A dedicated team of deejays and music directors, young wolves and experienced chaps, in-house and free-lance, with attitude and taste, always.
Pictures by dear friend Danill Lavroski.
‘What a DJ does is this: he knows music. The DJ knows music better than you, better than your friends, better than everyone on the dance floor or in the record shop’ (...) ‘A truly great DJ, just for a moment, can make a whole room fall in love’. (from Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton)
Born and bred in Ghent, a fertile breeding ground for world renowned spinners such as 2manydjs and The Glimmers, Thang offers up some key understandings: first up, you need a certain level of empathy. A DJ must ‘feel’ a room, as they say. They are right. Over the years, since his starting days around 1998-1999, Thang has built up quite the versatile résumé. From his residency days in the once notorious now defunct Culture Club, to festival slots such as Pukkelpop, Laundry Day, and WeCanDance, to releasing and remixing tunes under the Villa moniker (together with his production buddy François Demeyer – their unofficial rework, six years ago, of Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ racked up a staggering 4.3 million plays on Soundcloud so far), curating his personal ‘Relax’ playlist on 22tracks.com, and, more recently, playing petite but quality clubs such as Antwerp’s Kelly Palmer, being part of the team behind the new Ghent hot spot Kompass (and it’s techno concept ‘1988’), and landing a new residency with ABSTRKT, a collective organising art and music events in Belgium. Together with veteran promotor and onetime mentor Oliver Tjon, teaming up as Darkroom DJ’s, Thang also hosts ‘Luid, Vuil, Traag’ (‘Loud, Dirty, Slow’), a club night of slow techno, rave and a musical mish mash the duo have christened ‘now beat’.
After more than 20 years tuning in to dance floors everywhere, the hunger in Thang is far from satisfied.
And so, the beat goes on.
Born in 1987, Cedric started his musical career around the turn of the century. Hermanos Inglesos was born. After winning the Diesel-U-Music Awards, an album followed on PIAS, which led to a signing with Sony Music. Cedric's parents always had been most supportive of his choices, but his father insisted he'd have a back up plan ready. So while working on music, Cedric went to Law school and specialised in Copyright Law and wrote a master thesis on sampling.
In 2011 he started his adventure in London with two goals: learning as much as possible at SAE-audio engineering/Middlesex University and inhaling the inspiring power of the Thames' shores. More than ever Cedric realised that he wanted to continue in sound. And he did. Back in Belgium, he co-founded Sonhouse to focus on the creation of sound identities in an international context.
Today, Cedric uses his experience as ‘Hermano’ to curate playlists. His taste is as eclectic as his background, going from the residency spot in Ghent’s Culture Club and the after shows of The Cure, Britney Spears and Grace Jones to making mixtapes for Studio Brussels and remixing Yeasayer, Ladytron and Crystal Fighters.
For as long as he can remember, Jack has been submerged by the crafts of fashion design and music. He has his old man to thank for that, also founder of a reputed clothing brand and musical fanatic. Nonetheless, Jack recalls developing his extensive knowledge and exquisite taste in music on his own, especially over the past few years. A period which has been crucial in his professional career, as it led him to the realisation that his desires lied in the musical world.
In 2018, along with his three best friends, Jack founded an event-organising firm called Ezekiel 25:17. Through combination of the purest quality of sound in never-before-seen locations, dominated by only the coolest vibes. The project proved to be an immediate success. Consequently, this led to the formation of a quartet of DJs going by the name of Ezekiel Soundsystem.
Nowadays, both the organisation and the soundsystem are reputed for their peculiarity and uniqueness and are therefore recognised as niche festivals around Antwerp. Sound, henceforth music, are of utter importance to Jack. If he is not the one bringing the people to his taste, he’ll bring his taste to the people, thereby ensuring his sound identity resonates on many dancefloors. Being raised in a rather tranditional way, ‘Jackuzzi' found himself studying International Business Management for a couple of years. Immediately after his master’s graduation in 2021, he set out to be a music curator at sonhouse collection. After all, you should do what you breathe.