Django Django's Dave Maclean reveals house music project Hugo Paris

Django Django drummer/producer Dave Maclean has launched a new house music project under the moniker Hugo Paris.

Maclean, who last released a full-length album with Django Django in 2018 (‘Marble Skies’), revealed that his first love is house and techno music and that he’d always intended to make dance music.

“I started DJing and making hip hop, dancehall, house and techno beats on a sampler and 4-track in the mid ‘90s,” Dave said [quotes via Dork].

“My love of house and techno can be traced back to buying records from 23rd Precinct in Dundee, and Strawberry Bizarre in Perth,” he added. “I remember walking into Strawberry Bizarre aged 14; they were playing Frankie Bones’ ‘Bones Break’ 12” and I thought, ‘This is the kind of music I want to make.’ Ten years later, I pivoted slightly to produce what would become the Django Django debut album, and this Hugo Paris project picks up where I left off.”

Maclean has shared his first single under Hugo Paris called ‘Music Saves The World’, which hears him team up with Roland Clark. Listen below.

He said of the single: “This track was made late one night at my house when the lockdown had just started in London. I had a productive few weeks of making music late at night, working on ideas that I just hadn’t had the headspace to tackle for a while. Roland Clark, especially his Urban Soul tracks, came to mind early on; once I put the chords down, I could just hear him straight away.

“Roland wrote the lyrics holed up at Todd Terry’s studio during the BLM protests in New York. He poured all these powerful and complex emotions into the track, reflecting his experience with a positive message that really lifted me when I heard it back, and will hopefully do the same for others.

“The influences for the production really go back to the mid-90s, when I was playing a lot of Strictly Rhythm and MAW records. I’ve always loved the New York house sound; from DJ Duke’s Power Music, to the deeper sounds of Junior Vasquez. This track is a love letter to those records, and to my time as a Scottish teenager discovering house music.”

Django Django, meanwhile, released an EP in 2018 called ‘Winter’s Beach’, which consisted of outtakes from the ‘Marble Skies’ sessions.