Monday, July 25, 2011

EIC'S10Q'S w/Matias Aguayo

"..Dance music that not only glows with brilliant & simple Electronic samples but also exuberates a serious form of humor.."


Matias Aguayo
Preternatiral Promenade

Matias Aguayo Bio:
Once half of Closer Musik, Matias Aguayo -- a left-field dance music producer and vocalist who was born in Santiago de Chile but moved to Cologne, Germany, at the dawn of the '90s -- went solo after the duo split. Like his ex-partner, Dirk Leyers, Aguayo remained closely associated with Cologne's Kompakt label and remixed tracks by Leandro Fresco and Michael Mayer. He joined Mayer on a reinterpretation of Kylie Minogue's "Slow" just before making his proper solo debut with 2005's Are You Really Lost, an album featuring co-productions with Markus Rossknecht. A series of six 12" releases -- a pair for Soul Jazz, Kompakt, and his own Latin American-centric Cómeme -- preceded his second solo album for Kompakt, 2009's Ay Ay Ay.


Hello, how are you?
Excellent. Just had one of the best coffees of my life.

What are you currently listening to?
Zazou/Biyake/Cy1 "Noir Et Blanc"

When you began this project did you have a particular sound in mind that you were going for?

No, it was the other way around, a particular sound was going for me, while I travelled and played and did music the results where leading me to this EP, which has very much to do with the situation of doing music on the road and filling gaps in DJ sets. The EP "I Don't Smoke" are anecdotes of nightlife, quickly translated into dance music, situations like wanting to have a very jacking clap track for a set but not finding one that suited the idea and to have to do it on the way to the gig, same goes for "Dance Machine" which was the missing track for starting to play a set which I wanted to dedicate to a dear friend and so on...

Who are/were your biggest musical influences?
I am not so sure as influences are something that are sometimes reflected in a very unconscious way. I might be a huge Bo Diddley lover but in the end the result might sound more like The Beatles. I would like the wildlife, specially the birds to be that big influence, but maybe there is more Elbee Bad in my music than birds. A friend once told me one can learn everything about music from the birds, even more than from Charlie Parker, Bach, and so on... Since then I am paying more attention on their singing, and it's worth it, listen to the birds!

Tell me a little bit about the song "Rollerskate"..did you know how awesome that song was once you had finished mixing it?

Actually once we finished mixing it, that was with Vicente Sanfuentes and Marcus Rossknecht, I cannot mix myself, I was happy to be able to give it a break and not having to hear it. I think when I most enjoy it is when I am singing it. Or when other people sing it, that's even better.

What's your favorite song off of your latest release and why?
Today I say "Niños", tomorrow I might say something different as this changes everyday, I love all the tunes. "Niños" is a very nice track to play as on the one hand it works very well an all dance floors and its open character, the lack of melody etc allows to mix it with a lot of different music. It inspires me also sometimes to sing on top, I hope it inspires other people to sing on top of it, too.

Any future collaborations/side projects we should know about?
No, this is all extremely secret but I can't stress enough my love and dedication for our label Cómeme which features all these great artists like Diegors, Christian S, Rebolledo, Daniel Maloso, Ana Helder, Philipp Gorbachev, Jonny Capracara, and many more. Also I would like to stress my activities alongside Avril Ceballos to bring Mexican soundsystem people and tribal Guarachero kids to Europe, and to share musical researches I could do during my travels, researches about popular contemporary dance music. It is such a huge musical world we are living in that I can´t stop to be amazed...

If your music was a soundtrack to a film/TV series which would it be?

I wouldn´t like people to sit down and watch a screen while they listen to my music so I rather would like it to be the soundtrack of a summer full of adventures and drama or so, like a period of life of someone.

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Would have to be some jazz album I guess. But I don´t know which one, maybe some Charles Mingus, but you know this is a bit pointless because if you are a musician and can only listen to one album you obviously rather start inventing some new music and play with friends, It´s not all about recordings, more about performance of music.

Are you living your dream?
I am living my life.

Thanx Fallon & Matias!

Matias Aguayo is currently touring here and there, make sure to catch up on Matias' work (my favorite being "Ay Ay Ay" (probably--maybe)) while you wait to see him live...

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