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Alan Braxe and DJ Falcon team up for new EP, Step By Step

By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 31 March 2022

Producers Alan Braxe and DJ Falcon have teamed up for new collaborative project Braxe + Falcon, announcing that they will release an EP – titled ‘Step By Step’ – though new Domino imprint Smugglers Way later this year. The title track, featuring Animal Collective’s Panda Bear, and another track called ‘Creative Source’ are both out now.

“In the early 2000s we each released our first respective music projects in collaboration with Thomas Bangatler on his Roulé label”, say Braxe and Falcon – aka cousins Alain and Stéphane Quême. “It was a time of youthful nonchalance in which we barely knew what we were doing. It was a world of discovery, just making music without any preconceived notions or rules. Our state of mind at the time was very DIY, similar to punk, but with different types of instruments”.

“Twenty years later the musical landscape and tools to make music have changed exponentially and become more complicated”, they go on. “Using modular synthesisers in the production of our new music and the happy accidents they generate have helped us reconnect with the punk spirit of the early days, freeing ourselves from convention. Our love for the oscillation between melancholy and hope that emerges from our use of repeated musical phrases and loops is as inspiring to us today as it was 20 years ago”.

Of ‘Step By Step’ the track, the duo say: “The instrumental could be seen as a downtempo variation of the Roulé era club tracks. Panda Bear wrote and performed amazing vocals and it transformed the instrumental into a beautiful song, which in its final form could be defined as a power ballad with French house DNA”.

You can listen to ‘Step By Step’ and ‘Creative Source’ now. Both tracks are also available as a twelve-inch white label, while the full EP will be out on 26 Aug.