Latest news with #Solace
Hindustan Times
17 hours ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
How AI could create the first one-person unicorn
Sarah Gwilliam is neither a software engineer nor, she confesses, does she 'speak AI'. But after her father died recently she got the spark of an idea for creating a generative artificial-intelligence startup that would help others like her handle their grief and sort out their late loved ones' affairs. Call it wedding planning for funerals. Her firm, Solace, is still more of an early-stage startup than an established business. But besides herself, almost no human being is helping her build it. She has joined an AI-powered incubator, Audos, which decided her idea was promising. Its bots helped to set her up online and on Instagram. If her idea works out, the incubator will not only provide capital; its AI agents will support Ms Gwilliam with product development, sales, marketing and back-office work, all in exchange for a royalty. She does not need staff. In effect, AI helped her co-found the company. 'I can't tell you how empowering it was,' she says. Chart As is its custom, Silicon Valley has already adopted a neologism that describes one-person founders like Ms Gwilliam: they are 'solopreneurs'. In tech circles, there are bets on which of them is likely to create the first single-person unicorn—an unlisted firm worth more than $1bn. Some hope that generative AI will make starting a business so cheap and hassle-free that anyone will be able to become an entrepreneur much as anyone can become a YouTuber—a breath of fresh air in America's concentrated business landscape. Whether people like Ms Gwilliam will be able to escape the suffocating grip of the tech giants, however, is another matter. Technological revolutions have a habit of shaking up the way firms do business. The increased importance of machinery combined with the expansion of transport networks in the late 19th century led to the rise of giant corporations. Ronald Coase, a British economist, argued in his 1937 paper 'The Nature of the Firm' that their existence was a testament to the efficiency of consolidating and managing work within the confines of a business, rather than outsourcing activities to the market. That, however, began to change with the rise of digital communications. Not only could companies more easily outsource manufacturing and back-office jobs to low-cost countries. They could also rely on internet platforms like Google for marketing and Amazon Web Services for computing. The rise of AI could well accelerate the trend, as semi-autonomous agents provided by Silicon Valley enable firms to perform the same amount of work with fewer employees. Henrik Werdelin, who co-founded Audos, says that the rise of cloud computing helped him start several new businesses over the past 20 years or so with little more than the swipe of a credit card to get going. He describes AI as the next wave in that 'democratisation'. 'You don't need to code, you don't need to be able to use Photoshop, because you can get AI to help with that.' This, he hopes, will give rise to a flood of startups built by people like Ms Gwilliam with no background in technology but who have identified real problems to solve. Another evangelist is Karim Lakhani of Harvard Business School. It now offers a leadership course for executives in which they use generative AI to build a snack-food company in 90 minutes, using the technology to perform customer research, generate recipes, find suppliers and design packaging. In a recent paper, Mr Lakhani and his co-authors presented a field trial in which 776 professionals at Procter & Gamble, a consumer-goods company, were asked to address a real business need either individually or in two-person teams, with and without using generative-AI tools. It found that AI significantly boosted performance, helping individuals with AI match the performance of teams without it. AI proved to be more of a 'teammate' than a tool. With the era of free money over, founders are eager to find ways to keep costs down. Peter Walker of Carta, which helps startups manage equity ownership, says that founders used to boast about how many employees they had. 