INTERVIEW: DIEGO MONTIEL
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We have had the pleasure of interviewing the dj and promoter Diego Montiel.
How would you present your work to someone who doesn’t know you?
I would say that it is a very traditional E.P, where the original tracks have been created in waves, that is, one day I made a percussive base, then I have waited for the bass base to come to my mind naturally and without forcing, then the lines of Synthesizers and so progressively until they have been finished! Likewise, with the remixes, one has been composed with all the calm in the world months ago and the other more recently, the latter having some updates, until it gradually reached its final state.
And your last job? Where is it born from? And where do you want to lead?
I want to get people to listen to it, dance to it, or find it on a playlist of one of their favorite artists, and in addition to enjoying it, see the title of the track and when they see a strange name as the title of the song, look for it in internet and find out that it is a Spark-gap (A discovery of the 19th century, reused by Nikola Tesla, which can revolutionize medicine and various other fields of science in general) or come into contact with the concept of Double Torus (a structure found in all structures in the universe)
What message would you like to convey to the public?
The message that electronic music has delivered to me, being able to transmit my week or my experience dancing to music that facilitates that task!!
How did your last project come about?
It arose from the fact that I wanted to give something interesting to three of my favorite artists so that they could remix at will!
What do you want to transmit in this work? What is the concept behind this?
Well, as I mentioned before, the fact that people become familiar with the concepts that the names of the Tracks imply and help people enjoy a good time on the dance floor or at home!!
As for your studio, what is it currently made up of?
I currently have an Iclone brand computer, with thousands of PlugIns, although the ones I use the most are the Wave package, the Valhalla reverbs, the BringWorks Stereo Maker from Plugin Alliance, and several other native Ableton LIve plugins, all of them to touch up the sound, and to compose he produced the Roland TR-8 drum machine and the Roland TB-03 synthesizer, the Minilogue XD polyphonic synthesizer, and the Arturia Microbrute monophonic synthesizer, the electric guitar with which I put some Power chords, which I later tweaked with the Native Instruments Guitar Rig Plugin, a Rode NT1 Condenser microphone for vocals, and for monitoring I use Focal Alpha 80 speakers and AKG mixing headphones.
What is the one instrument you will never get rid of, no matter what?
The microphone and the guitar, since when I’m stressed I start fooling around with the guitar and invent a Riff and sing a few words over it in English or Spanish! That at home is the same without being in the studio! If something good comes out, he recorded it with the iPhone sound recording app and I keep it as a reference for future work!
The relationship with electronic music is also changing. There are more and more djs and producers and fewer spectators. Don’t you sometimes feel, when producing, that you need tools for djs more than pieces to be heard? How do you see the future of this industry? Where do you think we’re going?
Well, as a good guru, since I have seen many of my ideas and concepts and/or predictions come true by my students and/or colleagues… I think that just as it happened in rock today, your sound project, whether it is a party, a label, Either you as an artist must include a little or a lot of acting to reach the top!
Be it by having an aesthetic feature or adding a show to your own performance or to the events of your brand or your record label!
Do you think that the identity that a dj/producer/artist presents on the networks is increasingly essential when it comes to being selected by promoters? How do you assess this situation?
Yes, unquestionably, as it happens to all of us most of the time things enter through the eyes and then through the other senses, you have to be good first of all but also add the visually different Factor to attract attention! This factor is given in the videos they propose, in the graphics that accompany your work or the clothing at the time of your presentation!
In an overly saturated market, how would you advise someone looking to express themselves creatively in music culture?
Connection with the inner source, listen and pay close attention to how other artists do, let that settle in your mind and then look inside to create and be able to be similar to others, but also original!
Do you think that in the music industry there is an open door for the most disadvantaged?
Yes, I think so, today more than ever, anyone who wants to be able to express themselves can get a computer that more or less processes any kind of music production program and comes up with a decent product.
The last thing you’ve shazem?
A track from Hamsa International – Endless M.I.E.F. What a DJ ND_Baumeker (Resident of Berghain/Panorama bar) at the last party of my label in the Upload room in Barcelona, I thought it was quite out of the ordinary and people were enjoying it with their hands up!
Last set that really impressed you?
Well, that’s a difficult task haha, after so many club nights as Manager of This Side UP and having seen and heard from the most underground trap to the most rave industrial techno! And that nothing managed to attract attention, I came to think that it would never happen again, until finally in the last edition of the Sónar Festival in BCN the Chemical Brothers got it, honestly I did not expect it and these musical geniuses with their reversions of their own Tracks, formulated a few decades behind they succeeded!! I have seen people of all ages vibrating and jumping with these excellent multidisciplinary artists, and I say this because their show is not only musically impressive but the whole context in which they have immersed the public through their visual material is simply great!!
The best thing about working in music?
To have the possibility of living what I like!
The most difficult challenge of working in music?
Being true and having the financial back or the moral will to make a living from music without giving up and doing other styles that are in fashion to have more work!!
The biggest disappointment in your career? How did you get over that?
The fact that during the pandemic the government of the country where I live in Spain did not give me any kind of help to keep music alive, and that seemed very disappointing to me, since I think that music is very necessary in our lives, when you are totally devastated you take refuge in music whether you are a musician or not, when you need to relax you lean on music, when you want to have fun you do it with music, but when the pandemic happened most governments turned their heads in other ways and abandoned to the musicians to the good ones From God!
The last time you stayed in a club until the lights came on?
Haha, as I mentioned before, I have been the Manager of one of the most convincing and renowned electronic music cycles of the last decade in the city of Barcelona “This Side UP”, located in the center of the city, for which I stayed until the end countless times, most of them enjoying the artists together in the booth or closing the party haha
Who has been the most inspiring person you have worked with?
Damon Jee, Ademarr, and Stephan Barnem.
Your stamps of the moment?
Well all the classics of my sound like:
Roam, Ombrainternacional, Slow Motion, Correspondent, Rotten City, etc.
And newer ones like:
SUW, label of which I am founder and Manager, Critical Mondays, Dream House Recording, Dischi Autuunno, Logical Records, Bonkers records, etc.