Boston-bred funkadelic duo Soul Clap are heading down under for Sugar Mountain Festival in January. We put a call in to Charlie aka Cnyce to have a chat about naming George Clinton’s new album, mainstream success, and the time he cried his eyes out at a Stevie Wonder gig.
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Josh: Charlie, thanks for taking the time to chat with me today, where are you based right now?
Charlie: I’m at home in Brooklyn.
So Brooklyn is where Soul Clap calls home at the moment?
Yeah, I mean we’re from Boston originally but we’ve been living here for the past year or two and this is where we have our home studio setup right now, so we’ve been working on music from here.
So you’re writing original stuff at the moment?
Well we’ve got some remix projects that we’ve been working on for some of the other artists in our crew like Nick Monaco and also Jules [Born] from Voices of Black, but mainly what we’re focussing on is what will become our second album.
When can we expect the second album to drop? Is there a release date or are you just going with the flow at the moment?
It’s hard to say, we are going with the flow but hoping certainly by next summer we’ll have some idea, some single out or even the whole album.
Can you tell us about Soul Clap Records, and what running your own label has been like as a creative vice for you and Eli?
Yeah you know it’s really good to be able to contribute to the music that’s getting released out there and help develop artists, which is a real joy. Running a successful label is complicated: learning to read the market, understanding vinyl-buying trends, getting yourself positioned with the right distribution etc. So it’s been a learning process definitely, and we’ve been jumping around but it seems like in terms of the music that’s coming out and how things are going with our current deals that we’re in a really good position.
It sounds like the label keeps you pretty busy, has that taken away time from writing music and putting out remixes?
We’ve still been putting out a fair amount of remixes, I suppose the past 6 months specifically we’ve been touring more, but we have enough people on our team and also the way in which Eli and I divide up the labour inside of Soul Clap. I’ve been focussing a little bit more on writing music and he’s been focussing a little bit more on the record label but I think that we handle it by being able to diversify and kind of juggle both sides at the same time. We also get a lot of help from our manager Jonathan McDonald and staff he’s hiring because they have been running the labels.
Can you talk a bit about the Crew Love project you have with Wolf + Lamb?
Yeah definitely, well first of all we became Wolf + Lamb artists, before Soul Clap Records was even an idea, so these are the homies that we’ve built are lives with. So I would say this project – A&R’d by Gadi and Zev from Wolf + Lamb specifically – involved all these artists and labels and we were calling it the Wolf + Lamb Experience or like the Soul Clap Records Identity, but we needed something that was going to encompass everything and kind of be a platform for these artists that were releasing on Soul Clap Records, Double Standard Records and Wolf + Lamb. So this project is like a concrete thing that people can go and experience, and it’s also something that the listener can participate in and join. So they can join the crew and have access to all this music for a monthly subscription that we’re offering as a way to redefine how music goes from the seller to the consumer.
One thing I’ve noticed in the past few years is that yourselves and other artists in the Wolf + Lamb circle for example Nicolas Jaar have received more mainstream recognition here in Australia, and I know you guys recently put out your first video clip. Is this a conscious move to a more mainstream audience or is it just incidental as music tastes change and people become more into your sound?
I dunno I guess maybe I didn’t realise that was our fan base in Australia, its hard to say. As a music fan, when that happens to an artist what do you generally think?
I probably think it’s a natural thing. I think your sound is getting bigger in Australia and there’s a been a lot of love for Soul Clap stemming from the past few summers where you guys have played some good parties. It’s good to see I just wondered if it was a conscious move on your behalf.
I’ll tell you that it doesn’t change the way that I think about our performance. I think we’ll still show up and do our thing, the only change I can see in the next year or so is that we will try and experiment with some sort of live performance, and I wonder if that would even please some of our more crossover fans that are more away from DJing. But who knows man it’s really hard to say. It’s a crazy experience to be an artist.
Now you recently had some studio time with funk legend George Clinton, can you tell us about hooking up with him and what that was like?
It was a dream come true, for sure. I grew up as a very big Parliament Funkadelic fan and I’ve always gone back to that as my source of inspiration to try and hear what sounds really grab me. So yeah, he’s a workhorse you know. He was the first person getting into the flow and working and the last person to wrap up the take. So present in the studio and really had a clear idea of what he’s doing. I don’t think we were surprised because we expected the unexpected but yeah it was an amazing experience and I’m very happy that it happened.
