Soulwax - From Deewee

Drowned In Sound 80

Although the Soulwax b(r)and is back in full action, they’re still a million miles away from the indie rock band that I fell in love with back in the late Nineties. Although no bad thing, as both Stephen and his brother David still know their way around a melody and a groove. And boy does this album have both. Essentially it’s one, full flowing organism of a record - a synth starship, pulsating through a shimmering, metallic galaxy far, far away.

Recorded in one take, and featuring with two drummers, a myriad of vintage synths, a few guitars and god knows how much more technology all hardwired into their mixing desk, the record flows together effortlessly. As you might expect, if you’re not super into arpeggiated synth lines and the 4/4 time signature, you might have picked the wrong album. Thankfully, I am super into those things, so I can tell you that this album is well, well, well worth your time.

Picking up from where that Die Verboten album left off, which was actually recorded in 2007, but left on a shelf until last year, From Deewee finds this incarnation of Soulwax in a hypnotic mood. Perhaps inspired by the response of that record, here they employ driving, LCD Soundsystem-esque drumming to give a scrappy disco pulse throughout the whole thing, with the bouncing synth lines providing the heft and the everything else skating over the top. It’s a trick the brothers have been employing for a long time - in fact, probably since 2004’s rockier ‘Any Minute Now’. Still, there’s time for the old Soulwax to peek through, most notably on the almost-glam-rock stomp of ‘Do You Want To Get Into Trouble?’, and the bouncing piano of the quasi-ballad ‘Trespassers’, which is as close to melancholic as things get on here. They did always do the weirdest ballads (1998’s ‘Proverbial Pants’ is a good example), so it’s nice to hear they’ve not lost their more wistful side.

Thinking about it, From Deewee sounds less like it was recorded in 2017, and more like one of those batshit long lost sci-fi-disco concept albums made by some reclusive studio genius in 1978, that people like Trevor Jackson or Ivan Smagghe would dig out and play on their NTS shows.

A decade on from Nite Versions, a more dance floor-friendly remix album of their aforementioned ‘Any Minute Now’ record, ‘From Deewee’ does actually sound like the logical progression of Soulwax, despite the decade and myriad other projects in-between the two. There’s no 2manydjs mash-ups, and no nu-rave big room bangers: it’s all very mature, considered, but also outrageously groovy and melodic. Although sometimes a little two-dimensional, which I suppose is the pitfall of limiting yourself so much with the method of recording, the record balances very well between reach-for-the-skies science fiction soundtrack, and compact bursts of electronic energy. Brevity is always key with these kinds of projects, and it’s a relief to hear that nothing overstays it’s welcome too badly - the longest thing on here doesn’t even hit seven minutes, and the average length hovers nearer the four-minute-mark for each cog in the overall machine.

I’m hoping this isn’t just a flash in the pan resurrection, and the brothers Dewaele find operating as Soulwax a bit more comfortable these days. Last year’s Belgica aside, it’s good to see an actual, proper Soulwax record in the world again.

Pitchfork 70

If every ’90s alternative act updated their sound as gracefully as the Belgian electro-rock outfit Soulwax, the alternative era might never have ended. Hold the band’s latest full-length up to, say, God Lives Underwater’s likeminded 1998 sophomore effort Life in the So-Called Space Age, and you might think the two titles came out no more than a couple of years apart. On closer inspection, though, FROM DEEWEE gives us a glimpse of what those ’90s acts would sound like today had they managed to loosen up just enough to absorb modern sensibilities.

When Soulwax debuted with Leave the Story Untold back in 1996, their music had some pluck but did little to distinguish itself from the guitar bands flooding the market at the time. Soulwax would go on to reinvent themselves as a Britpop, synthpop, techno, and dance-remix act. They declared their omnivorous tastes on 2005 reworking of Daft Punk’s “Teachers,” which name-dropped a litany of influences from the Cramps to Kyuss to Urban Dance Squad to ELO. By their 2016 soundtrack to the film Belgica, core members Stephen and David Dewaele were basically play-acting from a grab bag of styles. But even when their genre exercises were spot-on, Belgica prodded the question: who is this band?

This time, the Dewaele brothers and their cast of supporting musicians finally have a coherent sound. And while it isn’t exactly revolutionary, FROM DEEWEE reconciles the polarity between Soulwax’s rock and electronic sides. Drawing from a battery of three drummers (including none other than former Sepultura ballast Igor Cavalera), the Dewaele’s marry synths to dusty, boxed-in live drums. That contrast prevents the album from tipping too far into the artificial and also works as a counterweight to how the band self-consciously references the past.

From Deewee hearkens back to those halcyon days where funk, disco, krautrock, new wave, rap, and punk all flowed forth into the same pool. The main melody and wheezing steam-engine groove of “My Tired Eyes” both recall classic Depeche Mode, while “Conditions of a Shared Belief” wears the influence of Eddy Grant’s 1982 smash hit “Electric Avenue” on its sleeve. But even at their most electronically inclined, Soulwax remain a ’90s rock act at heart. Mining the disco era, the Dewaele brothers scuff things up, stopping just short of lo-fi. (The album was in fact recorded live with the band capturing songs all together in one take.)

That’s not to say the Dewaeles give production short shrift here. On the contrary: The production is skilled and meticulous. The synths are rich and robust, and the brothers layer multiple drumsets with a sense of finesse that evokes John McEntire’s classic work at the boards for Stereolab. But compared to the haphazard variety of Belgica, FROM DEEWEE comes across with a uniformity and stylishness that grounds its playful moments, such as the punk drumming that introduces and closes the otherwise gleaming synth number “Missing Wires.” As far-reaching as Belgica got, it lacked the simple majesty of the vocal melodies the Dewaele’s have a field day with this time around.

Soulwax betray their ’90s roots the most with their singing. On “Masterplanned,” the main vocal walks the line between dour monotone and sublime earworm. On the other hand, towards the end of “Missing Wires,” a strobing organ figure touches on the upbeat dance style that countless modern indie bands have built careers on. More nimble than they’ve ever been, the Dewaele brothers manage to stack three different eras of music on top of one another without anchoring their songs to any of them. Soulwax have always been a band in transit from one style to the next. On FROM DEEWEE, they arrive at the settled creative space they’ve hinted at but never quite reached in the past. As “Masterplanned” goes, “Thought the journey was the point of the race/But it seems the destination has taken its place.”

The Guardian 60

(Play It Again Sam)

Hearing that Soulwax’s latest was recorded in one take – a process that must, then, have taken them a whopping 49 minutes and 5 seconds – makes you wonder what took them so long. It has been more than a decade since the last Soulwax studio album (2005’s Nite Versions). Then again, the Belgian duo – with their 2manydjs DJ sets, remix duties and various alter-ego bands – are no slouches, and so it transpires that the one-take rule was installed as a means to push themselves into uncharted territory rather than just because they wanted to play more Candy Crush. Three drummers were used, for instance, helping them ramp up the rhythmic energy on tracks such as Trespassers. As an art experiment, From Deewee – named after their studio in Ghent – is impressive: you would never guess the precise Kraftwerkian twinkles of Conditions of a Shared Belief were recorded without painstaking layering. But the songs themselves can fail to grab you as the whole thing whizzes seamlessly by.