

Continuing our annual end of year tradition we let our favourites take over the site to tell us the records that have made their end of year lists, their favourite events/gigs and what we can look forward to from them next year.

Our next Rad Releases take over comes from the final half of Quadrupède. We are so excited about the thought of new material from the pair in the new year. We are so grateful to Damien and his ongoing support for Circuit Sweet, earlier this year he created our artwork for our compilation celebrating our 8th birthday and it was perfect! We hand over to musician and artist Damien to talk about his year in music- from playing,  directing and creating.

  • Top 5 releases of the year 
Apollo Noir – « A/N »(https://apollonoir.bandcamp.com/album/a-n)
I’ve the chance to have extremely talented friends as Apollo Noir. His first album is for me like THE thing I would have loved to listen one day and he did it! 
 
Apollo Noir – « XMAS666 EP » (https://apollonoir.bandcamp.com/album/xmas666-ep)
His second official release is about Christmas. A highlight for me, a purity in the sounds that make them very strong and significant.
 
Drab Majesty – « The Demonstration » (https://drabmajesty.bandcamp.com/album/the-demonstration)
The 80s have never been so Gothic, melodic and futuristic at the same time.
 

Lanark Artefax – « Whities 011 » 

The purity of his sounds make them very sharp and addictable.
 
Lorenzo Senni – « XAllegroX / The Shape Of Trance To Come »
(https://lorenzosenni.fanlink.to/xallegrox-trance)
‘Cause I love headbanging alone on trance music.
 
S T Ø J – « WO E RL D » (https://bmm.lnk.to/WoERlD)
‘Cause it’s one of my extremely talented friend and I’m glad and proud to share the project QDRPD with him! His sound is unique as him, I love the way he sculpts his music in new kind of matters!
 
Triathalon – « Day One » (https://triathalon.bandcamp.com/track/day-one)
Cheesy? Yes, and I love it.
 
 
  • Your Top 5 pieces of work – posters/videos/artwork
Kirsten Lepore – « Hi Stranger » (https://vimeo.com/190063150)
I love things that can be cute and unsane at the same time, I’m maybe a little like that, anyway it’s my humor.
 
Jonathan Vinel and Caroline Poggi – aamourocean – « i find love » (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpkUMj_4Xrw)
These French directors are extremely good to create a new kind of contemporary romanticism. I love all their work.
 
Oneohtrix Point Never – « The Pure and the Damned » (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzZ6-OqjoIg)
This last track featuring Iggy Pop concludes perfectly this amazing OST. His spoken word is very deep and a 3D version of him in this music video was a fabulous idea. Its a shame that I couldnt watch this movie in my town. Only french dubbing in our theater …
 
Triathalon – « Online »
This artwork is very simple but make me feel a lot of different things.
 
Michael Deforge – « Big Kids » (http://www.michael-deforge.com/#/big-kids/)
I love the way he uses worlds but especially drawings to explain hard and complex feelings in a very poetic way and full of imagery
 
  • The best gig you have attended and why
Drab Majesty – « Joker’s Pub » – Angers, France (https://www.facebook.com/serguei.spoutnik/videos/1226817884094535/)
It was the first time I saw young gothic people in a very small club singing songs like at a Madonna concert. Strange but sincere.
 
  • Highlights of your year
I’ve directed 4 music videos for Apollo Noir.
http://sergueispoutnik.com/codingaugmentedreality/
http://sergueispoutnik.com/p4r15/
http://sergueispoutnik.com/postrejecto/
http://sergueispoutnik.com/xmas666/
We have created a new formula with Quadrupède and we are « QDRPD » now. We are very proud of our new color palette. We’ve tested this new things in the amazing Teriaki Festival in our town, our only show this year with the band.
 
I had the chance to visit the Earthquaker Device factory in Akron, Ohio. I was there for the wedding of very good friends. I bought a B-stock Rainbow Machine and I can’t wait to use it for DEP-like or Daughters-like sounds. Very violent and unsane!
 
 
Finally, I visited Le Havre in France. It’s a very sad and beautiful city at the same time, I love it especially the brutalist architecture. People are fighting against this natural sadness with cultural aspects, venues and events. I think there are a lot of ferries for UK in Le Havre. You should visit it one day!
 
  • Artist/Band to watch for 2018
You should follow this band from my town Le Mans:
La Peste, they’ve just release their first album « ossuaire »: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUx7okH6-s0&feature=youtu.be
Blue Mountain Expansion, they are looking for a label, I’ve listened their new album to be released and it’s very promising too!
  • Plans for the New Year
We are writing a new album with QDRPD and we hope to record and release it in 2018.
I’ll begin a musical project with Apollo Noir, we want to do this for a long time. It’s time to concretize it.
A huge thank you Damien- we can’t for and new material and that new project!!! All the love!

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