Seph Interview on Particle Group

Hi Seph, good to see you again. Long time no see, but always a pleasure to meet you in real life, after all the msn chat sessions we had (interviewer knows Seb from childhood and are already good friends for more than 15 years). So it’s your first time in Amsterdam. What’s your first impression of Amsterdam?

It is great, I really like the people. The image people have about legal soft drugs and prostitution is actually so cliché. It’s a shame I can only stay for one day! I would love to explore this city.

Did you have any time to enjoy the city at all?

Not at all actually, I arrived a couple of hours ago and it was raining... I took some pictures though, but I was in quite a rush, so didn’t have time at all to do some sight viewing. But I’m definitely coming back to see more of Amsterdam.

For a young producer you already have quite a milestone on trips to foreign countries. What is the most beautiful and memorable place you have ever been?

Hmmm, well I only started touring this year. But I guess the nicest place was Zurich. The people go mental over there and the city is just so beautiful. Barcelona was also very cool, so were the Canaries. I had very cool gigs in Leeds (mono_cult) and in Munich (Harry Klein). Milan was nice as well and the weirdest place was in Belgium, where the club shut down and we had to make the party in some caves, which was fantastic, because my music is very “cave-orientated..” Can’t wait for my gigs in places like Moscow, Brussels, and Bucharest...

Haha, we didn’t know you were a Caveman. You grew up in England, but are originally from Argentina. Eventually you moved back to Buenos Aires. Is the scene a bit similar over there?

No, not really. The "minimal" scene in Buenos Aires is actually very small. I mean we have great producers, but there aren’t many big parties. All the parties that take place are the ones that me and my friends organise, like for instance the Igloo Nights or Ups! The electronic music scene is on the other hand very big, but it’s mostly just commercial stuff. Richie (Hawtin red.), Magda and Troy (Pierce red.) played a couple of times in Argentina last year. Since then it seems that more and more people are getting attracted to join the minimal scene over there. But the number of people involved in the scene is very, VERY small…

It seems that production wise you're country is making a big swift. In the past Argentina was famous for their progressive house (Hernan Cattaneo red.), nowadays it is becoming more and more linked with minimal. What’s your opinion on this apparently visible and hearable pattern?

First of all I guess this is a development that we all like, haha. But seriously, I think there’s some pretty good stuff coming out of Argentina, especially from places like Buenos Aires, Rosario, Cordoba and Mendoza.

It appears you are part of a group of similar minded artists, like Barem for instance. Could you tell us some more about that group?

Well... We are all linked together in some kind of way.. There are a good number of producers... But there’s not one single group. We like to work together, but Argentina is a very big country and unfortunately we don’t all live in the same house. So it’s impossible for us to be constantly together, but we try to keep each other updated with our music. I guess people like Jorge Savoretti, Dilo, Franco Cinelli, Violett, Lex Dinamo, Funzion, Pablo Denegri, Gurtz, Qik, Barem and Genoud, just to name a few , belong to a new generation of Argentinian musicians. By the way please forgive me if I forget any names! Theres also some very good, more idm-ish Argentinian artists who keep impressing me, like Lega, Minirocke, Mekaz, Imi...

Jorge Savoretti rings a bell. He recently did a remix for our Amsterdam hero Lauhaus. The track is called Play it like a Yorkie.

Yes, it’s a great track. I have also been listening to some of the Polder productions of Lauhaus. It’s fresh and forward thinking electronic music. You can always wake me up for stuff like that. I actually have a production and live duo with Jorge. Its called Geoph Serge (seph and george s...), we have released a record on Dumb Unit and we will be of course on Igloo-rec doing some stuff...Also we have some Geoph Serge dates on this tour, for example in Berlin (15th Floor) and in Bruselles (fuse-lessizmore).

What is the secret behind the success of you guys?

Well I think that the thing that keeps the magic going is that there are always more and more people coming up with great ideas. Besides that we have a lot of fun because most of us are based in Buenos Aires so we can quite easily get together and hang out. There’s for instance one place in Buenos Aires where we always have our afterhours. It’s a house of a friend of mine and we like to call it Aula Magna. Everybody who comes from outside Buenos Aires, plays there. For example last year From Karaoke To Stardom and Seuil played at the Aula Magna. Also i think that the fact that we are so far on a whole different continent helps us get a greater view about whats happening over there, we are not “straight-in” the scene. I think there’s also a bit of concience about the way to make or label music. Minimal, maximal, house, techno, these are things that don’t matter much to us, we just do it. We just like to experiment a lot, without any restrictions, wether its dancefloor peaktime orientated or just normal afterhour quirkyness. I think that’s the only way to get a good artistic development, just not caring about anything.

Ooooh, that sounds nice, well whenever we get the chance to come over, we would love to checkout the Aula Magna and see if it’s Particle proof.

Haha yes, of course you are more than welcome. There’s always a very cool vibe.

What is the funniest thing that happened to you guys while doing a road trip?

