Monthly newspaper and online publication targeting 18 to 35 year olds. The ultimate guide to the hottest parties, going out and having fun. Music, fashion, film, travel, festivals, technology, comedy, and parties! London, Barcelona, Miami and Ibiza.
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/586287
Hi Sandro, how's it going? How's life treating you? Life is treating me very, very well, I'm really, really pleased. I've just finished an album, working on a collaboration with a good friend of mine for a new EP and working on a live project with Berlin artist called Carl, as well as a singer from Belgium, Robin De La Roux, so I'm very very pleased and enthusiastic for the future. I'm enjoying the gigs I'm playing, I have a new agent from B4 booking that is filling my diary very, very quickly, and now that I'm a solo act it's all easier, so I'm really, really happy. Have your sets and productions changed since going solo? Yes of course they have, the production side of things there is nobody else that I have to make decisions with, so obviously I can do what I love the most. My new sound is somewhere in-between techno, house and tech-house. It's not so far from what I was doing before but obviously there is no compromising with someone else so it's different. I just finished an album as I mentioned before, doing some new music, obviously I am a bit older than my previous partner so I have the feeling Flashmob needs to be producing more accessible music and not just music that is really profile music. Everyone knows the profile music we have done that is coming out now on Objektivity and on Alan Fitzpatrick's label. You know everyone knows that we can do quality stuff, so now I think what I need to do is just have fun in the studio and produce as much as possible because in the last 18 months I have been producing very little. Although the respect is high for the project because we have done very high quality things, I think that now the time is to have a little fun. In terms of the DJ set I am having fun of course, it is very difficult to share and play with someone, and to always follow someone else when it was a duo. The real thing in playing music is following your instinct and getting lost with yourself and so for me its much better to play alone, I can express my energy even more, which is scary in a way. The sound hasn't changed radically, it is still there but it is different. I hope it will be interesting, I'm very happy with it. Why did you launch the Raw Analogue Technique production pack? I decided to do that because it is a way to give back something to the younger guys that are getting involved with the industry and I think it is a nice way of giving them good tools. I really put energy and a lot of time into getting a quality pack together and I think it's important that rather than buying the usual, not very good sample kits, but to have a good one that will enable them to learn about the sound immediately, and get their ears used to a certain kind of quality and sound. That's what it's all about really. I thought it was fun to do something like that and I am very happy. Also from a profile point of view it is an interesting thing to do, it is an extra brick towards building my platform. So you have been vocal on your stance of quality over quantity and that the Flashmob label is dedicated to underground music, do you feel calling out bullshit is one of your key roles in the industry? I don't think I have a role as such, I just think my role is to say what I think and do what I say. I try to put the right energy into what I do and try to be who I am in real life as well as in the industry. I eventually get rid of anything that is negative and I work really, really hard. I am hugely driven as anyone that knows me in the industry I try to be nice and try to give it my all. I take things very seriously but also enjoy life very much. The fact that I love quality over quantity is the fact that quantity is the superficial way of doing things and I think that the more commercial side of things is more about money than it is about music, it is more about bullshit than the real thing. This is what underground is about, it is about people who actually love music to a point where they are willing to sacrifice a little more money for what is real. There are a lot of people out there saying "I do it for the people and I do it for this and I do it for that" but then ultimately all you can see from the media is them celebrating their ego. It must be done the way that it would be done in the way it would be in real life - if you invite someone to your home you give them the best seats not the worst seats. In the industry everyone is chasing exposure and to do that you often see people who don't give you the best seat, they give you the worst seat so they pretend they're all cool and that they're doing it for the music and the fans, but ultimately they don't give a shit. I think eventually it will all catch up with these people. You have released on both kinds of labels, how do you walk the line between underground and mainstream? To be honest I have never done a mainstream record, not with this project. 'Need In Me' has become a sort of classic but it wasn't our intention to do a mainstream record, certainly we knew it had the potential of going mainstream. But if you think about it and analyse the record, it's a 909, it's a very old school way of making records so it doesn't have really anything of mainstream in it. It has nearly 10 millions hits on YouTube, which is very rare for a record in what we do. What I was doing before was always underground music, we started on Get Physical. Even now I just released on Moon Harbour, Avotre, the W label from DJ W!ld, it is all DC10 people, so my music is to do with underground, always has been and always will be. If you do a really good record that does cross over then it's good, there's nothing wrong with that. Is finding and supporting new talent an important part of your life satisfaction? Yes it is actually. It is because when I wasn't solo it was very difficult to collaborate with people, we were very closed for two years. In fact you would have noticed there are very few remixes of Flashmob and even collaborations. This