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www.groovekorea.com / October 2014 98 Edited by Emilee Jennings (emilee@groovekorea.com) muSIC & ARTS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL SEOuL Column by Sophie Boladeras / Photos courtesy of Jacques Greene J a c q u e s G r e e n e T h e e m o T i v e p o w e r o f m u s i c ‘A lot of whAt triggered my eArly music wAs the emotionAl rAwness And intensity of r&B; i still listen to r&B And rAp on my downtime.’ JAcques greene J acques Greene recently played a hot, pulsating, all-night-long set at Cakeshop in Seoul. With two albums under his belt so far — a Pitchfork reviewer described his samples as “graduate-level” compared to those by Top 40 heavyweights — the young and enigmatic Montreal native now resides in New York and tours the world playing his house music to en- thusiastic club goers. groove Korea: you are only playing one show in Korea; how did you come across Cakeshop? Jacques Greene: I had heard great things about Cakeshop. I’m from Montreal, and (the club) is owned by Canadians. It started from all this positive hearsay, like that’s the spot you should play at. I never thought I would come to a place this far from home! did you have any preconceived notions about Korea? I have been really interested in Korea for a long time, especially Korean food. I think a lot of Korean pop is a more abrasive version of American pop, in the way that J-pop can be a weirder version of American pop. Korean food and Korean cinema are really what I’ve been interested in; I was excited to see this really burgeoning city. Seoul is up there with Lon- don and New York at this point, so I was really excited to see it. I was walking around the city today and the energy was so palpable — I love it here. So far I am totally smitten. how has your music progressed over time? A lot of what triggered my early music was the emotional rawness and intensity of R&B; I still listen to R&B and rap on my downtime. I love how intensely emotive it can be. It doesn’t try to hide under the pretense of pretension. One of my favorite things about music is that you can sit idly and listen to something and just the ideas of frequencies over time can push you to the point where you get shivers or you feel angry or amped up or you want a drink or you wanna kiss someone or you wanna cry. I love this almost hypnotist role that music can have. I think I’ve gotten better at making mu- sic that triggers the feelings I want to feel and those that I want to trigger in other people. That’s why I wouldn’t really classify myself as completely dance music. My ideal situation is me just doing two songs: one when you play it and everyone just feels so happy, and the other where everyone just bawls. what kind of music were you exposed to as a child? Beck’s “Mellow Gold” was the main soundtrack of my youth. I remember my mom wouldn’t let me listen to “Mellow Gold” any- more ‘cause I was in the playground as a 7-year-old singing the lyrics to “Loser” — “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?” — and my mom was, like, you can’t sing that. I grew up on a diet of grunge and Talking Heads. I went to school with people from so many dif- ferent backgrounds, and 50 Cent and Aaliyah were the biggest artists in my high school. When I became aware of Pharrell and Timber- land, that was when I became a big addict of pop and R&B. do you have any exciting collaborations coming up? Last year I released a record with How to Dress Well and we are working on some new stuff right now. I am not that good at collabo- rating; there are few people I feel really com- fortable with. But he and I get on so well, have the same ideas and work well together. Tiga is sort of a hero of mine, and we’ve been work- ing on some music together that I’m really ex- cited about. But for the most part I am a bit of a lone wolf. Creatively, I am a control freak about how I want my music to be perceived and what I want to put out into the world. what is your creative process? I usually do about 90 percent of a song in a few hours, then spend three weeks finishing the last 10 percent. I go through this stress and anxiety about it and try all these different things and question it all.