'Now it's a badge of honour to say, 'look how few people work for me'.' According to Carta's data, the median period it takes founders to hire their first employee after their startup incorporates has risen from less than six months in 2022 to more than nine months in 2024 (see chart). Base44, an AI-native coding startup, made headlines recently when it was sold to Wix, a web-development platform, for $80m. It had just eight employees. It is early days, of course. For one thing, AI agents are far from foolproof. In June Anthropic, an AI lab, revealed the results of an experiment in which its Claude Sonnet model operated a vending machine at the company's headquarters. The bot's goal was to avoid bankruptcy. It was good at identifying suppliers and adapting to user requests (including hunting for a tungsten cube mischievously requested by one employee). But it ignored lucrative opportunities, hallucinated, offered too many discounts and ultimately failed to make money. Other forces may also get in the way of an AI-infused surge in entrepreneurship. Despite the growth of the internet, social media, software-as-a-service and cloud computing over the past three decades, business formation in America was anaemic until the pandemic—the result in part of an ageing population. That demographic pressure will only intensify. For all the promise of generative AI, it poses problems for entrepreneurs, too. Annabelle Gawer of the University of Surrey notes that although the technology lowers barriers to entry for new businesses, it also makes it easier to quickly copy ideas. Unless a founder has unique expertise in their domain, that may make it harder to sustain a competitive advantage. Moreover, the provision of AI tools is dominated by tech giants and the labs they invest in, such as OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, and Anthropic, backed by Amazon and Google. Ms Gawer draws an analogy with the rise of cloud computing in the 2010s, which those three tech giants dominate. Although that infrastructure has made life easier for startups, it has also left them dependent on the cloud triumvirate, which has been able to capture a good share of the value these firms have generated. Last year the trio's net profits were equivalent to 7% of America's total, up from 2% a decade before. Another galling possibility is that the tech giants could pinch smaller companies' best ideas. For now, Ms Gwilliam of Solace is sanguine. What she calls 'first-mover disadvantage' could be 'a bummer', but it could also validate her idea. 'Maybe they'll come to me and say, 'We want Solace.' And then I'll be, like, 'Great, sold!'' Just like a typical entrepreneur, then.
Mint
17 hours ago
- Business
- Mint
How AI could create the first one-person unicorn
Sarah Gwilliam is neither a software engineer nor, she confesses, does she 'speak AI'. But after her father died recently she got the spark of an idea for creating a generative artificial-intelligence startup that would help others like her handle their grief and sort out their late loved ones' affairs. Call it wedding planning for funerals. Her firm, Solace, is still more of an early-stage startup than an established business. But besides herself, almost no human being is helping her build it. She has joined an AI-powered incubator, Audos, which decided her idea was promising. Its bots helped to set her up online and on Instagram. If her idea works out, the incubator will not only provide capital; its AI agents will support Ms Gwilliam with product development, sales, marketing and back-office work, all in exchange for a royalty. She does not need staff. In effect, AI helped her co-found the company. 'I can't tell you how empowering it was,' she says. As is its custom, Silicon Valley has already adopted a neologism that describes one-person founders like Ms Gwilliam: they are 'solopreneurs'. In tech circles, there are bets on which of them is likely to create the first single-person unicorn—an unlisted firm worth more than $1bn. Some hope that generative AI will make starting a business so cheap and hassle-free that anyone will be able to become an entrepreneur much as anyone can become a YouTuber—a breath of fresh air in America's concentrated business landscape. Whether people like Ms Gwilliam will be able to escape the suffocating grip of the tech giants, however, is another matter. Technological revolutions have a habit of shaking up the way firms do business. The increased importance of machinery combined with the expansion of transport networks in the late 19th century led to the rise of giant corporations. Ronald Coase, a British economist, argued in his 1937 paper 'The Nature of the Firm' that their existence was a testament to the efficiency of consolidating and managing work within the confines of a business, rather than outsourcing activities to the market. That, however, began to change with the rise of digital communications. Not only could companies more easily outsource manufacturing and back-office jobs to low-cost countries. They could also rely on internet platforms like Google for marketing and Amazon Web Services for computing. The rise of AI could well accelerate the trend, as semi-autonomous agents provided by Silicon Valley enable firms to perform the same amount of work with fewer employees. Henrik Werdelin, who co-founded Audos, says that the rise of cloud computing helped him start several new businesses over the past 20 years or so with little more than the swipe of a credit card to get going. He describes AI as the next wave in that 'democratisation'. 