If you follow HighClouds, then you’re already familiar with Charlotte Adigéry. But did you know that most of her music was made in collaboration with Bolis Pupul? “We are a duo, and always have been,” stated Adigéry on Facebook. Both signed on Stephen et David Dewaele‘s label DEEWEE (2 Many DJ’s, Soulwax), the pair reintroduces itself with an ironic new track, “Thank You,” co-written and co-produced with Soulwax, which acts as a middle finger addressed to all the people who generously offer them “unwanted unsolicited opinions” about their look, music, and art. Reminiscent of Marie Davidson‘s “Work,” in the way it balances empowering message and sarcasm, “Thank You” is also a hell of a club banger.

For more than a year, the world has been living a strange situation. A small virus – read a huge pandemic – has pushed us to live in confinement . As many of you might have noticed, isolation is not an easy thing for the social animals that we are, even with all the available “social” technologies.

With “Bear With Me (and I’ll stand bare before you),” Caribbean-Belgian artist Charlotte Adigéry navigates the intimacy and vulnerability as well as the insecurities that artists face during this new lockdown-lifestyle. The track, that she co-wrote with her label partner Bolis Pupul, addresses the potential change in human behavior. “We believe 2020 has been such a cornerstone for the 21st century,” she explains. “This song is about being confined thus confronted to the way we live.”

She then adds:

“On the other hand the song is about not being able to run away from yourself and being confronted with your relationship to yourself and others. Not hovering from one busy schedule to another, never looking back.”

“Bear With Me (and I’ll stand bare before you),” is the opening track of Foundations (pre-order), the first compilation album from 2 Many DJ‘s label DEEWEE. The 27-track project also features two other exclusive tracks, courtesy of James Righton and Movulango.

Ghent’s artist Charlotte Adigéry has just shared an 18 minute-long tape entitled Yin Yang Self-Meditation, wherein she explores her own fears and worries, both as a human being and as an artist. Her long list includes her hybrid Flemish accent, her experience with racism, her relationship with her dad, and her frustration regarding Instagram beauty standards, amongst others. She raises these issues with a stunning honesty as she confesses, for instance, that she is tired of systematically meeting her friends to drink coffee and can hardly stand answering the same questions over and over again during interviews.

In terms of sound, the project sounds like an extension of the ASMR version of her track “Cursed And Cussed” or the opening track of her La Falaise EP (that she released under the moniker WWWater), with Charlotte Adigéry speaking smoothly over a contemplative electronic track, a sort of guided self-meditation. About the project, she explained:

[su_quote]This tape is an invitation to myself and eventually others to look inwards. It is a ritual for letting go. I was tired of being stuck in a narrow mental reality and I wanted to look beyond. The suffering is not caused by the problem itself. We worry about not having enough. We are anxious about rejection. We fear being misunderstood. We even fear things that lie in the future we do not control. In this meditation I invite you to follow my voice into my own mental state, through paralyzing thought-patterns and blind fears I want to say goodbye to. Openness can lead to understanding, unity and compassion.[/su_quote]

The tape also comes with a video, which was recorded and filmed at the DEEWEE studios with go-to collaborator Bolis Pupul, the Dewaele brothers, label art directors Ill-Studio, and of course director Jorre Janssens. Watch, count to 6, breathe, and let it go below.

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Following up on the amazing “Paténipat“, Charlotte Adigéry has just shared a new banger from her upcoming EP. After addressing narcissism and social media addiction, she is now avowing her obsession for synthetic wigs – a hobby we also devote our free time to. This thumping track is obviously an opportunity to link with the art of black hair, and to celebrate her Caribbean roots. Plus, it comes with a playful Joaquim Bayle-directed video and a short statement from Adigéry:

[su_quote]’High Lights’ and the whole world around it was a big source of inspiration for the EP. It was the first song written for the EP and it inspired me to explore my identity as a Caribbean black woman raised in Belgium. It started off as a celebration of the feminine black culture and then resulted in me writing more in Creole and translating my heritage through music.[/su_quote]

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You can stream “High Lights” in our Best Tracks of 2019 playlist.

Belgian-Caribbean artist Charlotte Adigéry has shared the new video for her recent banger “Paténipat“, the first track from an upcoming EP made in collaboration with Bolis Pupul. In the metaphorical Joaquim Bayle-directed visual, the artist also known as WWWater appears to be in the midst of a cult, wherein people representing problems and threats are circling her. Fortunately, she keeps them at bay with her liberating African dance moves. About the track, she detailed:

[su_quote]If in life you feel tired and hopeless, throw out all the stuff that don’t matter in the end. Dance until you’re dizzy. Be your naked and uncompromising self.[/su_quote]

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Belgian-Caribbean artist and Soulwax protégée Charlotte Adigéry, also known with her lo-fi moniker WWWater, has announced the release of a new EP on the Dewaele brothers’s DEEWEE label. The 5-track project is the result of her collaboration with Bolis Pupul, a descendant of the first and only wave of Chinese immigration to Martinique, who she happened to meet via Tinder.

