Groovy and at times hypnotic, Guillaume has been making waves in the house scene for some time now, even before his foray as one man band Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts, with his solo project debut release Face À L’Est on Musique Risquee back in 2007 as a sign of things to come.

Guillaume followed in the footsteps of many before him in relocating to Berlin where he truly built on his varied musical experiences to bring out his live one man band. Not limited to the traditional programming restrictions of a DJ set, he’s added to that band and started to explore the potential that live instruments allow in their shows, working to expand on his own productions and accomplishing something more organic.

With the Revolution In The Cycles EP, Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts’ glitchy, hypnotic debut on Freerange and the label’s 201st release(!), out this week we caught up with the Canadian-born Berlin resident for an insight into five fundamental tracks that have shaped and influenced his productions over the years.

Since I’m not a dj, I can’t make an essential list of the 5 tracks I’m playing the most at this time. Instead, I would love to present five tracks that really influenced me over the years. Some of them are older but still resonate highly with me. It’s not an easy task to narrow it down to only five since so many jump to mind. Here are the 5 I can think of for now. Guillaume.

Akufen – The Unexpected Guest
I already put that one in a couple of features. I really love that piece. I remember the first time I listened to this one in Montreal, in my cd-walkman walking down the street. I froze. I rushed back home as quick as I could to try to recreate a melody like Marc’s hook. I could never succeed obviously. That track sounds odd in Marc’s repertoire of the time… but it stuck with me for all those years. I love it.

Dave Aju – Be Like The Sun
I’ve been collaborating with Marc Barrite Aka Dave Aju for quite a while now. He sang on my second and third solo album and he is the voice of the Side Effects, the band project I’ve been developing since a few years. He’s such a talented singer and producer. I remember hearing that song for the first time at piknic Electronik in Montreal (the infamous open air that attract dancers every sunday for a party under a Calder Sculpture). The Wighnomy brothers were playing it. I remember trying to imagine what Dave Aju felt after he finished that song… whether he knew or not that this was a huge bomb.

Edward – Following You
This song is absolutely hypnotic. Sampling is very important here, but it is used exactly as good sampling should be i.e it’s taken out of the original context. Vincent Lemieux, one of the great actual DJs in my humble opinion, played that track a couple of times while we were touring together. I remember rushing to the store and trying to find it right after but it was sold out everywhere. I think I ended up ordering it online… which I do very, very seldomly.

Petar Dundov – Ideas From The Pond
This album is stunning. I played in Rotterdam with Petar just before the release of that album and told him that I had heard about his fully analogically produced album and he just gave it to me. I went back to the hotel that night and listened to it twice back to back. Since then it’s been the soundtrack of many special moments.

Pole – 3
Boy, that brings me back a while. Pole is definitely one of the artists that made me realize that I wanted to transition from my electroacoustic background to a more contemporary “dancefloor” oriented production. The blue, red and yellow albums are absolutely stunning. It’s experimental but it grooves as hell, the melodies are both simple and very complex. It’s gorgeous.

Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts – Revolution in The Cycles EP is out on 12″ now on Freerange, digital next week.

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