Exclusive interview with Brazil’s coolest duo as they unveil their stunning new album
Interview : Dan Prince
Daniel, Daniela welcome to DMCWORLD…where on the planet are you today?
“Hey Dan, we are currently in Barcelona at the studio. We just got back from some days in Beirut where we played on Sunday and now we have two days to work on new stuff and then we hit the road again.”
What a crazy summer you two are having, topped off with the release of your new album ‘Night Falls Again’ out now on Hot Creations. A wonderful album full of different vocals, hard stuff, softer stuff, different vocals… Now that the dust has settled and we are all enjoying the long player and even some new remixes (loving the Jaxx!), please can you give us a few words on each of your musical babies…
End of Line
“Daniela did it all by herself. We wanted an intro for the album and she sat down with her laptop and delivered the full song after one day. I really like it, the lyrics are really special.”
Favourite Addiction
“This is for sure one of my favourites (haha) from the album. I made its skeleton last year, when I was alone in London for some time and all I had with me was a really old white Mabook with Ableton Live. Maybe the lack of more synths and effects made me work so hard on it and its details. Some months later I showed it to Daniela and we started working on it, she made some vocals, but we felt it still was lacking something. We have always been fans of Clarian North, and we were talking to Leon from Hot Creations and he said “why don’t you invite him for a collaboration?”. It was the perfect opportunity – we sent him the track and some days later he sent the vocals. We couldn’t believe it. It was a perfect marriage.”
Human Nature
“Daniela made the guitar riff and recorded it 8 or 9 years ago. We always loved it, and tried to work on it some times but we never felt it was good enough. Last year we started doing the album and then we thought “why not try something with that Egyptian riff”? She wrote the lyrics, I think it’s really brilliant, one of her best ones ever. A lot of people say this is their favourite track from the album.”
Shine
“It’s a special song, for us and for a lot of people. I think we were not aware of its power when we did and release it, it’s a song that’s still growing and growing. Sometimes we are playing it live and I still get surprised on how beautiful it sounds. We were in a very good moment of our lives when we wrote it, and somehow that’s reflected on the song.”
1000 Friends
“I think we were trying to do something harder at that moment, Daniela made the main bassline and the synths and I wrote the lyrics and recorded it as a demo for her. It’s one of my best lyrics, I love it. When she heard it she said I should sing the final version. The last time I sang on a recording was on 2006, but I decided to give a try and we liked the result.”
Golden Leaves
“I was experimenting with some 90’s sounds, some garage patterns and showed it to Daniela. A few days later she gave me back the track with all vocals on it, she transformed the original idea on something totally different. The lyrics are really beautiful and positive. Probably the most pop moment of the album and maybe of our entire career.”
Crazy Life
“We rescued this from our first EP on Hot Creations. It’s a very special song for us and connected us to a lot of people when it was released. I love this one, it’s very sad and optimistic at the same time…for us it’s more than a song, it had the power to change our lives in a very special way.”
Shopping Centre Soundtrack
“This was the last track we composed for the album. I was listening to some classical music one day and I heard the timpani and I thought “why not make a track with timpani?”. Then I wrote the main parts and Daniela sat down with a moog and did the basses. I like to try different sounds, strange stuff, and I loved to work on the timpani riff. The lyrics couldn’t be simpler: “Work/Tension, Consumption/Relaxation”.”
Plastic Population
“When I showed it to Daniela for the first time she said “is this the soundtrack of the end of the world?”. It has a really dramatic and heavy feel… The lyrics are also strong and social/political. The first line “We are not the robots” of course is related to Kraftwerk’s “We are the robots”. We are probably saying the same things from opposite points of view.”
Control
“We love to work with other people, and we have absolutely no ego problems or anything like that. The final result, the music, is all that matters. This one we did with Shall Ocin, a brilliant producer from Argentina that now lives in Barcelona and releases on Ellum Audio. Daniela did the lyrics and vocals and they worked together on the music and production in his studio.”
Love Feeling
“We wanted to work with someone from Hot Creations on a collaboration. We met Denney at a gig in Brighton and we really liked his vibe, always so lovely and positive. As we already liked his music, he was an obvious choice. We sent him the vocals and he sent the track some weeks later. I really like it, and it’s always excellent when we play it on a crowded dancefloor.”
White Desert
“The end, and probably the antithesis of the whole album. Like the opening track, it’s totally far away from the dance music world. It’s a very sad and personal song, with really deep vocals over a processed post-punk ambience. I think it’s one of Jamie’s favourites. This is one thing I really like on Hot Creations – they have this artistic feel on their stuff. I don’t think many dance music labels would accept a track like this.”
You are currently on tour (aren’t you always?!) and visiting some fascinating places…what memories did you take away from Beirut?
“The party was really good, and we did a completely live set, with 40 kilos of equipment, so it was a very special night. Lebanon is a very beautiful country, with really lovely and polite people. We spent some days there and wish we could have spent a bit more. Beirut is a incredibly beautiful city but it still has a lot of scars from their recent war, which is very sad. Anyway, it’s very good to see people from different groups and religions coexist in peace there now, it’s a serious lesson people should learn around the world, specially in days like these, full of intolerance.”
We were on the dancefloor at DC10 back in July, what a night! Why is this place so damned good?
“I wish I knew the answer, but i think the answer may be simply “magic”, and magic can’t be explained. It’s our third year playing at Paradise and we never get used to it. It’s always “oh my god, i forgot how incredible this is”. There’s no rational explanation for a good party like that. Lots of happy people that want to have fun, excellent DJs, a sound system that can be heard from the moon… the rest is purely magic.”
