San Francisco-born, New York-based post-punk band The Rapture have been in the music business for over a decade now and it really shows! Luke Jenner, Vito Roccoforte and Gabriel Andruzzi (who replaced Matt Safer on bass guitar in July 2009) know how to galvanize the crowds and get the party started. Starting their hour-long set with three of their most contagious hits (“Don Go Do It”, “Pieces Of The People We Love” and “Get Myself Into It”), The Rapture were coming on strong!
The rest of the performance was handled with brio by the three musicians. Their blend of post-punk, dance, disco, electronica and indie rock turned out to be as effective live as it is on their last album to date Pieces Of The People We Know (Universal Motown Records, 2006).
We caught up with the band a couple of hours before the concert under the sun and asked them a few questions about their new album, their best concerts and more…
- When will your new album be released?
Magic question!
- How has your sound evolved? Can you describe it in a few words?
Well, it’s kinda stupid to describe music, you need to listen to it really…
- Do you all sing on this album?
No! No it’s just me (Luke)… There’s a lot of vocals on this album. Each song either has a lot of vocals on it or a lot of keyboards.
- How has Europe been treating you so far? Do you find it harder to relate to audiences here?
We’ve been coming to Europe for the past 8 years. It’s kinda normal to come to Europe for us. And it’s different from the US, but also France is incredibly different to play from the UK or Germany. It’s really more of a city to city thing… and can be even city to city and venue to venue. Some venues people just feel better and make us feel better and some are harder venues to play… It can even be day to day. I mean if you learn anything from being in a band it’s that you really can’t expect anything: a lot of times the best shows that you had, you will go back to that same audience and something will be really off. It’s like you can’t ever control what’s gonna happen and that’s kind of the most beautiful part… Tonight could be the best show we’ve ever played or the worst show we’ve ever played.
French-born DJ, producer and remixer Yuksek (aka Pierre-Alexandre Busson) has been collecting an ever-growing halo of buzz in the past couple of years. Originally signed to Birdy Nam Nam’s label, he has crafted some of the hottest remixes released in the first half of 2010. His work includes remixes for by The Kaiser Chiefs, M83, Gorillaz, 
Boys Noize is the moniker of Alexander Ridha, a German electro-tech producer and DJ. Under the name Boys Noize, he has released records on French label Kitsuné, on Tiga’s Turbo Records label, and on DJ Hell’s International DeeJay Gigolo Records. Ridha has also released EPs under the names 909d1sco and Kid Alex. Boys Noize’s debut album Oi Oi Oi was released in September 2007 and received good reviews. Two years later, his sophomore LP Power hit the stores last October.