'You don't need to code, you don't need to be able to use Photoshop, because you can get AI to help with that.' This, he hopes, will give rise to a flood of startups built by people like Ms Gwilliam with no background in technology but who have identified real problems to solve. Another evangelist is Karim Lakhani of Harvard Business School. It now offers a leadership course for executives in which they use generative AI to build a snack-food company in 90 minutes, using the technology to perform customer research, generate recipes, find suppliers and design packaging. In a recent paper, Mr Lakhani and his co-authors presented a field trial in which 776 professionals at Procter & Gamble, a consumer-goods company, were asked to address a real business need either individually or in two-person teams, with and without using generative-AI tools. It found that AI significantly boosted performance, helping individuals with AI match the performance of teams without it. AI proved to be more of a 'teammate' than a tool. With the era of free money over, founders are eager to find ways to keep costs down. Peter Walker of Carta, which helps startups manage equity ownership, says that founders used to boast about how many employees they had. 'Now it's a badge of honour to say, 'look how few people work for me'.' According to Carta's data, the median period it takes founders to hire their first employee after their startup incorporates has risen from less than six months in 2022 to more than nine months in 2024 (see chart). Base44, an AI-native coding startup, made headlines recently when it was sold to Wix, a web-development platform, for $80m. It had just eight employees. It is early days, of course. For one thing, AI agents are far from foolproof. In June Anthropic, an AI lab, revealed the results of an experiment in which its Claude Sonnet model operated a vending machine at the company's headquarters. The bot's goal was to avoid bankruptcy. It was good at identifying suppliers and adapting to user requests (including hunting for a tungsten cube mischievously requested by one employee). But it ignored lucrative opportunities, hallucinated, offered too many discounts and ultimately failed to make money. Other forces may also get in the way of an AI-infused surge in entrepreneurship. Despite the growth of the internet, social media, software-as-a-service and cloud computing over the past three decades, business formation in America was anaemic until the pandemic—the result in part of an ageing population. That demographic pressure will only intensify. For all the promise of generative AI, it poses problems for entrepreneurs, too. Annabelle Gawer of the University of Surrey notes that although the technology lowers barriers to entry for new businesses, it also makes it easier to quickly copy ideas. Unless a founder has unique expertise in their domain, that may make it harder to sustain a competitive advantage. Moreover, the provision of AI tools is dominated by tech giants and the labs they invest in, such as OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, and Anthropic, backed by Amazon and Google. Ms Gawer draws an analogy with the rise of cloud computing in the 2010s, which those three tech giants dominate. Although that infrastructure has made life easier for startups, it has also left them dependent on the cloud triumvirate, which has been able to capture a good share of the value these firms have generated. Last year the trio's net profits were equivalent to 7% of America's total, up from 2% a decade before. Another galling possibility is that the tech giants could pinch smaller companies' best ideas. For now, Ms Gwilliam of Solace is sanguine. What she calls 'first-mover disadvantage' could be 'a bummer', but it could also validate her idea. 'Maybe they'll come to me and say, 'We want Solace.' And then I'll be, like, 'Great, sold!'' Just like a typical entrepreneur, then.
