the spaces left between the beats
DeWalta
VA Podcast 02 – DeWalta’s Family Gang Mix ∞
David Koch aka DeWalta, who just released last month’s ‘Nightshade EP’ on Vakant, compiled and mixed our December podcast. His Family Gang Mix is a blend of finest classic and up-to-date house music beyond any fashion and with real and raw attitude.
VA031 DeWalta – Nightshade EP ∞
Our jazzy multi instrumentalist, Dewalta a.k.a. David Koch, returns to Vakant with another popping fresh release, as earnestly house as house can get. Since his first Vakant release in 2008 (VA021 Salgaro/Farina) David’s music has taken him around the world in black largely covering our Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres.
Side A is graced by “Move Yo” sitting as close to late 1990’s Baby Ford as one can get without a time machine and personal guide to London’s underground. David somehow owns this genre while still making it distinctly his.
B1 “Night Shade” keeps the housey goose bumps going with a drier and more direct approach. Cheeky bleeps and chunky bass balance dark spacey vocals to land the track somewhere between night and day.
“Angels Trumpet” at the B2 position closes this stellar EP out with a track that again borrows from the genre, but continues way beyond its standards with melodic elements that push and pull you in multiple directions resulting in no less than dance floor catharsis.
VA021: DeWalta – Salgaro/Farina ∞
Like a proper immigrant family enjoying the life of culturally greener pastures, the Vakant family continues to grow in Berlin. Closely following the exponential trend of mergers and acquisitions in the Multi National Corpo Borg, Vakant Heavy Industries signs the third in a series of new talent to the team. Berlin’s DeWalta a.k.a. David Koch, long time friend of Vakant, has completed assimilation into the freaky fold.
David comes from that lofty echelon of actual musicians, having finished his degree in jazz and classically trained in piano and saxophone. He also runs his own label Meander with 2 friends. We don’t know exactly where this 23 year old youngin came from but who cares, the tracks on his debut Vakant EP hit you on the bootay like a studded fraternity hazing paddle on hell week. There aren’t even words we can find to describe the bass presence on this record.
A side ‘Salgaro’ is about as obese as a track can get. It’s happy, it’s huge, it’s pan ethnic, it’s sensitive, it’s irreverent. It’s so good it was immediately used for Onur Ozer’s up coming club DJ mix CD.
On the AA side ‘Farina’ lives. It’s freakier, it’s smoother, it’s quirkier, its cup runs massively over. We are talking insulin shock plump. We can’t even identify which genres it spans. It sounds like the amalgamation of everything currently succulent and lots more that will be.
Much to our chagrin and to the dismay of sound system technicians the world over, soon to be replacing broken woofers, we are quite impressed DeWalta’s Vakant debut indeed.
DeWalta ∞
booking: Gostimirovic music management
With a background like DeWalta’s, the stage was set long ago for this yougin to blast some serious holes in the fabric of music, time, and space. DeWalta a.k.a. David Koch budded from a large family in southern Germany filled with theater, literature, and music. Early schooling came in the form of the interdisciplinary Waldorf School (also home to electronic pioneers Abe Duque and John Selway) tasked with nothing less than helping young people fulfill their unique destinies.
With the school’s emphasis on artistic and imaginative endeavors in elementary education, David started with French horn at age 7 leading to his first orchestral and ensemble performances. Meanwhile David’s grandfather was a music journalist who first exposed him to early American jazz on old lacquer records and later the music of the beatnik movement of the 1950’s.
At age 10 David started to teach himself jazz. By 13 he engaged in known local jazz clubs playing on sessions which lead to his first musical scholarship where he met his first inspiring instructors. Parallel to his jazz studies David picked up on good ol’ American P-Funk, hip hop, and some pop\rock. Additionally David started to tour globally with classical symphonic orchestras, and in the off season started to earn money performing in young jazz ensembles.
In 1999 David moved to Berlin to attend an elite music conservatory and continued to play jazz taking part in Berlin’s young jazz scene. Just 2 years later he left the high school conservatory to attend the Hans Eissler Music College for jazz and pop where he studied saxophone, piano, composition, and music theory. Of course here he also found many suitable ensembles to play with ranging in style from big band and free jazz, to funk and Latin music.
By 2003, as was common for many gifted musicians, David started the doubt the necessity of musical education. Though trained as an instrumentalist for most of his life, he felt limited by traditional performance with control of just one element of a piece. The emphasis of improvisation in jazz led him to experimentation, composition, and giving into the natural genesis of producing his own music. He started to acquire studio equipment, experimented with different sounds, founded a disco band, and made his first forays into producing electronic music events. Berlin was also a vinyl paradise which David did not overlook quickly amassing a collection delving deeper into electronic music. His eclectic endeavors continued to dominate composing theatrical music, expanding his studio, studying jazz at the music college, and partaking in the bohemian urban paradise that was and still is Berlin.
David continued to expand his studio, improved his production skills, and advanced his productions. By 2007 he founded his Meander label and began releasing his first electronic records. Just a year later long time friend and Vakant big daddy snapped up David leading to the drop of the ‘Salgaro/Farina’ EP (VA021) on the world’s dance floors. With a bass presence not easily described in words and the musical expanse that floats on top of his debut Vakant release, DeWalta became instantly known to all those seeking massive funk with their freak. With so much music already under his belt and the platform that is Vakant, we envision a mad scramble of the world’s sound technicians to technically accommodate such a talent in the time to come.
