Buzzin Electronic Music

Mo and Benoelie hail from Gent in Belguim and are best known by their pseudonym The Glimmers, which they changed from The Glimmer Twins once it was pointed out that Mick Jagger & Keith Richards used this same pseudonym as a production credit on some of The Rolling Stones records.

The Glimmers have received critical acclaim for their remixes, mix cd’s and their own albums.

They have remixed the likes of The Chemical Brothers (The Salmon Dance), Junkie XL (Cities in Dust), Snow Patrol (Shut Your Eyes), Shirley Bassey (Slave To The Rhythm), Calvin Harris (Acceptable In The Eighties), The Killers (Somebody Told Me) and Bloc Party (Banquet) among many others.

The Glimmers’ mix cd’s include Fabric Live 31, DJ Kicks, two Club Culture Club compilations and no less than five Eskimo and five Feel The Funk compilations.

The Belgian DJ duo will be playing and hosting the second Hidden Depths event at  Joshua Brookes in Manchester on Thursday 10th July.  Among their special guests for this one-off show will be the legendary hip hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash.

Buzzin Music managed to ask The Glimmers some questions ahead of the much anticipated Manchester event.

Before changing your name, were you unaware that Mick Jagger & Keith Richards had Produced by The Glimmer Twins on their records?

At first we didn’t knew this, because it was somebody else who gave us this nickname. That was back in 1996. We used ‘THE GLIMMER TWINS’ as an extra name, to do more experimental stuff. After some research we were aware of the name and its origin, and we liked that a lot ! But when we started to produce our own material, we thought it was bit to tricky (remember The Verve) and just shortened it to ‘The Glimmers’.

What music influenced you from an early age?

Mainly the electro hip hop and rap sounds coming from NYC, early 80s.. That was the first bug that has bitten us. Seeing Grandmaster Flash cutting and scratching disco and pop records and making his own Mash Up kinda thing, end of the 70s, early 80s.. amazing.

To begin with, did you want to be musicians or dj’s?

We wanted to be DJ’s. By being creative and mixing different styles of recordings, the DJ was becoming a musician anyway, and later even getting pop star status.

What do you get more enjoyment from your own productions or remixing another artist’s song?

Both really. Its great fun to work with already existing material, and its great fun to record musicians and to edit everything and to make it ‘our own’.

What I like about your dj mix CD’s & dj sets is the diverse mix of music.  Is this simply because your own music tastes are eclectic or is it more of a conscious effort to create something that cannot so easily be categorised?

It is simply because we have a broad taste in music. For us there’s only good music and not so good music. And we play both.

As your popularity increases, are you getting ‘better’ remix offers or just more?

It still can be a lot better!

Is there a particular track that you would love to remix but believe, as a classic song, it should be left alone?

Everything that is a song or track that we think we should keep our hands of, it is something we don’t want to remix. But there’s a lot of material that’s great to remix. For example, we did Roxy Music’s ‘Same Old Scene’ and we updated the sound and made the rhythm section a bit tighter, but kept the song and the vibe as much as possible in there. Our remix sounds like the extended version, the 12″ version that never came out.

When starting a remix project, do you have a set way of working, or is each project approached differently?

Each project is approached very differently. It all depends if it is a pop or a rock song or a tune from way back, or if it is something already very electronic.

What is your favourite clubs to play?

Razzmatazz in Barcelona, Solyanka in Moscow, Fifty Five in Ghent, Fabric in London, Arches & Optimo in Glasgow.

I’m sure you are very excited to have Grandmaster Flash as a guest for the Manchester Hidden Depths event.  If you could have 5 artists, alive or dead, to make the perfect night, who would it be and why?

We would go for Sly & The Family Stone, Funkadelic, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and Prince (in that running order) and all of them in their peak time of their career. That would be a fantastic night. They all made dance music, and all were innovating in their own field, responsible for a lot of things to come later in music history.

You can hear The Glimmers by visiting www.myspace.com/theglimmers

We also have some copies of the Glimmers latest album, The Glimmers Are Gee Gee Fazzi to giveaway on a first come basis.  Send your full contact details to freecompetition@buzzinmedia.co.uk with Buzzin Electronic Glimmers Competition in the subject line.