When we started,
we always asked ourselves: look, we can do this two ways.
We can do our path, that we know it's harder.
Or we can do something else.
Because truth is we can also do other types of music, we could do several styles
So I asked him, Chiri, if you want, we can bend our sound towards what the crowds like the most.
And that way we could rise five steps instead of one.
And the answer was always the same: let's just be true to ourselves and if they like it, they like it.
And if not, bad luck.
We met a few years ago.
We are from the west side of Buenos Aires.
We live in neighborhoods which are a bit away from each other but we found a meeting point half way.
Two groups of friends started gathering there.
We started sharing time together, going out raving to clubs like Cocoliche.
Guido was already DJing and producing back then.
I had started with production, making music since I was a kid.
And I had just started experimenting with electronic music and specifically, Techno.
So, me and Guido were in the car.
I had my computer and headphones there.
So I tell him, "Look, I have been working on something. Give it a try."
He was more advanced than me, since he was already playing some gigs and producing.
So he listened to some of my projects and saw something interesting there and that, in a way, it represented him.
So he handles me the headphones while I was driving, and he shows me three or four unfinished tracks.
And when he shows them to me...
Well, the track was horrible actually, that was the truth.
But each track had something in it, like a part or a specific sound that was what I had been looking for and could never find.
And when I listened to it I said "Fuck, it has what I have been looking for."
So I thought, if I let him go with those tracks, he is going to make it and I wont.
So I should make him join me and the two of us will make it. [Laughs]
So I said, "Would you like us to make a duo?"
It was obvious he was going to say yes since I had been in this longer than him.
So I proposed making music together and he was like "Oh yeah, of course".
So we reached our destination, sat down in our computers and started working on a track.
It was our very first track, the 000001, which was later released.
I think that when we both listened to the complete track we understood that there was something in there that couldn't just end there.
It was a mutual feeling.
I would define the sound of E110101, graphically, as a funnel.
It's the result of a lot of influences that, luckily, we share most of the time and sometimes we don't, but that's also really good.
So our influences collide in this project.
So our sound is our way of seeing all of those things we adapted.
We share a lot of the same influences, I think it's mostly about Detroit music.
Artists such as Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Juan Atkins.
The first wave of Detroit is very important for us.
I also feel really close to the Chicago sound.
Armani, Mike Dearborn.
I also really like Joey Beltram
Generally I have a taste for older artists.
I really like the music that people were making back then and the music those guys were making.
Maybe, nowadays I am not really attracted to their sound, but I listen to old records and go crazy.
The virtues of this, to say it in a way, "old music", are many.
From a maybe more academic point of view, I notice a big different with the current trends in Techno music.
I believe there is something that is not being respected in most cases:
For example, playing with melody, harmony and rhythm, without leaving one aside.
I think nowadays there is a trend to go more towards rhythm, leaving melody and harmony aside.
So, [from the "old" music], that's what I try to keep for my own productions.
That game between those three elements.
I don't think our music can be labeled into one subgenre.
You can't say "This is Detroit and it's a revival of older music".
I believe our music is simply music seen through the eyes of Juan Ignacio Chiri and Guido Gabriel Sartoris.
My music isn't anything.
My music is only what I do.
It's kind of strange.
Obviously, it has lot's of influences, like I said, Detroit, Chicago.
But it's like my music is my music and that's it.
Yeah, I don't think we are trying to re-interpret music that has already happened.
It's just our point of view.
Which is influenced by all of that.
So, the result is contemporary but has layers that are inevitable because of our backgrounds and tastes.
In our gigs, we also try to take that into it.
For us it's the whole package.
And the fact that maybe nowadays it's not "acceptable" to play music that is not Techno at a Techno club, that doesn't mean I can't do it.
In fact, I even feel the obligation to do it.
From the very first moment we connected in a very good way.
Also, each of us took his role in the duo.
Guido has a bigger interest for the percussive part.
He's a drummer.
I have a tendency to go towards synthesis or other type of instruments.
Each of us brings in his best in that sense.
I generally work more on synthesizers.
And leave the other part to Guido.
Which is also corrected later. I also change drum parts and Guido corrects synths.
It's a constant feedback
But yeah, there is a personal interest and a tendency to go to one side or the other.
We always start with a kick, a hi-hat and a clap from a 909 [Roland TR 909 Drum machine].
All of my tracks have a 909 in them.
So I first make the base with the 909, make it last whatever I want it to, generally 6-7 minutes.
Then I add drums, 808, 606, 707, no more.
After that, once I have the base I wanted, I start cutting.
And try to make the most variations I can.
Until, literally, I get tired.
When I'm so tired and my brain is dead from doing variations, I go to sleep and that track is done.
I try to use the inspiration from that specific moment.
Maybe we make a track in 2 or 3 hours and maybe that track can be improved a million times.
Maybe we could make it a million times better.
But if that track was made in that way in that moment, that has a reason.
If it was done in a certain way, let it be that, even if it can be way better.
If I did that track in 3 hours, I only want to represent the madness of those three hours.
I think perfection was never a priority for this project or for me, personally.
