Tag Archives: A-Trak

Duck Sauce, also known as Armand Van Helden & A-Trak, are the duo responsible for bringing disco house tracks to our thriving club scene! The duo has been climbing our  Fusion charts for months with their breakout song “Barbra Streisand“. I first heard about Duck Sauce when my husband placed their video on my Facebook page thinking it was hilarious and that I needed to see it. When I discovered Duck Sauce after this initial encounter I knew I had found a group that I would want to share with a World of people who were never into dance music the way we Fusion Heads are! For me they were this underground treasure that half the people I knew had never heard of! This is why I have to share!

Here’s a little bit of back story according to The Village Voice about our band,”When A-Trak (Alain Macklovitch) and Armand Van Helden teamed up as Duck Sauce for the dance hit, “aNYway“, we were surprised, then pleased, then completely addicted. The production duo shares roots in old-school hip-hop and club-friendly, sample-based dance production, but come from entirely different worlds. To give an idea: In 1997, afifteen-year-old A-Trak was busy winning the world DMC Championship. He would spend that year, and the rest of his teens, known as one of the youngest, most talented scratch performers to ever exist. 1997 was also the year that Armand released hisGreatest Hits compilation (on premier house label, Strictly Rhythm) and Sampleslaya–a party breakbeat album. His next single, “U Don’t Know Me“, dropped later in the year and went to the #2 spot on Billboard pop charts.

Since then, A-Trak has gone from scratch champion to Kanye Wests DJ to Fool’s Gold label-founder and production guru. Armand has continued to put out hit records—2006′s “My My My” peaked at #2 on Billboard’s dance charts, and 2007′s “I Want Your Soul” did the same. With the wave of disco revival that has been sweeping through dance music in the last few years, it was only a matter of time until these two met. The result of that meeting? The birth of Duck Sauce, creators of delightfully nonsensical and catchy club bangers. The pair’s second single–debuting a year after their first go– had quite a buzz before it even came out. This probably had something to do with the title–”Barbra Streisand“–but it also had a lot to do with the fact that the song turned out to be insanely catchy. The star-studded video–featuring Kanye, Pharrell, Questlove, and Ezra Koenig–didn’t hurt either.”

 Now if you are asking, why the name Duck Sauce you can blame the artist who does all of the groups artwork, Dust La Rock. Dust gave the duo a list of names and it took off from there according to A-Trak, “For me it was funny because I always used to make jokes about duck sauce. I was really mad about it when I saw it cause it was like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” So yeah, it came from Dust and I liked it right away and Armand liked it right away.” But don’t ask whether the name has a meaning, it really doesn’t, “If it’s dope, it’s dope!” A-Trak goes on to say. “For me, I usually run names by Kanye and Fool’s Gold, because Kanye would always get a trip out at these names I’d use for my projects. Kanye was obsessed with the name “Sunglasses Is A Must“, which was the name of my 2006 tour. He wanted to buy that name from me. So, when I can’t decide on a name, I’ll hit him up and he’ll tell me right away whether it’s good. I remember hitting him up about “Duck Sauce” and he goes “Oh yeah. For sure.” If you wanna look for some sort of meaning – it’s kinda New York. Like, New York Chinese takeout.”

If you ask Duck Sauce what they think of the electro-club & pop scene they’ll tell you that they like simplicity and that simplicity, and humor is what their music is about. “We started Duck Sauce at the beginning of  the top of ’09, when everyone was making really aggressive techno-electro with distorted bass-lines and crazy production tricks and a lot of glitchy stuff everywhere. It’s kind of grating to the ears after a while. We wanted to come in as a kind of breath of fresh air. Really, really simple. A loop that makes you happy and that you can sing along to. That’s it. If you like it, great! If not, oh well.”

Even the duo say its crazy to have a song with no chorus or real lyrics to climb the dance charts the way that Barbra Streisand has as well as their other chart toppers!

So what have we learned Fusionites? If you are into Pop music which I know you are, and have a sense of humor, you will fall in love with this duo who’s namesake is reminiscent of New York Chinese Takeout: Duck Sauce.

Other little known facts about where Barbra Streisand has been featured is in Glee’s 18th episode during their second season, the title episode being: “Born This Way.” It is also featured in the Vitamin Water Revive commercial and to date the “Barbra Streisand” music video has over 65 million views on Youtube and has even had parodies of the British Royal Navy and Homer Simpson singing and dancing to the song!  Barbra Streisand has been gracing our Fusion dance chart since 2011!