DJ Mag Podcast 78: Le Loup

Le Loup first put himself on DJ Mag’s radar as a resident at much-loved London party, Half Baked. We’ve been keen to lock him in for a podcast of his warm, groove-led music ever since.

First released by Wolf+Lamb with his debut EP ‘See Line’ back in 2009, Le Loup has gone on to launch his own Shadow Play label this year, which has already put out music by artists including Chris Carrier and Scott Edward.

His Hold Youth project with close friend and b2b partner, Seuil, had a huge 2017 too, with the pair spinning together under the name at Rex Club in Paris, Gottwood and [ipsə] in Berlin, amongst many others.

Le Loup’s DJ Mag Podcast was recorded live from his show at Terminal Club in Lyon earlier this month. Listen to it below and read his Q&A underneath the stream.

What’s your biggest achievement been this year? 

No doubt the launch of my new label Shadow Play with my girlfriend. It took so much time to build everything but now it’s happening for real and it’s a great feeling to be running my own label.

What are you trying to represent with it?

We simply try to represent ourselves and what we like. We are really inspired by all kinds of music but I would say jazz has a big influence. We don’t want to limit ourselves with names and genres, it’s mostly an electronic music label but we are very much open to different styles.

The French scene is having a bit of a boom at the moment. Would you agree?

We have a lot of new talented artists involved in the scene. I think everything really changed a few years ago, the nightlife scene in Paris was dying and the French scene as a whole was stagnant. But a new generation arrived and started to put on parties and invest their energy into new concepts and ideas. From there the game changed and people like Concrete introduced our music to a bigger audience. Now I think we’re almost at saturation point with the amount of parties but it’s great to see this interest, I hope it will continue to grow in the right way.

What’s going on in Paris that people might not have heard about?

It’s clear there is a lot of activity outside of clubs, a return to the more underground places or different places where people feel more free. Some friends in Paris run a party called Ghost and they were doing parties in a huge squat in a suburb of Paris. It’s not easy to do this kind of event because you need to build everything yourself but it’s definitely a special experience. Also there’s a new girl crew in town under the moniker of RA+RE, responsible for the Breakfast Club along with the Playground Collective, which is an after-party making waves once a month on Sundays. It’s a must!

What big parties have you played this year and why were they so good?

I think one of the best party this year was the Ghost closing in Paris at a secret warehouse. The venue but also the crowd was on point so it was a pleasure to play my music there. Also my debut in Athens was really special because the crowd there is not used to hearing this kind of music and it really worked. I would like to mention Heidegluhen in Berlin, it’s always special playing there, it’s my favorite party in Berlin at the moment. To finish I have to say Closer in Kiev. It’s probably my favourite club.