The Miami legends bringing us another magical production
A MURK remix is a rare thing. Not often do Oscar G and Ralph Falcon give their own unique spin on record, but when they do the results are usually pretty special. Case in point; their re-working of Noir & Haze Around, without doubt one of the biggest house records of last year and currently re-taking Ibiza by storm in 2012. We caught up with MURK’s Oscar G to discuss what made them remix the record, the trend of producers emulating their sound and their recent experience of playing Pacha, Ibiza for Defected In The House.
Given your heritage, you must get asked for remixes fairly regularly… what made you want to remix the Noir & Haze record?
“We don’t remix stuff often as we prefer working on original material. I had been playing the Solomun mix of this song in sets for a while, so the fact we were aware of the song and remix beforehand as DJs made it challenging to do something different with it. That made it interesting for us, so we took a stab at it.
Tell us about some of the equipment you used to put the remix together…
“It’s pretty simple these days for us. A Mac computer, a pair of speakers and a few old analog units we power up from time to time.”
The vocal aside, were there any particular elements of the original that you tried to preserve or focus on with your remix?
“No. I think the fact there were already a defined original and signature remix made us focus more on creating a whole new vibe for our mix. We were thinking more like “what would a great bootleg, white-label, mash-up of Noir/MURK sound like?” And that’s sort of what we did. It’s the kind of mix that will piss off the ‘purists’ yet make many DJs happy to play this great song again…or maybe even for the first time.”
Your remix has quite an industrial/warehouse vibe to it…maybe a touch of acid house too. Did you set out with a particular aim in mind or did it just turn out like that?
“Yesah, we were definitely thinking large sweaty room. Warehouse is a good description. We spend a lot of hours DJing in big dark rooms, this mix fits those sets.”
There’s seems to be quite a trend of producers trying to emulate the 90s house sound at the moment … is that something you’ve noticed?
“Yes, very hip. I hear there are people playing actual records also. Darned kids!”
You recently played at Pacha for Defected, how did it differ from your more frequent Pacha, New York sets?
“They are totally different adventures and both very cool. When I play Pacha, NYC I fly for 3 hours and play an 8+ hour set. The Pacha, Ibiza journey is an 8+ hour flight and 3 hour set. NYC is a very focused audience and I play there monthly so they aren’t easily impressed, you have to work for it. The long marathon sets really allow you to tell a story and give people an experience that will hopefully stick with them for more than just that night. The Defected party was more a straight party/vacation/island vibe. We played after Bob Sinclar, who needless to say, is a pretty tough act to follow in Ibiza. His vibe is very happy, upbeat and fast tempo. He ended his set with his massive hit ‘Love Generation”’ so we were basically just trying not to depress everyone with our somber more melancholy vibe. So, it was challenging in a whole other way, but I think we pulled it out somehow and the night was a success. We’ve had a great time working with the Defected crew so far and we’re happy and grateful they invited us to be part of such a cool party.”
MURK’s remix of Noir & Haze Around is out now
http://www.beatport.com/release/around/934649
