Douvelle19 is making the club tunes you can listen to anywhere
Douvelle19 has never been one to sit neatly within a single sound. The Newport native’s journey has always been about fluidity and building bridges between scenes, threading emotion through basslines and reshaping the dancefloor into something both intimate and explosive. Growing up in the mid-’90s, his listening habits were as eclectic as they come: 1930s jazz and blues on one side, anthemic trance and trip hop on the other. It’s no surprise then that Love Me Not, his latest EP, refuses to sit still. Blending garage shimmer with soaring vocal features and club-ready heat, it’s a project that captures the messy beauty of modern love and channels it straight onto the dancefloor.
Fresh from a summer of highs and intimate club takeovers, Douvelle19 is at a point where past influences — he cut his teeth with iconic flips of Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Stand Up Tall’ and Black Eyed Peas’ ‘My Humps’ — meet future ambition. This is an artist constantly evolving and, with Love Me Not, he’s making sure the rest of us feel it too.
Josh Clubbe: Tell me about a core memory that made you want to pursue music.
Douvelle: We had a little youth- run FM on Newport City Radio
and there was this guy called Andy, a local postman, and he’d come in with a cheeky grin on his face, look at us, lick his finger and pull out this white label vinyl, and put it on. I didn’t draw inspiration from Andy in regards to what I wanted to make or anything, but it feels like he was the catalyst.
JC: Where else did you draw inspiration from when you were young?
D: Inspiration-wise I was getting it online and the local Newport scene, which was a lot of drum and bass. Mum was into drum and bass and my dad was also — we listened to it in the car all the time. When I started making music, it was always about bringing together this intuition enabled from inspiration. There weren’t any YouTube tutorials back then. You had a computer and you’d learn how to crack the programmes because you couldn’t afford the software (obviously). I used to DM people on MySpace who were producers, and they used to send me back Microsoft Paint screenshots with drawn lines
to different dials or settings, with comments. I was literally getting annotated screenshots from people from the Midlands who were just making drum and bass for a hobby.
JC: How important do you think it is that you are Welsh, and are flying your flag?
D: Obviously, due to historical reasons, the Welsh are patriotic. There’s a rich history in South Wales where I live, and a lot of the education system was overhauled by English. Our language was eradicated as well as it could have been. Traditional Welsh things became frowned upon. We haven’t had the same chances and haven’t had the same platforms given to us. Don’t get me wrong, there have been big breakout acts — like your Tom Jones and your Goldie Lookin Chains — but I come from an industrial town, so you weren’t exposed to those jobs in music. Welsh identity and working- class Welsh mentality is a huge thing for me and I’m proud of it — it breeds the importance of why you fly the flag. It’s not the mere fact that I’m Welsh, I’m just always trying to be my authentic self, and every day I remember where I’m from.
JC: How has the summer been for you?
D: Just before summer I headlined Night Tales Loft with a night that I run, called Locally Sourced. It was really sick because a lot of my friends came to London for it and it was in a nice club, and it just felt like a bridge between me embarking on playing London more, and being in the support of my good friends — it felt like a natural cohesion between the things that I am. I also did a secret set at Glasto in a crew bar on the Tuesday before it all kicked off. I didn’t get any bookings for it this year, and I was kind of fuming, bro. I was like, Okay, I got that secret set — you didn’t book me, but I’m playing.
JC: You released your new EP, Love Me Not, in April this year. How have the crowds been reacting to the new tracks live?
D: With my latest EP, there were some big and belty songs that you maybe wouldn’t hear in a club environment, but they were designed for the club.
The battle that I will forever choose is to make things that work for the pre-drinks, the show, the afters and on radio — I’m always just trying to make something that makes sense to as many ears as possible. By doing that, initially it makes less sense to people, because I’m always trying to chase a new sonic, or a new thing. I’m always pulling in different things that make people go, Ooh, this is a different listening experience.
JC: What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself as an artist from playing shows?
D: That there are some young ears, and when I say young ears that means maybe some people’s early journey into dance music, regardless of age. What I’ve noticed is that, rhythmically, some people don’t know what to do with themselves in certain situations, which segues into the answer to ‘what have I learned about myself?’ That is that I’m quite heavily focused on the pulse of my set — the ebbs and flows; the different styles that really excite me. I love challenging myself to mix different styles.
JC: I know your music grew in popularity through your use of grime samples, mixed with comforting beats. How do you balance building your setlist with your own innovations and music that you hear from other people?
D: What I do sonically on a record, where I bring juxtaposed sounds together, I try to do that in my set, as well — rhythmically, with different types of voices and energies. It’s all in the different pockets of emotions, and I draw on what emotions I like to feel in the club.
JC: On the subject of emotions, what does artistic growth feel like for you?
D: Maintaining authenticity, progressing sounds and maintaining pace without burnout.
- PhotographerRankin
- StylistLucy James
- WriterJosh Clubbe
- Hair StylistEmma Small at Stella Creative Artists using HAIR BY SAM MCKNIGHT
- GroomerPhoebe Heard using MAC COSMETICS
- Fashion AssistantsLily Bonesso, Sivey Rainbird
- RetouchingAlice Constance
