Olivier Grégoire 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 “O Ride O Ride” to be released on label‘s 2019 Miami Compilation. This Spring, Kolombo also plans to publish on Warung Recordings (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?
That’s right! Most of it will be released at first half of 2019. I’m excited about my debut with my buddy’s 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. I’ve just came back from holidays and I’ll go back to the road again passing by Russia, Mexico, Germany and a month tour in South America just before Europe summer.
You’ve already released on Dirtybird label; we’re wondering how you got involved with Claude VonStroke?
I’ve been always a fan of Dirtybird, I had this new tune and sent to a friend (Bruno Furlan, Brazilian DJ) and he shared Deron’s (Dirtybird label manager) email with me. I’ve 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.
We’re 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? We’ve heard it’s including Phonique, Moonbootica and Fran Bortolossi remixes… 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 “Lucky Star” since then we’re connected. It’s been a long time we wanted to do something together. The vocals fitted perfectly on my 303 acid sounds like Chicago old school. Yeah, they’re 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. I’m 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, it’s in my mind for a long time, but as I’ve been touring as crazy, it’s hard to focus on a big project like this. I need time and quite inspiration to make it happen. At the moment I’m directing my work to release in new labels.
On the other hand; in a world of super brands and “rockstar” DJ’s, 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 label’s 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.