In fact, perfection is pretty relative.
I am way more attracted to the coexistence of error and correction.
Because that's how we are.
We are not perfect, so perfect things even sound weird to us.
So that coexistence makes the composition way more rich, not only from a musical level, but only on a more humane way.
You can be listening to a track and listen something weird, like someone screwed up, but that's like a signature that that was done by a human.
It makes it imperfectly perfect. Or imperfectly beautiful.
So that's the only level of perfection I care about.
Being able to include even my fails in my music because that's who I am.
The "creative moment" is a term I use a lot to define a state of consciousness in which you can achieve a focus so intense,
that the person not only loses sense of space, but also of time.
Also, it frees you of thought and external factors. Only focused on creation.
In this case, the music
So the instrument, in that moment, is like an extension of oneself.
You almost don't think, but only be.
And by only being, you can tell the most sincere story.
Because you are not being influenced by anything.
The relationship between man and machine in that moment is very special, because the man needs the machine as much as the machine needs the man.
The man needs the instrument to express himself and the machine needs the man to fit it's only purpose: making sounds.
So using that, is the best posible resource, despite what instrument you are using.
It can be anything, even making percussions with the floor, but, I mean,
that moment, which can last one second, one minute, and in the best of cases -and has never happened to me- hours, is one of the strongest tools.
The way we work is like, if I have been listening to Acid House of a whole week, I go to Chiri and say "Hey, I wanna make Acid House".
And show him some track and say "we can go this way".
Or maybe he comes to me and says "This House track inspired me to make House" and I'm like "Okay, let's go for it".
And that's the way we work and because of that we can make many genres.
If he comes tomorrow and wants to make Funk, "Sure, let's do it", if he wants to make Jazz, "Why not? Let's try it"
And that's always our way.
When it comes to our mixing skills, I think it's a bit like production in a way,
When we mix, we try to find our own style and not follow the current trends.
We fully trust vinyl records, I am a lover and collector.
For us, vinyl is always easier.
I feel much more safe with vinyl records than with a CDJ.
Vinyl gives you lot's of freedom for your mixing techniques.
That was what made me passionate about them.
Maybe with CDJs or a computer you are standing in the booth just doing this:
And you say "Okay, I want more action"
With vinyls you are like "boom", here and there.
It's almost impossible that you get bored.
You will be having fun the whole time.
Before, I used to make a set and say "Okay, cool, I made a tidy set" but, was I having fun?
Well, I don't know, I was just standing there looking at the crowd. I just played and went home.
But now, it's pure fun.
Sometimes you fuck up and say "Wow, I fucked up, hope the next one is better."
And you go for the next one, and fuck up again and say "Shit, why do I fuck up?"
Until once you do it right and say "Well, that's good, I'm gonna keep trying with that".
And it's also purely improvisation, we never prepare a set before going anywhere.
It's pretty funny actually.
It always happens that before playing, Chiri will pick me up, he calls me and tells me he's at the door.
And I'm like "No fuck, i didn't prepare my music"
So I run to my stand and start going through my collection and end up selecting the music in two minutes.
I never know what track I'm gonna use to start or close until five minutes before the set.
I go to my bag and check "Okay, what can I start with?"
Because it also depends on how the night is going. Maybe you think it's gonna go somewhere
but then you get to the club and realise everyone is going crazy and why would you change the course of the party if it's already going somewhere.
So it's a bit about arranging and improvising in the moment.
After almost two years, we realised that the market wasn't as open as we expected it to.
And that, if we wanted to show ourselves like we truly are, we need to create our own way.
Detroit Classic Gallery is born in that moment
with the intention of showing our idea on an absolute way, of supporting other artists that see things as we do,
This word game of a Classic Gallery from Detroit, is about that: of supporting a classic sound, which was born in Detroit,
and that aims to be like a library where an artist can store a piece of music and it can be kept and listened in the future.
The current music industry is unfortunately influenced by money.
Unluckily, and not only in music, the market has a great impact.
Not only in how the music is sold, but also in the music itself, what sells and what doesn't, and what that awakens in new producers.
So I believe nowadays there is a lack of creativity, because of paying attention to things that at least for me are not important.
I believe that tendency towards more intellectual or perfect from a technical side Techno, leaves aside creativity.
Maybe producers pay more attention to that, to make it perfect, and leave aside the most beautiful part of it: creativity.
I am convinced that what an artist must have, before anything else, is style.
I believe that if you don't have style, you loose everything.
Why would I want to go see a DJ if I know there are 10.000 more like him or that go in the same way.
We try to create our own path and our own style without checking much what is going on around.
What we want to accomplish is that, in a few years, you hear one of our tracks and say "That's the sound of the guys"
Is it hard? It's the hardest thing.
Is it impossible? No.
I feel that has way more artistic value than just saying "I like this sound, I copy it and that's it".
Because it will end up being just one more record in a huge stand.
I believe the path we are going to walk will just happen by itself.
Little by little, step by step, without thinking much about the future.
Just thinking in the present, doing things for the sake of it.
And let that be what takes you around the world.
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