Spanish electronic duo Los Suruba have had a solid 12 months; from holding down residency at ANTS Ibiza, releasing cuts on Get Physical, Darkroom Dubs, Mexa, Stil Vor Talent and more, they're kicking off the year with another fine slice of alternative house for Culprit and Evissa, their first EP of the year from their Suruba Records stable.
But Alvaro and Delmar are no strangers to the business, spending the last six years operating as a duo and running an ever expanding musical HQ, encompassing a staggering 4 offshoot imprints that cater for everything from organic Balearic musings to moody, dubbed out techno and house. As well as creating a special MEOKO mix for you to enjoy, the duo below open up about oil exploration in Ibiza, running labels and building upon their backgrounds in design and sound engineering in their music.
The duo have enjoyed a pretty spellbinding past twelve months, having released on a host of seminal imprints such as Get Physical, Defected, Stil Vor Talent, Darkroom Dubs, Eklektisch, Mexa Records and their own offshoot imprint, Suruba X. Their best, however, is still yet to come, with their next EP on the Los Angeles based Culprit imprint very much indicative of the fact.
But now, almost a year after their last release on Suruba, the Mantis' EP, they're back on home soil. While the latter garnered positive reactions and chartings from the likes of Jamie Jones, Anja Schneider and Maceo Plex, chances are their latest endeavour, the 'Eivissa' EP, will follow a similar trajectory.
The 'Eivissa' showcases the duo's current preoccupation too: club focused productions with a sense of edge and attitude about them.
On the one end, 'Can Pilot" is a track with a dark, electronic soul, and the capacity to test even the staunchest of 'underground' dancefloors.
The second track, "Suruvilla", is so called because it was produced at the duo's studio in their home in Ibiza. A decidedly more "techy" affair, it's a similarly soulful number with a versatile dimension that's sure to land it in the back of the more discerning jocks. In essence, the 'Eivissa' EP is precisely the sort of release to make an impression - regardless of where it's unleashed.
Delmar and Alvaro - welcome to the MEOKO fold. Whereabouts in the world are you at the moment and what have you been up to?
At the moment? With productions, we are working on a remix for Henry Saiz’ s album. We are also working on a new EP for Suruba (our label) and finishing a new track for Betoko’s label. As DJs, we are really happy to be a part of our new worldwide booking agency, Air London. In the next few months we will visit Miami, Beirut, Amsterdam, Bucharest, El Cairo, Zurich, Paris, Brussels, Barcelona and we will probably do our first South America tour. Also, we just received the news about our ’14 season in Ibiza. We will play at the Ushuaia Opening Party, in Ants as residents and in other great clubs on the island!
What do you consider to be the turning point in your 6 year-long career so far? What's been a defining highlight for you?
We think that our success is the result of working continuously over the last 11 years and from the experience we got the years before when we worked separately as Dj’s. 7 years ago we created our labels Suruba and Suruba X during that time we also built our studio in Malasaña, Madrid.
Also to be part of ANTS, Ushuaïa Ibiza las resident Djs for two years is a big highlight. 2 months ago we won the “Best track of the year 2013” in the Vicious Music Awards, the most important electronic music Awards in Spain, it was great, because it was the first time that we won an award for something in our whole life.
Tell us a little bit about your exclusive MEOKO Mix... is it going to make us yearn for the summer months even more?
We are not the typical djs that release a mix per week, that’s because in each mix we want to make something special and we spend a lot of time working on it: selecting music, preparing mixes, compiling the best mixes that we made in our DJ sets. We started this as DJs and we think that nowadays the scene is full of great producers that are not so good as DJs and get booked on the strength of their productions.
We prefer not to do a mix of 60 or 80 minutes, we think that isn’t enough time to express an idea to “tell a story” to show your vibe and your style. Like our DJ sets, if its possible, we normally like to play 2- 3 hours a gig. We need time to take you into our movie, into our journey... with a beginning, middle and end.
For this set, we used most of the tracks that we are playing at the moment at our gigs and some special tracks that we haven't yet found the moment to use in a club, but that we love and we wanted to include in this podcast.
Los Suruba - Exclusive MEOKO Mix 122
Running a label isn't easy these days... but what are the benefits in your eyes of releasing your own music on your own imprint?
If you have a label, you can release the music that you like, ask producers for a remix, make a gang with artists that you feel comfortable working with, and if you produce a track that any label would want, then you always have the chance to release it on your own label.
Not only that but you also have multiple imprints - Suruba, Suruba Digital and Suruba X; why do you have the sub labels, and how does it benefit you?
They are all different, Suruba is the main label, music for the dancefloor between tech, deep house and house. “Playa” is organic, focused on summer vibes. Suruba D is Deep – Disco and Suruba X is dark and moody.
The benefit is that you can release music completely different without losing the identity of the label. At the beginning its, harder than to release everything on the same label, its more work but we think that in the future it will be a positive thing.
Last year you were residents at a new Ibiza party called ANTS, concentrating on the more underground side of house music. Is the event a leader for alternative dance music in Ibiza? Does the island need to become more diverse in it's variety?
We think that it's great that Ushuaia bet on this kind of party, because it’s easier for them to produce a commercial EDM or trance party and not to take the risk of producing Ants. You need to understand that it's difficult to manage a party like that at Ushuaia, because its a day-time place that allows more than 10,000 people in, on top of a lot of people working there. It's like a festival each day of the week during the summer.
As residents of the Island itself, can you relate to the locals' feelings when the herds of clubbers flock to the island? And how do you feel about the recent news of oil exploration being embarked upon around the Balearic islands?
Ibiza is a paradise, the beaches, the food, the locals, the secret places, the lifestyle... there are two different Ibiza’s: the party island and the paradise island (that you can find easily in winter). When the herds of people flock the island ...we feel fine if they came to have a good time with nice vibes and with respect for the people that live and work there. The oil exploration is a really bad thing, we are working and helping as much as we can to stop this. Let's see what happens...
You've had a ton of releases across labels such as SIncopat, Get Physical, Noir and Culprit. Each of these labels has it's own style, sound and aesthetic - do you find it easy to switch between them? Do you approach your productions with a certain framework in mind, or do you just roll and see what happens?
We think about this a lot, we think that we don’t have a concrete style because as djs, we are always looking for fresh sounds and for new music that impact us at the first listening, so with this “mind-thinking” its impossible to be stuck in a concrete style. Sometimes when we start a track, we have an idea of what we want but most of the time, we just roll and see what happens.
Finally, you're also credited as meeting when studying design and sound engineering - do you think that these two art-forms, combined, are important for young producers and DJs setting up labels? Does a knowledge of both help give you a deeper insight and brand identity in terms of running your own label?
Yes definitely because we think that the two art forms are related - the idea behind the label is that all of the elements must have something in common and there's link between image, soul and style.
Words: Joe Gamp
Los Suruba