West Australian
a day ago
- Business
- West Australian
THE ECONOMIST: How Artificial Intelligence could create first solo unicorn as it rewrites the startup playbook
Sarah Gwilliam is neither a software engineer nor, she confesses, does she 'speak AI'. But after her father died recently she got the spark of an idea for creating a generative artificial-intelligence startup that would help others like her handle their grief and sort out their late loved ones' affairs. Call it wedding planning for funerals. Her firm, Solace, is still more of an early-stage startup than an established business. But besides herself, almost no human being is helping her build it. She has joined an AI-powered incubator, Audos, which decided her idea was promising. Its bots helped to set her up online and on Instagram. If her idea works out, the incubator will not only provide capital; its AI agents will support Ms Gwilliam with product development, sales, marketing and back-office work, all in exchange for a royalty. She does not need staff. In effect, AI helped her co-found the company. 'I can't tell you how empowering it was,' she says. As is its custom, Silicon Valley has already adopted a neologism that describes one-person founders like Ms Gwilliam: they are 'solopreneurs'. In tech circles, there are bets on which of them is likely to create the first single-person unicorn — an unlisted firm worth more than $US1 billion. Some hope that generative AI will make starting a business so cheap and hassle-free that anyone will be able to become an entrepreneur much as anyone can become a YouTuber — a breath of fresh air in America's concentrated business landscape. Whether people like Ms Gwilliam will be able to escape the suffocating grip of the tech giants, however, is another matter. Technological revolutions have a habit of shaking up the way firms do business. The increased importance of machinery combined with the expansion of transport networks in the late 19th century led to the rise of giant corporations. Ronald Coase, a British economist, argued in his 1937 paper The Nature of the Firm that their existence was a testament to the efficiency of consolidating and managing work within the confines of a business, rather than outsourcing activities to the market. That, however, began to change with the rise of digital communications. Not only could companies more easily outsource manufacturing and back-office jobs to low-cost countries. They could also rely on internet platforms like Google for marketing and Amazon Web Services for computing. The rise of AI could well accelerate the trend, as semi-autonomous agents provided by Silicon Valley enable firms to perform the same amount of work with fewer employees. Henrik Werdelin, who co-founded Audos, says that the rise of cloud computing helped him start several new businesses over the past 20 years or so with little more than the swipe of a credit card to get going. He describes AI as the next wave in that 'democratisation'. 'You don't need to code, you don't need to be able to use Photoshop, because you can get AI to help with that.' This, he hopes, will give rise to a flood of startups built by people like Ms Gwilliam with no background in technology but who have identified real problems to solve. Another evangelist is Karim Lakhani of Harvard Business School. It now offers a leadership course for executives in which they use generative AI to build a snack-food company in 90 minutes, using the technology to perform customer research, generate recipes, find suppliers and design packaging. In a recent paper, Mr Lakhani and his co-authors presented a field trial in which 776 professionals at Procter & Gamble, a consumer-goods company, were asked to address a real business need either individually or in two-person teams, with and without using generative-AI tools. It found that AI significantly boosted performance, helping individuals with AI match the performance of teams without it. AI proved to be more of a 'teammate' than a tool. With the era of free money over, founders are eager to find ways to keep costs down. Peter Walker of Carta, which helps startups manage equity ownership, says that founders used to boast about how many employees they had. 'Now it's a badge of honour to say, 'look how few people work for me'.' According to Carta's data, the median period it takes founders to hire their first employee after their startup incorporates has risen from less than six months in 2022 to more than nine months in 2024. Base44, an AI-native coding startup, made headlines recently when it was sold to Wix, a web-development platform, for $US80 million. It had just eight employees. It is early days, of course. For one thing, AI agents are far from foolproof. In June Anthropic, an AI lab, revealed the results of an experiment in which its Claude Sonnet model operated a vending machine at the company's headquarters. The bot's goal was to avoid bankruptcy. It was good at identifying suppliers and adapting to user requests (including hunting for a tungsten cube mischievously requested by one employee). But it ignored lucrative opportunities, hallucinated, offered too many discounts and ultimately failed to make money. Other forces may also get in the way of an AI-infused surge in entrepreneurship. Despite the growth of the internet, social media, software-as-a-service and cloud computing over the past three decades, business formation in America was anaemic until the pandemic — the result in part of an ageing population. That demographic pressure will only intensify. For all the promise of generative AI, it poses problems for entrepreneurs, too. Annabelle Gawer of the University of Surrey notes that although the technology lowers barriers to entry for new businesses, it also makes it easier to quickly copy ideas. Unless a founder has unique expertise in their domain, that may make it harder to sustain a competitive advantage. Moreover, the provision of AI tools is dominated by tech giants and the labs they invest in, such as OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, and Anthropic, backed by Amazon and Google. Ms Gawer draws an analogy with the rise of cloud computing in the 2010s, which those three tech giants dominate. Although that infrastructure has made life easier for startups, it has also left them dependent on the cloud triumvirate, which has been able to capture a good share of the value these firms have generated. Last year the trio's net profits were equivalent to 7 per cent of America's total, up from 2 per cent a decade before. Another galling possibility is that the tech giants could pinch smaller companies' best ideas. For now, Ms Gwilliam of Solace is sanguine. What she calls 'first-mover disadvantage' could be 'a bummer', but it could also validate her idea. 'Maybe they'll come to me and say, 'We want Solace.' And then I'll be, like, 'Great, sold!'' Just like a typical entrepreneur, then.
