The Populists
We knew Yan Wagner as a singer and composer of New Wave & Synth Pop oriented records (Forty Eight Hours in 2012 produced by Arnaud Rebotini, This Never Happened produced by Yan himself in 2017 and a new one to be released in early 2020). But in the midst of touring with his band he started The Populists in 2014 by releasing the Soft Power EP on David Carretta’s imprint SPACE FACTORY, a new club oriented alias inspired by Detroit Electro and Techno, and New Beat and European synthetic Disco, genres that form the DNA of his versatile but cutting edge DJ sets.
The Populists started out as a satyrical side project picturing the rise of populism in a world about to witness ground breaking events such as Brexit or the election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States of America. The Populists is also and above all a way for Yan to return to his first musical love born on the dancefloors of his native Paris
In 2015, Lipdub, his second release under this moniker comes out on the franco-english imprint DAYS OF BEING WILD. The same year, French band Bagarre asks him to remix their song « Le Gouffre » which gets out digitally but almost unnoticed by the DJ community. Oddly enought, only three years later, the remix (labeled « Belgian Trip » given the strong New Beat feel of the tune) begins to resurface in the sets of many international DJs (Solomun & Dixon, David Vunk, Andy Butler, Identified Patients, Job Jobse, The Hacker, to name a few). Sensing the opportunity Berlin label DETRITI offers in 2019 a first vinyl reissue of what is beginning to be called a « future new beat classic » backed with two new tracks by The Populists (« Nu-Nu » & « Thalys Theorem »).
In this particularly favorable dynamic, The Populists will release their fourth EP at ZONE, the infamous French label founded by Alexandre Reynaud and The Hacker, which released material by artists such as Gesaffelstein, Der Zyklus, Djedjotronic, Maelstrom or Arnaud Rebotini, forming an extended family brought together by the love of old school electro, Electronic Body Music and a certain idea of darkness; and fun.
