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We Eavesdropped on a Conversation Between Foals and Jagwar Ma

"I started DJing back to back with Stella[Warpaint] and then Romy[The XX], and within an hour it was one of the coolest impromptu house parties I’ve even been to".

When he's not busy slamming the keyboards for Foals, Edwin Congreave runs a record label called Deep Shit. "Having ruined the hopes and dreams of thousands of young indie music fans by rocking up to DJ gigs with nothing but techno", Edwin and Jack Savidge (from Friendly Fires), decided to establish a home for themselves in London - "a place for deep, intense party music". This has resulted in club nights, radio shows, record releases and, two years later, is still going strong.

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This weekend the Shit boys are taking over the Basement at Editions Hotel. Entry is free and as an added bonus, friend of the deep shitters, Jono from Jagwar Ma, will also be on the decks. In light of this - here's an unpublished conversation between Jono and Edwin featuring booze-theft, Segaworld, and the worst rave video ever.

Jono: So it’s Field Day, and the festival’s almost over. There’s like one person left playing. I was backstage with Romy XX and Warpaint and a bunch of other people and there was this collective realisation that we had to get out of there before the bitter end arrived. I raised my hand and said “Follow me!”

In every backstage room there were these hessian potato sacks. I think they were going for an organic look or something. Anyway, I double-lined some garbage bags, put them in the potato sacks and filled the sacks with the rider from every last room. So here I am, walking through Field Day with two sacks full of whisky and gin, looking like fucking Santa Claus, and leading the entire posse back to Blue Recording Studio [Hackney]. My friend at Blue had set up some decks, a sub and some massive Tannoy monitors. So I started DJing back to back with Stella[Warpaint] and then Romy, and within an hour it was one of the coolest impromptu house parties I’ve even been to.

What was the point I was making…?

Edwin: That we should definitely plan an entirely spontaneous party again.

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Jono: Oh yeah. Actually Blue Studio is a really good setting for a party, and the people who run it are really good people. The room’s still there, so when I get a fucking moment to myself I’m going to do a jam there, record it, and then throw a party afterwards.

Edwin: On that note. I want to talk about this live improv thing you used to do in Sydney, called… F.L.R.C.?

Jono: F.L.R.L?

Edwin: Is that not what I wrote?

Jono: The curve on your L probably looks a little like a C. Is that what happened?

Edwin: No… no, I think I’ve written a C.

Edwin: Well anyway, what does F.L.R.L actually stand for?

Jono: Fashion Launches Rocket Launches.

Edwin: I like it! So yeah, why I ask is because, a while ago, you were talking about doing a similar thing in London. And I think that, partly due to my age, and just being immersed in club music for so long, i’m kind of bored of nights where it’s just DJs. But conversely, five, ten years ago I was a little frustrated by nights where they mixed it up ‘so very eclectically’, with bands and DJs on top of each other all night. I’d be there thinking “God damn, I just want to hear the same beat for three hours”. I wanted to hear pretty deep techno, I suppose, which wasn’t really the in-thing; back then it was all about the dance-punk.

Recently though I think the scene has gone in the other direction, with endless parades of DJs playing the same beats, and I’d love to see something different - something live and krautrock-y, but which fits with the dynamics of techno, much like F.L.R.L.

Jono: It’s one of the frustrating things about being on tour at the moment. Even though I’ve been living in London for over a year now I don’t feel like I properly exist here, and it’s so frustrating, because right now in London there’s so many opportunities, so many great artists and so many great bands. All I’ve been thinking about for the last year is trying to put something like F.L.R.L. together in London. Aside from anything, I think it’s a really healthy thing for electronic musicians to jam together. Jazz musicians did it all the time, which is how they became so good.

Edwin: I think come across a lot of like-minded people! Simian Mobile Disco have this new all-analogue live show, which is probably riddled with mishaps and all the better for it. I’d like to see that. Then Untold, I think, is involved in that ‘modular-synth improvisation night’. I mean, it’s sounds like it could be just a bunch of people sitting around cross-legged, meditating in Cafe Oto, but I think they’ve done it in a club space too.