The Irish Sun
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Top DJ Serge Devant reveals stunning new track – a decade after releasing global club anthem
SERGE Devant can count many of the best DJs in the world as fans. Tastemakers such as Jamie Jones, Lee Foss, Damian Lazarus and Seth Troxler who joins Nick Morgan on the remix of Serge's new track, 'Solace'. Advertisement 3 Serge Devant is a DJ legend Credit: Supplied A decade after 'Fearing Love' became a global club anthem, 'Solace' reunites Serge with vocalist Camille Safiya and the original cast from the first video, picking up the narrative thread in a stunning new chapter. Directed by Tobias Deml (Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, The Professional), the accompanying music video explores memory, distance, and the quiet power of reconnection, bringing emotional depth to the dancefloor in a way few artists attempt. You can watch it at the end of the playlist. To accompany the release, Russian born, NYC resident, Serge talks us through a playlist of personal classics. Records that inspired his earliest clubbing days in New York, influenced the energy of his DJ sets, and helped shape the minimalist, emotive sound he's now become famous for. 3 The singer is known for his emotive tracks Credit: Supplied 3 The new tracks are out now - August 7 Credit: Supplied These selections tell their own story, mapping the arc from underground beginnings to cinematic storytelling and label-building. Advertisement 'Each of these records marked a moment in my journey,' Serge says. 'Whether it was a turning point in my taste, a track that shaped the energy of my sets, or something that simply stuck with me over the years. From early discoveries that pulled me into DJing to deeper cuts that shifted my direction, these tracks all left a mark in different ways. Looking back, they reflect many experiences, places, and dancefloors that helped shape my taste.' 'Solace' is out August 7th via This Moment, with a remix from Seth Troxler & Nick Morgan. Orinoko – Mama Konda (Timo Maas "Low Budget" Remix) One of the very first records I bought. I remember hearing it destroy dancefloors at Twilo, Tunnel, and Sound Factory in New York as I started partying, and I realized I wanted to be on the other side of the booth. It had this raw, hypnotic energy that pulled me in completely. Nearly 30 years later, it still hits just as hard as the first time I heard it. Advertisement Danny Tenaglia – Elements I first heard Danny play this at club Tunnel in NYC while he was testing it before its release. I spent months hunting it down until I finally found it in a local record shop. The way it unfolds breaking down and showcasing each element I thought was genius. It deepened my love for this music and solidified my decision to keep going down this path. Chiapet – Westworld (Skylark Remix) This remix hit at the perfect time, with this amazing baseline and right groove for those long, late-night sets. I remember playing it during some of my earliest gigs, and it always shifted the energy in the room. This track was a blueprint for the kind of sound I was gravitating toward. Advertisement A-Studio ft. Polina - S.O.S. (Skylark Vocal Remix) When this came out in 2004, it felt like a secret weapon. The vocal had just the right amount of emotion and Skylark's remix gave it this rolling, hypnotic drive that locked people in. I remember playing it in packed basements and sunrise sets, it always created a moment and turned the room upside down when it dropped. It wasn't the loudest or the flashiest track, but it had a pulse you could ride for minutes. For me, it was a masterclass in restraint and groove, in combination with a sexy, uplifting vocal. Yello - Oh Yeah 'Oh Six (Booka Shade Remix) Everyone knew the original from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, that quirky, unmistakable vocal. But when Booka Shade remixed it in 2006, they turned it into something completely different. It was stripped-back, groovy, and surprisingly playable. I loved how it brought a bit of humour and nostalgia to the floor while still keeping that cool, minimal edge. It always caught people by surprise, and that's what made it so fun to drop. Advertisement Seuil - Ultravision (feat. Jaw) I first heard this record