Two weeks ago some superstar DJs including Paul Oakenfold, Afrojack and Steve Angello announced that “Ibiza is too expensive”,and that the “mystique of Ibiza isn’t there anymore”. Do you agree?
“Well, it’s only our third year in Ibiza, so they probably know about it better than me. Maybe things were better in the past, I don’t know. From my point of view, I have nothing to complain about. The island is the most beautiful place in the world, people are there to have fun and forget their daily problems for a while, the best DJs on the planet are playing every night etc…Anyway, I think it’s always healthy to build “new Ibizas” in other places. Other countries have marvelous sites as well, waiting to be discovered. If the Ibiza mystique is not the same, let’s find new mystiques.”
How does it feel to be called the hottest duo from Brazil by Mixmag? Man, Neymar and Gabriella Lenzi will be disappointed!
“We were very happy, of course. We have a lot of die hard fans in Brazil, that really support us, and that’s really important to us. Digitaria is a 10 year old project and it’s good to have this kind of feedback after so much hard work and dedication. About Neymar, I am sure he’s not very upset on this one. He has received some good press as well. Hahaha, we are both Brazilians living in Barcelona, maybe we should do a project together.”
What are the big 5 records in your box today?
Clarian – Dinosaurs in Space
Massive Attack – Teardrop (Hanna Wants remix)
Gui Boratto – Joker
Digitaria – Favourite Addiction (Groove Armada remix)
Doctor Dru – Alpha Ray
What is each other’s greatest quality as a musician?
Daniel: “She’s multi talented and very creative.”
Daniela: “He’s very patient and knows no boundaries.”
A recent quote from a certain superstar DJ…“I believe true DJing is actually an art, but it’s a dying art, as everyone is pushing the sync button…it’s a real shame when you see a ‘DJ’ plug his laptop in and call this DJing. Music will always evolve but sometimes not in the best way.” What are your thoughts on that?
“I think there is more than one way to make art. Pink Floyd is brilliant at making 30 minute songs and the Ramones are brilliant at making 2 minute songs with three chords. In the DJ world, I think the same applies. I am really not against sync or any other new technology. Electronic music is essentially about technology, and only exists because of it, so I don’t really understand this kind of neo luddism related to dance music. I am old enough to have seen some changes in this world. In the boom of dance music, in the 90s, people said “what the fuck, these DJs don’t even play their music, they are just playing someone else’s records, this is not music and they are not artists”. I was one of the people that were saying “yes, this is a new form of art, you like it or not, and it’s here to stay”. Some years later, when CDJs arrived, people were saying “real DJs use vinyl”, CDs are for pussies” or something like that. And then some years later the same about laptops and controllers. And now about sync. Changes and new ideas and technologies demand some time to be accepted. Technique is something good, of course. I love turntablism, I love to sit next to a fucking good DJ and see him doing every kind of trick with vinyls and stuff, it’s art, it’s beautiful. But at the same time I love DJs that are not “mixing geniuses” but that can really make a crowd go crazy. In the end, the good ones will always remain. I am 100% sure the real good DJs are not afraid of competition with new people using sync.”
Your best ever festival experience?
“Lollapalooza in Brazil this year and the We Are Festival last year in England. Festivals are always fun, but these two were special for me.”
What is the record that…
…reminds you of your childhood?
“Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s “Flaunt It”, “The Return of the Jedi” soundtrack and my mother’s Brazilian music records.”
…always get you dancing?
“Jamie Jones’s Fabric 59 and Magda ‘s Fabric 49. I am sure these were the DJ sets I heard most in my life, my body knows every hi hat on it.”
…reminds you of being broken hearted?
“Oh, so many…Vitalic’s Flashmob and half of the Manic Street Preacher’s albums. I try not to listen to new stuff when broken hearted, because I know that the feeling will come back when I listen to the same track in the future, but sometimes I can’t avoid.”
…you wish you would have made?
“Philip Glass’s Glassworks and Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity, because if I could make these, I could make anything else.”
What is the best and worst thing about living in Barcelona?
“The best: The airport is near, the city is very beautiful, I can speak the language.
The worst: The temperature in the summer.”
Not many people know this, but Digitaria are really good at?
“Making jokes, making friends and talking about the same subject for 12 hours.”
Cydonia is a region of Mars. Apparently it was once your hometown according to your Facebook site! Would you be interested in going up in Richard Branson’s Virgin Spaceflight?
“Daniela would love to go to space. She always says that. I would never. I hate high places, and for me, every time I have to fly – and that’s really often – it’s a strange experience. I hate rollercoasters, planes and tall buildings. I am fine on the ground.”
You are given 1 million euros for a party. Where is the location, who are the big 3 DJs and who is the singing star?
“With one million euros, I’d get an abandoned warehouse, put an incredibly good soundsystem there and call Superpitcher, DJ Shadow and Aphex Twin to play. It would be the best party ever, and I would still have 950.000 euros to burn, that I would happily give to the charity or to some research center – you know, there are some things more important in life than partying. For the singing star, I’d call Daniela, of course. 90% of the best parties that I’ve been in my life didn’t cost more than a few bucks. The people and the music are the essentials. The rest is the industry, and I am not the ‘industry’ type of person. I am still here just for the music.”
And finally, what is coming out next from you guys studio wise?
“We are working like hell these days, on 7 or 8 tracks that we intend to release as singles on the near future. We are – as always – making a lot of sonic experiments, using progressive house, reggae, old school electro and everything else that we want to use on a track. I am sure we’ll still have some releases this year.”
Thank you both. Love your music and energy.
“We thank you for the space and interest.”
