CHOOK [LU] Interview with Bijou Interviews / Date: Dec 11, 2009 - 03:29 PM Hailing from Luxemburg, DJ and Producer Chook [Pronounced Schook] has been making a solid name for himself over the past few years in the world of Drum n Bass, having worked alongside the likes of Phace and Misanthrop for Neosignal, whilst releasing various tunes from such artists as Mayhem, N-Phect, Sunchase, Complex and Skynet, through his own imprint Full Force Recordings. Chook is a name on the lips of anyone who loves their music a little on the techier side. Launching his new LP Cocoon this month before he heads down under to soak up the sunshine. Bijou caught up with him to find out a little more about the one Chook. Greetings, is this your first time to Australia and are you looking forward to it? It's actually not the first time I've come to Australia. I came to Sydney for a holiday in 2005. I am really looking forward to it though, especially because it's about 3 degrees here at the moment. You have mentioned that you got into Drum n Bass around 2000, What was the turning point, that moment when you knew drum n bass was for you? I actually got into dnb around 97. I was really into Hip Hop before that. The turning point was that I was really fed up with the whole bling-bling part of Hip Hop. So more and more, I got into Trip Hop, Techno and DnB. In 2000 I went to my first big dnb night in Mannheim (Germany). All the famous UK DJs were there, it was huge. That really got me hooked. The Nine [2009] has been a terrific year for you, what have you been up to this year? 2009 was all about my album. I was locked in the studio for most of it. Actually I started working on it around mid 2008 and finished most of it last September, since then I've been dj'ing quite a lot and finishing the album. You are about to release your Cocoon LP  on your own label Full Force, tell us a little about what to expect from this album? Well the Cocoon LP is really about what inspires me at the moment. It's not a strictly dnb album. It's a mixture of dnb, tech house and downtempo. For the past 3 years I've been buying loads of techno and tech house. It was very interesting to work on different genres of music and to integrate elements of one genre into the others. It makes you come up with new ideas and reveals new ways to approach production. So the album is a reflection of that. You set up the label Full Force alongside your friend Radic, what is the ideology behind having your own label and how is it going? Well Full Force has always been about what Radic and myself really dig in music, we've never made any compromises. If we loved the music we'd put it out. We never released stuff just to be present on the market, it was always about quality. We haven't had a release for a year now and frankly there hasn't been anything that inspired us enough. We both miss the funk that seems to have been lost over the past years. What plans do you have for Full Force in the near future? The next thing for Full Force is the release of my album. It will be released as seperate singles digitally and on vinyl from january to march. Also we have a remix single in the making, but more on that soon. You also work in closely with both Phace & Misanthrop of Neosignal, how did you meet those guys and any more collabs in the pipeline? The first contact was made through aim i guess. Two years ago Flo came over to start working on 'Sculptured'. Back then he was still living on the border to Luxembourg which was quite handy. Although we both want to work on something new, we haven't had much some studio time together, mainly because we were both busy with our seperate LP's. What do you listen to when you not listening to drum n bass? And what music influences your personal life? One of the advantages of digital music is that it really made me discover the great music that is out there. I'm buying more music now than I ever did before. Most of the stuff I buy is German techno and tech house. People like Extrawelt, Max Cooper, Lee Jones, Stimming are really inspiring to me and probably my biggest influences at the moment. I've also re-bought my old Hip Hop collection on ITunes. All the early nineties stuff I used to dig back then. What’s the dnb scene like in Luxemburg? The scene is Radic and me LOL. There is absolutely no scene here. You have been touring around Europe a lot recently, what cities have you enjoyed playing at the most? I guess the best gigs this year were Omsk (Russia) and Köln (Germany) which still remains my all time favourite. The crowd there is just amazing. For the tech heads out there, what’s your current studio set up? MAC PRO eightcore, 12 gig RAM UAD QUAD Virus Ti and Virus B Mackie HR824 Motu Ultralite mk3 Mackie 24 VLZ SPL VItalizer DBX 1066 What piece of gear is on your Christmas wish list? I guess that would be a mackie sub. This will be your first summer Christmas, what are you planning to do? I'm really looking forward to catch up with some old friends I have in Sydney and probably just gonna enjoy the summer as I'm freezing my arse off back here. Also I'm certainly going to work on a collab with Cern while I'm in Auckland. For those that are unfamiliar with your style, what can they expect from a Chook Set? I guess anything from Phace to SOM, Cern, Misanthrop, Teebee&Calyx, Ed Rush & Optical..... etc Thank You and I look forward to your set this Fri 18 December @ Phoenix Bar Bijou This article comes from sydneyfriction http://sydneyfriction.com/ The URL for this story is: http://sydneyfriction.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=379