at Robot Heart during my first Burning Man in 2011. The setting it was played in, combined with the vibe of the track, left me emotional and curious for more. That year changed a lot for me both in my taste in music and the direction I wanted to take as a DJ. Serge Devant, Damiano feat. Camille Safiya - Fearing Love This track marked a real turning point for me. It was one of the first records where I fully brought my vision to life emotionally, musically, and visually. Working with Camille Safiya on the vocal gave it a raw, haunting feel that I hadn't tapped into before. It wasn't just about making a club record; it was about telling a story. I spent months crafting the sound, and later shot a full music video for it, which ended up winning a film festival. "Fearing Love" reminded me that dance music could go deeper that it could move people beyond the dancefloor. Advertisement Barac – Who Says Imagination Isn't Reality This one felt like a reminder of why I love this music, deep, trippy, and full of subtle emotion. Barac has a way of creating space in his tracks, and this one in particular always pulled me in. I found myself playing it during long, late sets when the crowd was fully locked in. It's the kind of record that doesn't scream for attention but says everything it needs to if you're really listening. Dan Ghenacia - Rouge ou Noir This one instantly stood out to me. The groove had that signature French funk, loopy, raw, and full of character. I remember playing it late one night and watching the whole room lock into it. Just one of those records that reminds you how much can be said with so little. Advertisement Serge Devant, Camille Safiya – Solace This was the first release on my label, "This Moment," so it carries a lot of weight for me. It's a stripped-back track with a heavy groove and Camille's vocal cutting right through the space. Everything sits exactly where it needs to nothing extra, just a tight, focused sound. It set the tone for the label and the kind of records I want to stand behind. I have been testing it for a few years and it hasn't failed once, so I'm really excited about this release. Out aug 7th on "This Moment"
Scottish Sun
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Top DJ Serge Devant reveals stunning new track – a decade after releasing global club anthem
SERGE Devant can count many of the best DJs in the world as fans. Tastemakers such as Jamie Jones, Lee Foss, Damian Lazarus and Seth Troxler who joins Nick Morgan on the remix of Serge's new track, 'Solace'. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 3 Serge Devant is a DJ legend Credit: Supplied A decade after 'Fearing Love' became a global club anthem, 'Solace' reunites Serge with vocalist Camille Safiya and the original cast from the first video, picking up the narrative thread in a stunning new chapter. Directed by Tobias Deml (Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, The Professional), the accompanying music video explores memory, distance, and the quiet power of reconnection, bringing emotional depth to the dancefloor in a way few artists attempt. You can watch it at the end of the playlist. To accompany the release, Russian born, NYC resident, Serge talks us through a playlist of personal classics. Records that inspired his earliest clubbing days in New York, influenced the energy of his DJ sets, and helped shape the minimalist, emotive sound he's now become famous for. 3 The singer is known for his emotive tracks Credit: Supplied 3 The new tracks are out now - August 7 Credit: Supplied These selections tell their own story, mapping the arc from underground beginnings to cinematic storytelling and label-building. 'Each of these records marked a moment in my journey,' Serge says. 'Whether it was a turning point in my taste, a track that shaped the energy of my sets, or something that simply stuck with me over the years. From early discoveries that pulled me into DJing to deeper cuts that shifted my direction, these tracks all left a mark in different ways. Looking back, they reflect many experiences, places, and dancefloors that helped shape my taste.' 