Jacques Renault's Debut Album 'Zentrum' Is a Snapshot of New York's House and Disco Scene

Jacques Renault has an easygoing charm, and it's easy to see how the New York DJ and producer has become such a fixture in this city's dance music scene. When I walk into his condo in South Williamsburg—where he lives with his girlfriend, three plants, a room full of gear, and thousands of records—we end up standing by his kitchen table chatting about our favorite local clubs and parties for almost 30 minutes before either of us remembers to sit down.

Renault is the co-founder of Let's Play House, a house and disco record label and party he runs with Nik Mercer. This month, the label will release his debut album, Zentrum, which features a laundry list of guest collaborators, including Luke Jenner (formerly of The Rapture), Mark Verbos, The Emperor Machine, Marcos Cabral (with whom Renault also makes music under the name Runaway), and Teddy Stuart (one half of A/JUS/TED).

These are all homies from Renault's ten-year career, and in a way, the album testifies both to his knack for making collaborative gold, as well as his ability to unify disparate groups of people. As Mercer, who was hanging out at Renault's place when I got there, put it, "Jacques is very middle of the road, and I don't mean that in a bad way. He doesn't polarize people very much—he's not a dickhead that's intolerable or a bubblegum ditz. He's the kind of guy who brings things together."

I spoke with Jacques about the origins of Let's Play House, his Chicago days as a Gramophone Records buyer and resident at Smart Bar, and how his eclectic debut album reflects all the people, scenes, and parties he's brought together over the years.

THUMP: You grew up in Washington DC's punk scene, then moved to Chicago, where you had a residency at Smart Bar and was a buyer at Gramophone Records. Can you take me through that trajectory?
Jacques Renault: I grew up playing classical music at an early age, the violin and viola. Then I started playing the trumpet, and bought a guitar, drum set, bass guitar, and got really into the DC punk scene. That was my identity. I was in a bunch of bands, some not so successful. Then I started going to parties and DJing because I could do it on my own. I got really into the jungle scene, but I kinda missed the rave scene in Baltimore—I didn't know about it, I didn't have the right friends.

What brought you to Chicago?
I went to music school and then art school. I started going to the record store a lot, and made friend with Justin the owner of Gramophone. He started Smart Bar, and we had a weeknight party. That was the beginning, and how it all got started.

Why did you and Nik decide to start throwing parties in New York under the name Let's Play House?
The hotel scene was getting a little redundant, and when John Barclay's [DIY venue] 285 Kent started, we were like—we can do that. We had all these great local guys and the best they could get were these hotel gigs. Maybe redundant is the wrong word—it's more about contributing. I'd been traveling a lot, meeting these awesome people, and going to cool parties. I was like, let's try to contribute.

Nik Mercer: It was important to do high-profile events for my friends who lived here. We were really focused on not associating ourselves with Let's Play House at all—we were just like, Let's Play House is a thing and it comes from nowhere. I didn't want to use his career to build it, it would be too intertwined. I wanted it to be a Let's Play House party more than a Jacques party.

JR: We wanted to make it more about the party, so it doesn't matter if its DJ Harvey or DJ Spun, you know it's gonna be good. Then when the warehouse stuff stopped, we still did underground and DIY things. But when john barclay stepped out of the 285 Kent thing, we were like, what do we do? Around the time he got arrested, that's when I wanted to start the label.

NM: The first party at 285 Kent was on Friday the 13, in August 2010. I remember I wrote "midnight to the grave" for the hours, and we made this tombstone flier. I vividly remember coming up with the idea for the label with the Horse Meat Disco dudes while stuck in traffic.

It's taken you almost a decade to put out your debut album. Why now?
It was really album time. I've been doing singles, remixes, projects, and collaborations for ten years. I was like, I should make an album now, right? [laughs]

You have eight collaborators on the album—most of them are based in New York, right?
Yeah! I still feel like there's still a New York disco scene after all this years. Sure, a lot of people are gone, and friends have been traveling, or doing other things. But there's such a sense of community.

Do these collaborations reflect the New York parties, people and scenes that you've been involved in over the years?
Yes, they're all people I've played with, or done stuff with before. I moved to New York in 2002, and went to a different record store every day of the week. I'd meet people that way. I'd also go to the Metro Area and DFA nights—that's how I met Marcos Cabral. That spawned into that collaboration. I've made tons of songs with Marcos [Cabral], Alex [Frankel], and Luke [Jenner]. It was more about, how are we going to choose?

How did you meet all these guys?
Alex would come out in the early Tribeca Grand days, before Holy Ghost! was Holy Ghost!. We became buds, he'd come out all the time, and he'd play me demos. Same with Luke, i've known him since The Rapture days. I'd go to parties and hang out with the DFA dudes—we'd go from Plant Bar to Lit to the Hole. Stuff like that. That was the golden era of East Village. You didn't hang out in Williamsburg then, you'd hang in the East Village and Lower East Side.

How about Teddy Stuart?
He used to have this party called the Viet Cong Disco party with Charles from Uno. We visited their studio thinking we'd hear some stuff. We ended up having a meeting, and he was like, let me know anytime you wanna come over and do something. I took him up on that, brought over some stems, and we started working. We did one song, and was like, let's do another one maybe? The first one is the one on the album, and the second was on the single right before.

Would you say that you're a very collaborative person?
When you work with different people, everyone does things differently—not everyone has the same work aesthetic and pace, so it's interesting to work with people because it's always a mixed bag, Teddy is a perfectionist, and is really good with production. His mixing is really good, and we have a lot of fun together.

I'm surprisingly quick about making songs. I pride myself on the fact that I can execute an idea really quick. It's the mixdown that takes me weeks. Lucky for me, when I work with Teddy, he's already thinking about the mix—he's a step ahead.

Luke is on the other end of the spectrum, and he's also more of a musician. Luke is really quick about knocking it out—I'll be like, here's the key and the loop, and he plays the guitar in three minutes. While we're finishing that he'll move on to the Moog. It's like he already has it envisioned, and I'll go back and do all the editing and fix things.

Morgan Wiley just rips it out, he can jam for days. Thats where the producer role for me comes in—when you have 30 minutes of just noodling, like in the last song on the album, I did some editing, but it was like, this is just an amazing jam, this should stay long. I'm glad I extended it even longer. It's over eleven minutes now. [laughs]

This album is so eclectic, and you have so many collaborators. You're like the unifying thread. So it's fitting that the album is called Zentrum, which means center in German, right?
When you travel around and go to cities, there's always a zentrum. When it came to seeing how collaborative it was becoming—of all this madness—there was a center to it that was me. It felt like an appropriate way of naming it. The album is very eclectic because I'm very eclectic. With every song I've had, it's like, oh Jacques—he's the Brooklyn club jam guy, he's the edit guy, the remix guy, or the Runaway guy. I wanted to show that I am very much eclectic—but still focused.

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