Olivier Grรฉgoire aka Kolombo is one of the most prolific, class talent and reknowned electronic music artists from Belgium. Undoubtedly he has been a hot name to watch over the past few years. With parallel projects such as LouLou Players or Mugwump and with releases on the likes of Kompakt, Turbo, Diynamic, Noir Music, Suara, Snatch!, Sweat and most recently Dirtybird, Claude Vonstroke‘s home where he is having a brand new track titled โO Ride O Rideโ to be released on labelโs 2019 Miami Compilation. This Spring, Kolombo also plans to publish on Warung Recordingsย (featuring Ron Carroll vocals), LouLou Records and on Repopulate Mars. We sat down for a while with him to talk about all this, and more.
We knew how last December you spent a few weeks locked in the studio composing some new tunes … is it now in this first half of 2019 that everything will be published?
Thatโs right! Most of it will be released at first half of 2019. Iโm excited about my debut with my buddyโs label Lee Foss on Repopulate Mars in May for the track called Minute workout.
What exactly do you have in the pipeline?
Well, my next months are pretty busy touring. Iโve just came back from holidays and Iโll go back to the road again passing by Russia, Mexico, Germany and a month tour in South America just before Europe summer.
Youโve already released on Dirtybird label; weโre wondering how you got involved with Claude VonStroke?
Iโve been always a fan of Dirtybird, I had this new tune and sent to a friend (Bruno Furlan, Brazilian DJ) and he shared Deronโs (Dirtybird label manager) email with me. Iโve sent to Deron, quickly he replied asking to release. After that, we kept in touch and it ended up having a really good relationship with them, specially Deron, which is a super nice person! I have one more release with them coming up this month for the VA Miami.
Weโre also extremely excited about your We Disco Baby EP dropping on Warung. Would you take us through how you went about making this original track alongside Ron Carroll? Weโve heard itโs including Phonique, Moonbootica and Fran Bortolossi remixesโฆ What a circle of talented friends, right?
First of all Ron Carroll is a really good friend from Chicago, I did a remix in the past for โLucky Starโ since then weโre connected. Itโs been a long time we wanted to do something together. The vocals fitted perfectly on my 303 acid sounds like Chicago old school. Yeah, theyโre all good friends and Phonique and Fran has a special connection to the club just as me, so made a lot of sense to get them on board. Moonbootica I meet them at ADE we decide to make a swap on remixes. I did one for them for Moonbootique for Maxim Lany feat. Jacky Jones – My Story. Iโm very happy with all remixes, they all did very well!
The mere idea of publishing a new full album does not seduce you at all?
Of course, itโs in my mind for a long time, but as Iโve been touring as crazy, itโs hard to focus on a big project like this. I need time and quite inspiration to make it happen. At the moment Iโm directing my work to release in new labels.
On the other hand; in a world of super brands and โrockstarโ DJโs, how important have you found it to lead and drive forward your own brand LouLou Records?
It is great to have our own label, but who leads everything is my partner Jerome (LouLou Players). He takes care of most of labelโs matters. I get more involved on decide what/who we should bet. Our intention with the label is to give space to new talents that we believe in, as for big labels this is harder to happen.
What can we expect from Kolombo and LouLou Records for the rest of the year? Do you guys have any exciting releases or shows on the horizon?
My next release is coming up April, which a remix for Willian Kraupp and Ariel Merisio. And I am working on a EP for the 2nd half of the year.
And finally, where do you ideally see yourself in 5-10 years, and what major milestones would you like to have under your belt in that timeframe?
I see myself still working (maybe touring a bit less with more time in studio, as I getting old hahaha). I would like to play in places I have never been and in unusual places like in the top of a mountain, Iceland, something like that and finally have my album done.