I want to radically change because it is not in my nature, my nature is to collaborate with people and help new talent and get people that, in my opinion, deserve it out there and so this is why I also opened the label to give the opportunity to those out there. Since Flashmob Ltd has the reputation and a strong promo mailing list, along with the feedback we get it really helps. When I say we, I mean the people who help me with this because there is Yad and Menee who both help me run the label. There are a number of people who collaborate with the label. Lately I've been talking a lot to DJ W!ld who has done a remix for Flashmob Records, which will be out in October before ADE. We are building a collective of people that want to be productive and want to do it in a nice way, and be successful whilst having fun rather than chasing people and being involved in the usual stressful process of talking to labels. How did you come to collaborate with Lowheads on 'Don't Leave'? Well Lowheads is a duo of Italian guys who have done basically nothing up until now, I don't mean that in a bad way, just they literally have just started. They came up with this vocal, it was really interesting, we just went for it. One of the two is a really old friend of mine so I said why not. Now that I'm alone I'm always about the good music, so if someone comes along with a really good tune or a really good vocal I am very open to collaborating, to me it is about the music. How has the freedom of your own label impacted you as an artist? Well first of all it has given me the opportunity to do things on my own time and to be in control of the calendar and the schedule. It is a big thing to have a label, if you work well then people will recognise that and they will follow you, it's a matter of working really hard when some labels don't. That's because the DJs that open those labels do not follow the labels and get other people to follow those labels who don't give a shit, so what happens is they lose contact with the label and fellow DJs and producers. You once said in an interview that Flashmob is not a production machine and that you keep your standards very high in terms of what you release. Do you think the amount of music that's out there is problematic? Yes, because I think you can tell a lot of producers are not even making their own music and the quality is low even for the labels. Problematic, yes, I think it doesn't work towards the development of the industry in terms of quality, everyone is selling nowadays. If you go to a market where everyone is selling the same thing it is very difficult to find what you're looking for, ultimately it will be even more difficult to find the quality tracks. Is music without a message or a story a waste of time? Back before it was a solo project, music wasn't made in a very intense way, it is very difficult to tell a story when there are two people. Nowadays all the music I make is all about my feelings, the people that I meet, the conversations I have, it is all about me, as it should be. An artist who is writing music should express his feelings through the music he is making. Kerri Chandler has said his favourite time at a party is when the lights go out and come back on and you catch people in the act. What is your favourite moment at a rave? My favourite moment is when I realise I have lost complete control of what I am doing, and that I am doing it at my best, so I'm not looking at what I'm doing anymore, I'm just enjoying it with the crowd. Then you wake up at the end and it is done, it's gone, and you lived it so intensely that you were nearly not there but you were there so much. Which do you prefer, festivals or nightclubs? Oh I love both, festivals I love when they're really good, they're insane. But the dirty little club is always good. There is a club called District in Lincoln where some of my really good friends are, I can't wait to go back there. It's the perfect club - it's small and dirty but the energy is just insane. Do you have any pre-show rituals? I have a shower, I dress up always in the same way, the order of things I put on, that's part of myself being a bit artistic. I put a necklace on that I always have on for all the gigs, I check if my USB cards are in the box a couple of times because I'm scared to death to forget. I should put my earplugs in but I always forget, that's pretty much it. What's the first record you ever bought? Well the first vinyl I bought ever was Welcome to The Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, it's a double album that my grandmother bought, and then a girlfriend of mine broke it then bought it back so now I have two! The first techno vinyl I bought was a record called 'Freaky Disco', it was 1989 I think, Newman and Wells Outerspace. It was this industrial sort of techno packed with warehouse sounds. If you could fill a swimming pool with anything, what would it be and why? It would be tennis shoes! I am a maniac with tennis shoes and sunglasses. I find it difficult to control myself when it comes to sneakers and sunglasses. And vinyls of course! What is your message to the young people of today? It is not about looking cool but it is about making experience, learning how to do something really well, and eventually end up cool because you have had the strength not to be stupid and not to follow everyone. Then you eventually become cool because you're cool with yourself, because you enjoy what you do and you know how to do it properly. Learn what you want to do properly; if you're good you'll have results. 7 29 Issue 80 / 2015 HOUSE/ tEcHnO guestlist.net With the combination of a steadfast work ethic, an easy going personality and raw creative talent, it's no surprise that Flashmob has become one of the most respected producer/DJs out there. He's released on heavyweight labels like Get Physical and Defected, as well as running his own, and has been gigging relentlessly, especially over in Ibiza. This year has seen him push an analolgue-infused, darker and rawer sound. We caught up with him to talk about going solo and keeping standards high " The underground is about people who actually love music to a point where they are willing to sacrifice a little more money for what is real "