By Matt Chandronait | October 13, 2000
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| DJ Colette spins, sings, and captivates during her recent outing at L.A.'s Ginger. |
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Choler was fortunate enough to be given tickets to a small listening party held in Los Angeles to celebrate the release of DJ Colette's new album In The Sun. With a trusty Mavica digital camera in hand and a friendly smile to boot, I headed up to Sky Sushi on Santa Monica Boulevard and was prepared to wait for her set, take a few snaps, and be off.
Imagine my surprise when I was dragged around to various faces from her label and introduced to the artist herself as Choler Magazine's photographer. Still, I thought, Colette is not going to want to have much to do with me. Who's heard of Choler?
Colette was literally inundated with people -- all of whom seemed to have known her since kindergarten. I began to wonder if I should just start taking pictures of her while she was hugging and talking to all of her friends. They seemed like the only close-up shots I would get all evening.
Fortunately, I was wrong. Just as I was about to flick on the camera's power, she turned, smiled, and said hello. Not only did I get several shots of her out in the corridor where the light was better, but she encouraged me to get right up next to the booth to capture all the action during her set; with one caveat. Apparently she hates it when photographers hold their cameras right under her nose and the flash goes off in her eyes. Why they would want a shot looking up her nose is anyone's guess, but I agreed to not be so intrusive. Hopefully I pulled it off.
The set was remarkable, and I can truly say that I have a far greater appreciation for the album than I did beforehand
See, deep house grooves have not always been my thing. I've tried to remain open-minded, but I keep coming back to the same kinds of electronic music that I'm most familiar with and most comfortable dancing to, e.g. trance. I think Colette just changed all that. I gave the album a good couple of listens before I attended the event mentioned above, but I don't really think I gave it a fair shake until I heard her live.
 First of all, make no mistake: Colette is a vocalist -- and a damn good one. On my first couple intakes of her album it failed to register to me that the vocals I heard were Collette's - it was her voice overlaying all those tracks so flawlessly. I remember thinking to myself that it was hard to pick out where a particular track's vocals ended and hers began. Imagine how insanely stupid I felt when, at the party, I realized that all the vocals were hers.
She seems to know the precise moment to pick up the mike and add her own landscape to whatever track she happens to be laying down. The resulting blend of piston-beats and uplifting melody can stir a body into motion; I found myself wishing I could simultaneously dance like a hard-core club kid and just gently sway, mesmerized by the music.
If you're stuck in the kind of funk where everything, every dance track you come across on a mix CD or at a club seems to sound the same, I highly recommend picking up Collette's album and giving it a spin. Listen to her voice first and the backgrounds second -- you may suddenly discover that you've been limiting yourself.
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