Awesome. And what are we going to hear from that collaboration – I heard there may be an EP coming next year?
Yeah there is. We basically ended up contributing to George’s new album. George has a biography that’s just come out called Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?
Haha great name.
Haha yeah. But he also has an album this is the first Funkadelic album in like 30 some odd years and it’s more than 30 tracks to represent the amount of time it’s been. And it’s just this really crazy body of music that George has been working on but also Sly Stone has played a role in. And as well as obviously all the different players from Funkadelic. But we got an opportunity to produce one song called ‘In The Car’ which features Sly on keys, also we wrote a song called ‘You Gotta Shake The Gate’, and that became the title of George’s new album. It’s really dope to have played a role in shaping that and we’ve taken those two tracks [‘In The Car’ and ‘You Gotta Shake The Gate’] and did what we’re calling EFunk remixes, dance floor versions of those tracks along with one other bonus track that included Nick Monaco because he was there for the recording session with George at Red Bull Studios in Los Angeles. So simultaneously with the release of George’s album we’ll release a vinyl with those remixes and the bonus track as kind of a two-pronged approach.
You guys have always had a knack for remixing songs to make them more accessible to your DJ sets and dancefloor appropriate, is that something you’ll continue to do whilst also writing original stuff?
We’ll always remix and edit, and we’ll sample as well. Making one thing playable and accessible to dance settings is the basis of these records but we’ll keep doing everything. Original music is really I think the key at the end of the day to your musical career to keep defining yourself and pushing the boundaries. But…people love the edits and some of our more cherished tracks like ‘Bakerman’.
Now you’re coming to Australia in Jan for Sugar Mountain which is a pretty young and unique festival, have you had a chance to check out the line-up at all?
Yeah I have. I saw Ariel Pink on there, which is pretty cool. Obviously Nas is playing, I remember getting Illmatic when I was a teenager, and our group of friends still listen to that album all the time. To grow up in the 90s and have hip-hop you know, Nas is a real figure. It’s pretty cool that he’s one of the guys that’s still killing it in the…I don’t wanna call it dance but like the dance and indie scene at the festivals. Him and Outkast.
What do you think of the whole retrospective album tour idea Nas is tapping into?
I think its super dope! Ironically I just came from Stevie Wonder this week at Madison Square Garden. It was the first stop on his new tour and he’s just playing Songs in the Key of Life from start to finish. And that was a double album, a big body of music dead centre in the middle of his ridiculousness years. It’s absolutely the illest and he is so fucking good in concert it’s just….it’s another thing. I think for pop music it represents this other time where you used to see the most ridiculous musicians in their element recreating the rules. Fuck it was amazing. He had like 2 drummers, a percussion section, a horn section, a string section, 3 guys absolutely surrounded by synthesisers and keyboards…he had his daughter on stage in 1 backup group and another 2 backup singers and obviously guitars, basses all the stuff. He was just on fire, it was crazy.
Sounds epic.
It was completely epic. I was crying my eyes out.
Really?
Hell yeah dude it’s the music of my childhood.
On a lighter note, where does Soul Clap stand on the idea of getting loose whilst DJing to be at one with the crowd?
Getting fucked up while you play?
Yeah…
Oh look man, we’re liberal, it’s like as long as the performance isn’t shitty because the DJ is too fucked up to reach their full potential. But DJing in general and the long DJ set experience is kind of a sloppy thing, I mean it’s not sloppy sloppy but there are unexpected moments and it’s more about being in that moment than anything else.
Can you give us a few of your favourite records you’ve got in the bag at the moment?
Oh shit, yeah just let me get my record bag…
I just rebought Danny Tenaglia’s Choice: A Collection of Classics from Azuli Records back in the early 2000’s. Oh and there’s this kind of mysterious record that came out at Rush Hour [Recordings] called ‘The Compass Joint’, check that out, that’s some unnamed shit!
Finally, any advice for the up and coming vinyl digging funk DJs out there?
Umm, thank you for digging. And don’t be afraid to keep digging, and see what’s beyond the wall. It’s cool to kinda see where music comes from and there’s nothing wrong with buying stuff on Discogs!
Well that’s all from me, thanks for the chat Charlie, good luck with writing the rest of the new album and we can’t wait to catch you at Sugar Mountain in January!
Dope man. Thank you very much.
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