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DJ CamSwim
With Seven, DJ Cam serves up his most personal album since the acclaimed Substances.
Inspired as ever by the original jazz and hip-hop influences that
helped him become one of the founders of the trip-hop scene back
in 1995, this new album is also full of exciting new musical and
visual influences. As a mainstay of the French Touch (he started
his career in the 1990s together with Daft Punk, Air, Cassius,
Bob Sinclar...), DJ Cam has released six albums, helmed a number
of side projects and given countless performances all around the
world, helping him to acquire global notoriety. His 2002 single
Summer in Paris with Anggun sold over a million copies and remains
an emblematic tune of the Parisian dolce vita. He is now based
in Los Angeles, where his musical and visual projects can converge,
including production and remixes (Michael Jackson, Serge Gainsbourg,
Air, Miles Davis...), sound design (Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Sephora,
Agnès b...), soundtracks for both TV (CSI: Miami...) and cinema
(Gus Van Sant, Wayne Wang...). Seven has touches of well-crafted pop and folk (Swim, with vocals by
Stateless’ Chris James and a video directed by Sonia Sieff, reminds
one of Radiohead, one of the album’s major influences. And Chris
James is also present on Ghost and Uncomfortable), hints of old
school electronica (Dreamcatcher), and cinematic ambient tracks
that invite you to dream (Seven, California Dreaming). For a feminine
touch, DJ Cam adds the vocals of Inlove, a new signing on his Inflamable
label, and Nicolette, long-time collaborator with Massive Attack,
the legendary group that DJ Cam feels closer to now than ever before,
and to whom he dedicates the album. DJ Cam: “After the acoustic
album Soulshine and various projects with high-profile collaborations
and large groups, I wanted to get back to the essentials of being
a producer: going into the studio alone, having total freedom,
and allowing my inspiration free reign. [sic?] Seven has turned
out to be so intimate because I approached it in the same way as
my earliest tracks; with experimentation and pleasure as the prime motivation.” Written in
Paris and Los Angeles, Seven is an album whose enveloping, melancholic
tone and wide-open soundscapes are supposed to help make your mind
wander. The release of the album is the moment for DJ Cam – who
admits to spending as much time in art galleries as he does listening
to and composing music – to show us his talents as a photographer
through the Landscape Architecture project, a series of mysterious
landscapes where nature and architecture intermingle in a ghost-like
world. An exhibition is planned, and the visuals will projected
on a big screen during DJ Cam’s concerts, as revealed for the first
time at the SXSW festival last March. Underground Vibes (1994)
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