Following on from his own rework released earlier this year, 80s electronic god Kurtis Mantronix enlists upcoming multi genre duo XELACHAN for an extensive remix package spanning multiple genres of the feel good classic Got To Have Your Love. XELACHAN is made up of two producers; BBC Intro backed producer XELAVATE and CHAN1 – who worked as an engineer for two-time Grammy award winning Dallas Austin. Kurtis enlisted the duo to remix to breathe life into his timeless classic. Remixing one massive Club hit is an achievement in itself, but XELACHAN have reinvented Got To Have Your Love into genres Trap, Pop, DnB, House, and even included their own take on a Club dnb. DMCWORLD grab a world exclusive…
Welcome to DMCWORLD guys! Please tell us about the XELACHAN project?
XELACHAN is the coming together of two producers both musically and creatively, who share two completely different time lines in history. Chani has seen 3 decades of music pass by him and taps into the wealth of learning into the production of music, Alex is at the cutting edge looking forward towards trends and current styles. This combination covers decades of experience and has the greatest potential to create new inspirational sounds and music.
How would you describe your sound, do you have any musical heroes you draw influence from?
Our sound is developing, we are learning about each others creative pallet through experience, if we was to put a word on our sound we would use undeniable! This level is achieved through loving music and respecting music that inspires us. Our sound is still in its infancy it is maturing every day and guiding us to its centre. We are expanding and unfolding every possibility around us and choosing what resonates with us accordingly. We must feel what we hear!
You just released an amazing remix pack for Gotta Have Your Love, tell us about this and how it came about? Do you know Kurtis Mantronix?
Got To Have Your Love is one of both our parents favourite songs and I we grew up listening to this regularly at home and during car journeys. We remember uncles and aunties playing the track in a cassette player in 1990. It was a vibe left embedded in us for the rest of our lifes. When our manager gave us this song with the opportunity to do a official remix, the nostalgia ignited our memories gave us the desire to remix this amazing classic. We were very excited!
We didn’t know Kurtis but, since being enlisted to produce the remixes we have had quite a few calls and Zoom’s as he is based in South Africa. He was very impressed with our productions and showered us with many compliments and gratitude. An example quote “It was not easy for me to decide to allow anyone to remix this track being my baby track. XELACHAN have done a great job! All 5 remixes sound absolutely fantastic. What XELACHAN have done is not an easy task. XELACHAN have brought this old classic track up to speed for the current generation and done it in a way that introduces it to a new audience”
Do you have a favourite remix from all of them you created?
Personally we love them all, if we had to choose a favourite we would pick the TRAP version, its dark melodic structure is breaking the boundary of what we saw possible for the remixes. It shocks us to this day that we created a remix that is so far away from the original and it works beautifully.
How did you go about remixing such an iconic track?
After producing the POP version we decided that we wanted to contrast the Bright happy nature of the track with an opposite reflection, we wanted something that was dark and mysterious, this was the path towards the TRAP version. We knew that Trap would accommodate these tones and textures perfectly and we were right. Then we began the journey for a banging CLUB track, something that has a big bottom end and minimal was the idea we wanted the track to have volume and space so after a few sessions we arrived at the CLUB version. HOUSE and DRUM n BASS was essential for us, coming from London and seeing both scenes develop In front of us, it was challenging to decide what we should keep, we had hundreds of great ideas and knew that we wanted to keep the best for these tracks, both HOUSE and DRUM n BASS are reflections of what we love about both genres, high intensity and banging dance floor rhythms that can be played for decades.
What is your studio set up like?
We use two studios for our production, XELAVATE studios is our HQ. This is where the main structures and mixing is done. Studio 2 is a production suite filled with creative technology to inspire and create new inspirations in our pallet. It’s healthy to have a change of creative space when working. Different environments produce different results.
What’s next for XELACHAN?
We are in the process of creating a library of original multi-genre billboard productions featuring a variety of artists with our debut single release scheduled for release summer this year with a follow up around October. We are also screenwriting and composing music for original TV and online commercials. We are always looking for new challenges and see no boundaries.