'Solace' is out August 7th via This Moment, with a remix from Seth Troxler & Nick Morgan. Orinoko – Mama Konda (Timo Maas "Low Budget" Remix) One of the very first records I bought. I remember hearing it destroy dancefloors at Twilo, Tunnel, and Sound Factory in New York as I started partying, and I realized I wanted to be on the other side of the booth. It had this raw, hypnotic energy that pulled me in completely. Nearly 30 years later, it still hits just as hard as the first time I heard it. Danny Tenaglia – Elements I first heard Danny play this at club Tunnel in NYC while he was testing it before its release. I spent months hunting it down until I finally found it in a local record shop. The way it unfolds breaking down and showcasing each element I thought was genius. It deepened my love for this music and solidified my decision to keep going down this path. Chiapet – Westworld (Skylark Remix) This remix hit at the perfect time, with this amazing baseline and right groove for those long, late-night sets. I remember playing it during some of my earliest gigs, and it always shifted the energy in the room. This track was a blueprint for the kind of sound I was gravitating toward. A-Studio ft. Polina - S.O.S. (Skylark Vocal Remix) When this came out in 2004, it felt like a secret weapon. The vocal had just the right amount of emotion and Skylark's remix gave it this rolling, hypnotic drive that locked people in. I remember playing it in packed basements and sunrise sets, it always created a moment and turned the room upside down when it dropped. It wasn't the loudest or the flashiest track, but it had a pulse you could ride for minutes. For me, it was a masterclass in restraint and groove, in combination with a sexy, uplifting vocal. Yello - Oh Yeah 'Oh Six (Booka Shade Remix) Everyone knew the original from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, that quirky, unmistakable vocal. But when Booka Shade remixed it in 2006, they turned it into something completely different. It was stripped-back, groovy, and surprisingly playable. I loved how it brought a bit of humour and nostalgia to the floor while still keeping that cool, minimal edge. It always caught people by surprise, and that's what made it so fun to drop. Seuil - Ultravision (feat. Jaw) I first heard this record at Robot Heart during my first Burning Man in 2011. The setting it was played in, combined with the vibe of the track, left me emotional and curious for more. That year changed a lot for me both in my taste in music and the direction I wanted to take as a DJ. Serge Devant, Damiano feat. Camille Safiya - Fearing Love This track marked a real turning point for me. It was one of the first records where I fully brought my vision to life emotionally, musically, and visually. Working with Camille Safiya on the vocal gave it a raw, haunting feel that I hadn't tapped into before. It wasn't just about making a club record; it was about telling a story. I spent months crafting the sound, and later shot a full music video for it, which ended up winning a film festival. "Fearing Love" reminded me that dance music could go deeper that it could move people beyond the dancefloor. Barac – Who Says Imagination Isn't Reality This one felt like a reminder of why I love this music, deep, trippy, and full of subtle emotion. Barac has a way of creating space in his tracks, and this one in particular always pulled me in. I found myself playing it during long, late sets when the crowd was fully locked in. It's the kind of record that doesn't scream for attention but says everything it needs to if you're really listening. Dan Ghenacia - Rouge ou Noir This one instantly stood out to me. The groove had that signature French funk, loopy, raw, and full of character. I remember playing it late one night and watching the whole room lock into it. Just one of those records that reminds you how much can be said with so little. Serge Devant, Camille Safiya – Solace This was the first release on my label, "This Moment," so it carries a lot of weight for me. It's a stripped-back track with a heavy groove and Camille's vocal cutting right through the space. Everything sits exactly where it needs to nothing extra, just a tight, focused sound. It set the tone for the label and the kind of records I want to stand behind. I have been testing it for a few years and it hasn't failed once, so I'm really excited about this release. Out aug 7th on "This Moment"
