The cathartic powers of heavy bass

The folks behind Sloppy Footwork get ready to turn up the bass and bring people together with their monthly gig

Blake Macfarlane (left) and Emre Amasyali have spun parties together since their second year
Image by: Matthew Kroger
Blake Macfarlane (left) and Emre Amasyali have spun parties together since their second year

Palace Sound System is the DJ collective responsible for the Sloppy Footwork series, a monthly celebration of progressive dance music. Purveyors of all things low-end, they work in tandem to weave genre-bending soundscapes designed to fill floors. The Journal sat down with two of their members, Blake Macfarlane and Emre Amasyali, to discuss tunes, vibes, and the last official installment of Sloppy Footwork, happening this Saturday at the Mansion’s Wine Cellar.

Who and what is Palace Sound System?

Blake Macfarlane: It’s me, Emre, Berkan Harari, and sometimes Nick Fellion does visuals with us. And then also Aidan Vickery, or DJ Doi Doi. He’s DJ’d with us once before, and he’s gonna do the next Sloppy Footwork. It’s pretty loose.

Emre Amasyali: It started out as an idea for a collective, but the only thing we really did was Sloppy Footwork, so it’s mostly associated with that.

How long have you been playing together for and how did you come together?

E: Me and Blake [have been playing together since the] end of the 2nd year. Just a birthday party we were both playing at, and so was Ray Barbosa, he plays a lot of hip-hop. And yeah, Ray, me and Blake did a bunch of events together, mostly houses.

B: We’d been talking for awhile about doing our own events, and then we threw this thing called Tunnelvision, in November of last year at the Artel. And that was the first time we had really tried to throw an event together with our own ideas behind it. Then Sloppy Footwork started in September of this year, and that’s when we really solidified.

E: We definitely wanted a monthly event going, and we didn’t really succeed with Sloppy Footwork in the first term, so this term we’ve been more on it in terms of monthly events. That’s what we intended to happen, Tunnelvision turning into a monthly event.

Did that come from a perceived lack of a venue in Kingston for the type of music you play?

B: That was definitely a big part of it. I think that was really encouraging, in some ways, there’s nothing like this happening, we kinda have to do something like this. But that’s not the only reason. We didn’t do it just because there was a lack but because we just wanted to do it, and we were really excited about the music we were listening to and wanted to take control of an event.

What is the music you’re listening to? What can someone who’s never been to Sloppy Footwork before expect to hear?

E: It’s a mixture of dubstep, but not the wobbly kind. Tech-house, future bass.

B: We stopped trying to label it and just said bass music. And I think that comes from the fact that the music that we find often most exciting is the stuff that is bringing together a lot of different genres–so it’s a little bit of dubstep, a little bit of house, a little bit of techno, and then creating these smorgasbord tracks. And I think that’s what’s really appealing and exciting about what’s going on in electronic music right now, so it’s hard to be like “this is what it is.”

E: I used to play more remixes so people could relate to the songs, but for my style personally it’s become more about the vibe, for sure, and less about people on the dance floor singing along and more about people just relating to the vibe rather than the lyrics.

What is that vibe, exactly?

B: Our intention is to make Sloppy Footwork a safe, open-minded space where people can come and really let go. For us, dancing to heavy bass music can be very cathartic. We see Sloppy Footwork as a way of bringing a wide range of people together to have a very real shared experience. Hopefully, if we’re doing a good enough job, people might forget about their cell phones for a second and be present in that moment. I think it’s increasingly important that we have opportunities to collide with other people and communicate in these physical ways.

I feel like I’m intellectualizing this too much. I mean, the bottom line is we just want people to have fun, but safe, healthy, and happy fun. I guess love is a big part of Sloppy Footwork–love for the music, love for our friends, and love for people who are willing to open their minds and let go.

I think the fact that we place so much importance on the kind of music we play plays a large role in cultivating our hopes for Sloppy Footwork. If people are coming for the music, I think they’re more likely to forget about all the bullshit.

Who are some artists you’ve been into lately?

E: I guess a lot of Detroit sounds lately. A lot of really interesting artists coming out of Detroit, and of course old Detroit techno, old Detroit house, like Omar-S, Theo Parrish. And not only people from Detroit but people with the Detroit sound. A lot of different fuzzy, filtered bass sounds, not explicit bass. Like I said, I don’t really wanna stick to a genre. A lot of those sounds.

B: Kyle Hall has been pretty popular for us, too. I heard him a little bit awhile ago, but only recently started to do my homework and get into him, and he’s just blowing me away. Night Trackin’ in Montreal are doing some pretty awesome shit.

E: Montreal has been producing pretty solid DJs, overall. Lunice has been huge. Sinjin Hawke, Jacques Green, and all those different names are becoming popular. I think it’s the place to be for electronic music in Canada.

B: I just got a bunch of Clark albums, and he’s been blowing my mind. He does these crazy, intense beats that kind of sound like Radiohead mixed with dubstep mixed with house all crammed together and torn apart. I’ve been trying to figure out how to slip it into Sloppy Footwork but I haven’t figured that out yet.

E: A lot of labels, too, besides particular artists. Digging a lot of different label sounds. Night Slugs has been huge. There are so many successful labels out there with a cohesive sound. Hot Flush has been really good.

B: Actress has been blowing my mind. It took me awhile to really get into it, but that was like all I listened to for awhile. Orphan 101 has a couple really dope tracks. Jneiro Jarel, he’s like Flying Lotus-esque, but more Brazilian. That’s not really dance music, that’s more hip-hop beats. And if we’re not speaking of dance music, Sun Ra. We had a good experience with Sun Ra a couple nights ago, the album “Liquidity.”