We can already dance to the first single “Paténipat”, which refers to the phrase “zandoli pa té ni pat” – a Creole mnemonic meaning “the gecko didn’t have any legs”. Building bridges between cultures, this technoid track offers a trance-like crescendo while playfully drawing from the rhythms of the GWO KA dances that would have swayed the islanders of Martinique a century ago. About “Paténipat”, Adigéry detailed:

[su_quote]If in life you feel tired and hopeless, throw off all the stuff that don’t matter in the end. Dance until you’re dizzy. Be your naked and uncompromising self.[/su_quote]

Following the release of 2017’s From Deewee – the Belgian duo’s first studio album in 12 years – Soulwax will release Essential, a new album featuring 12 original tracks inspired by the concept of the now infamous mix series, with each song being sequentially named from “Essential One” to “Essential Twelve”. About their Essential Mix, the electro-rock band of the Dewaele brothers stated:

[su_quote]When we were approached to make an Essential Mix for the BBC,” said the band, “we chose to do what every sane human being would do—we decided to lock ourselves into our studio for two weeks and make an hour of new music based around the word ‘essential,’ instead of preparing a mix of already existing music.[/su_quote]

Listen below to “Essential Four” featuring Charlotte Adigéry, aka WWWater. Essential will be released on June 22 on their own label, DEEWEE.

As a teenager, they were the be-all and end-all of that culture. Not a pre-drinks or shitty house party occurred without ‘Krack’, ‘Miserable Girl’ or their remix of Justice‘s “Phantom pt. 2” being rinsed. After drinking a few too many Jägerbombs, we’d frequently go home and watch their tour-documentary, “Part Of The Weekend Never Dies” — a film I can accordingly quote large amounts of inconsequential dialogue from.

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This is all, I’m sure, the typical reminiscence of anyone that came of age during the late ’00s. Needless to say “Skins” made it look far cooler than it was. It wasn’t even ’til years later that I ended up going ‘properly clubbing’ (a phrase I’ll leave unexplained). The band’s own development from rock band to DJs, remixers and electro band mirrored a similar taste progression in their fans, epitomizing the dance-punk fusion of the late ’00s. A bridge between rock music and dance music was built. Electro-house and rock both contained distortion, heavy drums and an air of debauchery. While LCD Soundsystem had the arty side of all of this covered, tracks by Soulwax, Boys Noize and Justice were basically synthesised heavy metal (just look at Justice‘s stage show).

Soulwax‘s “FROM DEEWEE” is meant to be listened to as one whole work, but in the style of a DJ mix more than a prog rock epic.

Considering the worldwide popularity of dance music, it would’ve been unwise for the group to make another rock album. “From Deewee” combines their two sides. It’s not quite something a DJ would play, but it’s equally not songs with verses and choruses; there are both long instrumental passages and tracks with vocals. It’s mostly pleasant to see their two sides integrated better. Soulwax‘s idea of rock has always been a bit unconvincing, David frequently sings like he’s some shirtless, long-haired rock dude out of the post-grunge era. I doubt they would’ve ever attracted any interest outside of Belgium if they’d stuck with the guitars. One criticism might be that because of its existence somewhere between rock and dance there is neither a song as good as ‘E Talking’ (the original) nor a track as dancefloor-destroying as ‘Krack’ (the remix). The album was supposedly developed from their recent live show, which makes sense; it does feel more ideally suited to the concert venue than to the home or the club setting. It’s clearly meant to be listened to as one whole work, but in the style of a DJ mix more than a prog rock epic.

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This was one of those albums that are very enjoyable for the first few listens but by listen six or so has dissolved into nothing. I often find this to be true of DJ mixes which similarly aim for good first impressions over replayability. It’s a truism that dance artists are generally better at immediacy than making serious album-length statements — it’s like saying jazz artists can’t write great songs; it misses the point. The critic and the DJ value different things; great DJs often play hundreds of sets a year that are lost to the ravages of time and a recording would often do little good anyway. A great DJ set is about being there, about the vibe of the room, of knowing that you’re experiencing something fleeting, of being absorbed in the music because you probably won’t hear it again. It is music about ‘right here, right now’, not attaining immortality on ‘greatest of all time’ lists. This is where Soulwax‘s real strengths lie.

Perhaps I’m making conceptual excuses for Soulwax here. They have managed to make a great DJ mix (“As heard on Radio Soulwax pt.2”), a great album (“Nite Versions”) and many great remixes in the past. Soulwax as a project has largely been like The Simpsons: after an initial period where it struggled to find its footing, it became utterly brilliant and culturally defining for a period of about five years, and after influencing everyone else it struggled to stay relevant. Soulwax are so quintessentially of the dance-punk era (as The Simpsons were of the ’90s) that maybe they can never escape it.