Most Danish DJs can count themselves lucky if they wind up headlining one gig per decade in Thailand. This weekend, Kristian Rix, one half of house-soul duo Leodoris, will be manning the decks in Bangkok for the second time within the space of a month. Unsurprisingly, this fact has him pretty stoked.
“The reaction I got at Glow on New Year’s Eve was really amazing and very intense,” he says via email. “You could get that same focused-on-the-music experience back home but that would primarily happen in a club with an electronic music profile.”
For Rix and Leodoris (his relatively fresh collaboration with vocalist Erikka Bahnsen) such massive nights are becoming a standard affair. The reasons for this rapid renown should be obvious to anyone who has given a listen to Leodoris’s calling-card debut EP, What If.
“[Leodoris’s formation] was kind of accidental in a way,” says Rix. “[Erikka and I] had been friends for a few years and we just had this spontaneous jam session after a few drinks at a friend’s place and I was wowed by Erikka’s vocals. She hadn’t been singing since childhood but to me the potential was obvious so we decided to form our own little band.”
That band trod a quick path to the forefront of Europe’s club and techno scene. Rix’s ability to produce moody, churning house beats, when paired with Bahnsen’s eccentric charisma, placed Leodoris at the difficult-to-reach confluence of the Continent’s pop and dance communities.
When firing on all cylinders, as is the case with breakout track “Run,” Leodoris uses atavistic beats and cryptic lyrics to make dance music that feels purely pagan. The group’s remixes and original tracks crib moves from soul, house, electronica and pop, linking them in a manner that, at its best, appears seamless.
Both with its debut EP (What If) and with a series of high-profile remixes (Metronomy, Hercules and Love Affair, et al), Leodoris has built a significant amount of momentum without ever releasing a full-length album.
Though Rix confesses that recording has yet to commence on the duo’s debut LP, he insists that he and Bahnsen have plenty of auditory ammunition left to expend.
“I kind of feel like we haven’t really started yet,” he says. “I still think our best is yet to be released.”
Kristian Rix will be playing a DJ set at Grease on Friday, Jan. 18.
Leodoris, Dane Wetschler (US), DJ Coran (AUS), LED ceiling display by Monologue’s VJ. 9:30PM. THB300 (includes one free Ciroc drink). Grease (on Soi 49).
