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Here’s a story about two brothers. The
Wilmaers brothers. Kids of the seventies. Both having the ball of their lives
when vinyl was king and 8 track tapes were creating history. Then, mid-eighties
arrived. The brothers grew up. They got influenced immensely by The Police, U2
and Simple Minds. With the older brother on the guitar and kid brother on the
drums, they formed a band with few close allies, all felt strongly destined to
become rock stars of the future.
Who would have thought, a decade has
passed, and the dream of becoming rock stars took a surprised twist. They found
themselves shifting their interests to dance music when they were introduced to
Roger Sanchez, Masters at Work and David Morales. A whole new perspective on
dance music emerged and shone through the whole eurotrance culture that was
ruling the Belgian airwaves at that moment, and the boys started experimenting
with loops and disco samples. Their very first few US style
house tracks saw the light.
Armed with those house tracks, the boys
approached Headroom label boss Bart Grinaert, who saw the potential in them and
took them under his wings. The Headroom gang taught Bert and Maarten all they
needed to know about dance music – the beats, the sounds and plenty of studio
tricks. After a few releases under several monikers, they decided to go with
‘Filterheadz’, with the idea of releasing some more ‘filterdisco’ records.
The turning point for Filterheadz arrived
when Jo Casters, head of A&R at Mostika found some of their early works on
his desk. Jo got in touched with the brothers, and requested for a long string
of remixes. Minimalistix’s ‘Struggle for Pleasure’ stood out amongst the rest.
But Jo wanted more. The boys headed off to Ibiza to check out the vibe
and discovered the whole Sasha&Digweed thing. With the sounds of Space
Terrace still ringing in their ears, they headed straight to their studio upon
returning, and started working on remixes that made it to the become the very
few biggest progressive tracks of the decade. Now standing for
‘progressive but with tougher beats and a sharper edge, remixes for Hooj,
Platipus, Nebula & Deviant immediately followed, thus establishing
themselves as ‘first call’ remixers.
Subsequently, collaborations with Zzino
& Tomaz proved to be prolific, as their techno output on Headroom labels
Session and Traction started flowing, finding flavour with Carl Cox, Bailey and
the likes. Intec eventually got in touched and asked for ‘latin techno tracks’.
‘Sunshine’ and ‘Latin Loopworks’ ended up being THE Ibiza favourite,
and THE massive summer anthem for that year.
Offers to remix big hits like Green
Velvet’s ‘LaLa Land’, Bedrock’s ‘Emerald’, Whatever Girl’s ‘Activator’, Eddie
Amador’s ‘House Music’, Kira’s ‘I’ll be Your Angel’, just to name a few,
further reinforced their fast rising status of highly acclaimed producers. And as
if garnering the best ever selling techno record in history wasn’t enough, the
brothers decided to go for another challenge. In their debut mix CD
Tribalicious, tribal monsters, tech beats, spacious overtones and some
downright offbeat stuff were reworked, remixed, rebuilt, and abused (quite
ironically) to perfection. And the Filterheadz sound was further armored and
recognized.
2004 WMC marked yet another history in the
making for the boys, when ‘Yimanya’ created huge waves to become another Ibiza monster
tune, so huge that it was made Pete Tong’s essential new tune. So huge that
support from house, techno and trance DJs alike were massive. Just about anyone
from across the dance floors to the consoles, from Tong to Sander to Jules to
Tiesto – were all supporting ‘Yimanya’ in full force. Extensive DJ tours soon
followed, but they still found time to remix for Faithless, Dido, Delerium,
Tranquility Base as well as the biggest dance tune of 2004: Eric Prydz’s ‘Call
on Me’.
2005 witnessed the birth of Love Distortion
– a label wholly owned by Filterheadz. It is remarkably a dynamic move, as they
continued to shine by releasing a few more big hits ‘Endless Summer’,
‘Cartagena’, ‘Santiago’ – this time under their very own label, receiving
all-round support again, nonetheless.
So, are you are believer yet?
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