Whatever. In the zeroes’ post-everything post-scene non-scene, the DJ as God is dead. Enter the unassuming bonhomie of bo-homie Frenchman David de Barce. At 18, he found himself on the twilight shores of Ibitha, lulled to a dreamy-waking state by the methadone rushes of tunes culled together by a certain Jose Padilla. It was morning-after-pill music, and it was to be forever immortalized as "chill out" in Padilla’s "Café del Mar" series. Swayed by its downy beats and cushy temperament, David fell into the life of playing downtempo music, via bartending, around clubs and bars in Barcelona. Describing what he plays, he says, "It’s a mix of downtempo, Latin jazz, rock, with an electronic beat… all good music!" David doesn’t really want to define, he prefers that you check into BBC’s Hotel Costes event and have a listen. "I’m going to start using the word NovaLounge in Paris!" he declares, claiming it’s the perfect term for all the stuff he’s been trying to express back on the Continent. A bit ironic that a collective from some random banana in South East Asia would come up with this all-encompassing phrase, seek David out and make the connection.
Hotel Costes is this really swank and posh restaurant/bar in Paris known for its A-list clientele and chokingly expensive drinks. The man who has institutionalized the hotel’s name as not just one but six de rigeur back-to-mine mixes is Stephane Pompougnac, himself the superstars’ DJ. Some years later, David was recruited to take over Stephane’s residency, a rather intimidating task considering, but he chose to differentiate himself immediately by laying down some roots, mixing old stuff with the new. "I would play some Marvin Gaye, some Doors…but nothing like Light My Fire, because the Doors have an immense body of work that not everyone is familiar with," he rustles in his deliciously twisted French-dipped accent. Something for everyone, he hopes. "I cannot really describe what I do, pardon my English, I only know that people like it." Stephane may equal the exclusive Costes, but David declined to be commercially associated with the brand name and chose instead to produce his own record in Barcelona, where the people were less hoity-toity, less fashionista, and more about good vibrations–hence his album name "Barcelona Paris", still elegant, but with more than a sprinkling of some tasty Latino lovage.
Trading in the traditional beret for a tweedy newsboy cap and grungily wearing a t-shirt, cut-off camos and tsinelas, David looks more like a beachy backpacker than someone who just flew in from the costly Costes. "I’m a simple man, really, and my work is simple." He doesn’t claim to be doing anything experimental or revolutionary, nor does he place himself in the ilk of either beat-mixing fanatics or superstar DJs. What he does is provide a kind of background mood music to beautiful imagery, be they people, a place, or an event. "The DJ is fading," he says. Rising to the forefront instead is a visual concept. If anything, he would like to call his musical work "cinematique", and this is, so far, as close as he can get to fulfilling his original passion, which was to make films. "I did not really intend on becoming a DJ, like how one plans on becoming a doctor. DJing, for me, is just an opportunity–I really wanted to make movies and music, but that was inaccessible to me because of study." Not one for the shackles of a 9-5, David followed the music, and this is where it took him.
His album was not as widely received in New York when he tried to promote it there, because, you guessed it, there whiffed of something French in the name. Did they perhaps advise it to be redubbed "Barcelona God Bless America"? David had also lived in Bali for six months, where he had a weekly gig at the former Sari Club, but left right before it was blown up by Muslim extremists. It was utterly devastating for him. Another event I wrote about a couple years back was held on the same day those five bombs were exploded around Metro Manila, engineered by the recently escaped terrorist Al-Ghozi. International DJ Josh Wink was freaked out, rightly so. This country is actually, really quite dangerous.
"One Night Only feat. David de Barce" was a BBC (Big Ben Collective) production, along with Globe GenTxt, Rustan’s U and Essenses. Watch out for upcoming NovaLounge events.