E: The whole Afro-futurism, jazz thing. Nicolas Jaar has been top on my list.

It sounds like collaboration is a big part of Palace Sound System – how do you think the collaborative aspects have influenced you?

E: I feel like DJing with other people with other tastes has converged me to a point, and I feel like we feed off each other to create a cohesive sense.

B: With DJing, it’s also a confidence thing, in a way. Through our collaborating and the people we’re playing with, all really excited about this music, it’s helped us want to achieve this cohesive sound. Obviously we want people to enjoy it and respond to it positively, but we just have more confidence to go and do our own thing when we know we’re backing each other up and we’re not just by ourselves.

Where did the name Palace Sound System come from?

B: The first Sloppy Footwork we threw, we had a ridiculous amount of speakers. We had two subs, two monitors, I borrowed the Artel speakers, so there were like six or seven speakers hooked up, and we were trying to get them all there and return them, and we had cabs just full of speakers, and it reminded me of the early, Jamaican sound systems with all these massive custom-made speakers and everything. So that’s where the Sound System came from. And also, we were pretty interested in dub music in general. And then, Palace, I was just reading a book and it said “palace,” and I was like, “That’s a cool word, let’s use that.” So, you don’t really need to read into that. I mean, you could bullshit something if you wanted to.

A lot of those early sound systems were open-air, big-time block parties–if you could play a gig anywhere, what would your ideal venue be?

B: Somewhere that doesn’t stop at 2:30.

E: Exactly. That’s the biggest thing we find. Kingston is very limited in terms of legal music venues. You’re limited by last call anywhere you go.

B: That being said, where we do play, in the Wine Cellar, is pretty solid for Kingston and for what we’re trying to do. I think intimacy is really important, we don’t have a lot of interest in doing some big concert hall. We like the low ceiling, darkly lit…

E: The walls are cool. Sometimes logistics do come up. Projections are very hard in that narrow room, and so is speaker positioning. I guess a better shaped room. In terms of intimacy, though, the Whine Cellar has been really good.

B: Any place with a solid sound system and an intimate space is ideal. And one that we could go all night.

Sloppy Footwork has a visual element to it–have you thought about expanding it along those lines?

E: In terms of visuals, we’ve tried different mirror techniques, and Nick was doing live projections for a few of them, but the program he was using had some problems, and also the fact that people get in the way of the projections … I guess space really determines how far you can go with that.

B: Synching the synaesthetic experience of sound and visuals is something I’m really interested in and would like to pursue in the future, so if it was possible, that would be amazing. It’s this weird thing, though, because this is an event that’s very much about the music, and sometimes when visuals get forefronted in a really serious way, it becomes awkward, because you’re not sure whether you should be looking at these screens and all the amazing stuff that’s happening there or if you just be lost in your own head and spinning. It feels like you almost have to make a choice sometimes, of which side you’re gonna fall on. I think what we would like to do with visuals is just help create more of an ambiance and push the vibe we’re trying to create so it’s more cohesive rather than trying to do something really elaborate. I don’t think any of us have time for that right now.

How about sonically? Is there anything you’d like to do with Palace Sound System that you haven’t been able to do at this point?

E: More bass!

B: If you’re talking about speakers and hardware, then yeah, more is better, to a certain extent. But when it comes to sound, and music, I think me and Emre have kind of just done what we wanted, and been, not selfish, but we’ve done what we vibed with and I don’t think we really feel limited by Kingston or by the Wine Cellar or anybody, really, to not be playing the kind of music we want to play, and I guess that’s the most important thing.

E: It’s kinda nice. If you asked me two years ago if we’d fill a basement playing the music we do, I’d say you’re crazy, probably.

B: It’s been really inspiring for me, to feel these positive responses from people during and after the events. I remember the first Sloppy Footwork we played, we didn’t really take it that far, we played it pretty safe, and then at the end of the night, I put on a Floating Points track, and I was like, “People are probably going to walk off the dance floor.” And there was a really positive reaction, and people got really excited, and for me that was a turning point and totally unexpected. I realized that this community was a lot more open minded than I had given it credit for. I also think on a much broader scale, our generation is increasingly open-minded about music and art, and I think you can hear that even in pop music. Whether you like Lady Gaga or Nicki Minaj or not, some of their stuff is pretty crazy and out there. And Animal Collective, you know, “My Girls” was a huge hit. I do think people are pretty open-minded in general.

I understand you’re both leaving Kingston at the end of this school year – what are your plans, if any, for Palace Sound System in the future?

B: Haven’t really thought about that. If Emre’s in London and I’m in Toronto, there’s, y’know, not much.

E: International tours!

B: We’d be open if someone else really wanted to keep Sloppy Footwork going in Kingston, and we felt that they had the right idea of what the event is about, I’d personally be cool with someone keeping it going here. As far as Palace Sound System, though, due to the wonders of the internet, we’ll remain in touch, but whether we’ll do anything…

Has anyone approached you about stepping up and taking the Sloppy Footwork mantle off your hands?

B: No one’s done it seriously. Some people have suggested that that would be a really good idea and seemed excited about it, but no one’s been like, “Let me do that.” That being said, we haven’t really asked anyone, or made that public, and I don’t even know that that many people now that it’s probably going to be over after this year.

Will this Saturday be the last installment, or are you planning anything else?

E: This is the last official one at the Mansion.

B: We don’t know. I think we’re probably going to do something else. Even from the beginning, our hope was that we’d do these monthly events and build up a following and a name for ourselves and culminate in something bigger than we could’ve done at the beginning. We’re not really sure what’s going to happen in April, but our hopes are that we could expand a little bit, maybe go to a difference place and try something a little bit new.

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