Jacques Greene

The second album from Canadian producer Philippe Aubin-Dionne filters memories of club nights through a prism of emotive synths and ‘sampled’ production techniques. Si Truss found out more…

After 2010’s infectious, Ashanti-sampling (Baby I Don’t Know) What You Want, Jacques Greene – aka Montreal-born producer Philippe Aubin-Dionne – quickly established himself as a master when it came to combining emotive melodies with meticulously-programmed, grooving club beats. In the years that followed he doubled down on this reputation, with a consistent run of ear-worm singles and remixes for the likes of Ciara and Radiohead.

It wasn’t until 2017 however, that he released his debut album, Feel Infinite, a collection of emotive club jams that – as Aubin-Dionne himself puts it – acts like a summation of his production career to-date. Its follow-up, Dawn Chorus, has arrived considerably quicker. Designed as an ‘impressionistic’ take on club music, the album uses a variety of guests, hardware synths and ‘sampled’ production techniques to reinterpret classic club tropes via the influence of post-rock, R&B and beyond. We sat down with Aubin-Dionne to find out more..

Tell us a little about the concept that led to Dawn Chorus?

“I’ve been a DJ and involved in club culture for a very long time, but I’ve never really felt at home making ‘DJ records’. Much as I love those kinds of records and they’re a big part of what I ingest, they’re not really what I naturally make as a producer. A lot of what I end up making is usually my own regurgitation of those sounds; it’s how I process my own feelings and stories from being in the club. Like when you remember a DJ set and there was that one moment halfway through where all the drums dropped and it got really euphoric – I’m not necessarily trying to remake that song, but make a track inspired by how that felt in that moment. I guess it’s kind of an impressionistic portrait of those club moments.”