Mmm...Let me think....Well me and Dilo were once driving to Rosario and suddenly he was like: "hey partner what’s that smell?" - "hmmm, I don’ smell anything..". 20 minutes later he says: “hey partner, whats that noise?" To which I replied: “noise? Oh yeah...", while in the car driving very, very fast. For safety precautions we stopped and Dilo said: “Check the front, monkey”. Nothing wrong. We also checked the back of the car, just in case. So we decided to drive on. Suddenly 200 meters ahead we hear this insane “BOOM”! Apparently the wheel fell off. I was laughing my ass off, while Dilo was trying to control the car which was moving on one wheel less. It was so hilarious; I could see the wheel running off the car to the cars driving behind us. Luckily nothing happened to us or them. When we stopped the car, we couldn’t believe it, we were in the middle of nowhere on the highway, while cars and trucks were passing by really, really fast. But we had to go to Rosario and play! Eventually we got there, but the whole situation was just so funny.

Haha, well indeed, that must have been quite an insane experience. Do you also experiment with other types of music in your productions?

I work on lots of things. ‘Seph’ is constantly working on more experimental genres, mostly and lately going more down tempo... Kind of dark and hip-hoppy stuff. But I also make other things as well… For example my other project Fes, which is the exact opposite of Seph, is more optimistic, colorful and melodic, dare I say more idm-ish... But Fes hasn’t appeared for a long time, I had a fight with him, if you know what I mean.

Hahaha, please explain?

I just got tired of making that kind of stuff. Fes will eventually come back, but then stronger and more mature. But not for now, he’s in some sort of Exile.

Did the dark side of your personality win the battle?

Yes, the dark side won. Especially now that I’m into making more down tempo stuff. It’s like Seph came up and said: "hey little kid get out of there, you have nothing to do here now.”

Haha, well that’s always good to hear. Particle loves the ‘Dark Side’. We have this funny saying: "We flirt with the darkside". But back to your music, in some of your live sets we heard some crazy piano stuff. Are these improvisations?

Haha, no! You didn’t hear piano improvisations. You heard proper piano stuff from new Seph tracks... Coming out soon... I’ve always played piano and it was about time that it started to develop a role in my productions and live sets as well. But I guess you ask this because maybe youve heard some piano improvisations of mine... Its just more classical, freestyle, and more emotional pieces, kind of impressionist, in a Eric Satie form... In these I just press record and play what comes to my mind. When i stop recording, if there are errors in the piece, they just stay there, that’s the rule...

Will it be released on a label?

No, not for the time being. But there will be some Seph-piano stuff released soon on ‘igloo-rec’. And piano and other instruments will start appearing in new tracks..

Okay cool, looking forward to hear it. By the way, does the word "buenissima" ring a bell?

Hahaha, yes...why?

Well one of our crew members has visited Argentina for a couple of times and he speaks very good Spanish. He said I should mention it. But as you can understand I know f*ck all what it means. When do you use the word?

Buenissima! aaah! I know what you mean haha, it’s what you say when you see a girl that is hot! But also for other things… Basically it means very good!

What’s your most favorite track that you produced?

Hmmm, im not a big fan of my music... But I think Schinn on Wooden EP (Phonocult records) is one of my best tracks. I made some very cool sounds which I haven’t been able to make since then... But there’s also some nice things coming soon on Hometown Music...

Phonocult! It’s a spot on label. They’re from The Hague. Good guys, contribute a lot to the Dutch minimal scene. How did you get signed?

Well the guys contacted me after Barem and Bruno Pronsato talked to them about me... And then I just sent them tracks that I was making.

Why do you produce on so many different labels?

Actually I’m not in so many anymore. I’m trying to narrow down the number of labels that I released on. But during the beginning of my career I just had so much music that I wanted to release. So I just passed it all around the globe. But my main platform at the moment is igloo-rec and Hometown Music, which is Dario Zenker’s label.

By the way, is igloo-rec your own label?

No, it’s Dilo´s label. But I help him out sometimes with the artistic stuff. It’s an mp3 label which might switch over to vinyl as well very soon.

Do you have any other artistic stuff you do besides music?

Yes, I study Electronic Arts in Buenos Aires. It involves audiovisual structures, music production, sound design, audiovisual shows and multimedia projects...

Do you use this material during your live sets?

Sometimes yes, in fact some works I did for university find themselves in my sets... Mainly because of their darkness and their experimental nature.

Haha, here we go again. You keep on mentioning the darkness. Is there a chance that you are maybe naturally a dark person?

Haha, No! I don’t think so. Maybe in some ways though. I mean, there has to be a reason why I’m always looking for deeper and darker stuff. But I think im a sunny guy. In Argentina everyone knows me as the dark boy: "oh Seph, why does everything have to be so dark, why everything BLACK??!!" It’s just that I like the dark aesthetic; I like dissonance more than assonance I suppose.

Could you please explain that?

Well, what I’m trying to say is that I’m doing dark sounds and stuff, because of the infinite unexplored nature of it. If you for instance make a parallelism to images, flowers would be nice to paint...But they are there, and they are already beautiful. I would have more fun in painting mysterious things, stuff that we don’t know about. Or use new colors that we don’t have a clue of. Basically it comes down to this: “I like deepness”.

Okay, fair play. Unfortunately we have to wrap up the conversation. As always we come with the final question which is made by another artist. We interviewed Marc Houle before you. So here’s a question from Marc for you: “Hi Seph, Would you rather want to be in bed with a Juno-60 or a supermodel? And please explain why?”

Hahaha, damn what a hard choice! I guess I’d have to go for the Juno-60, because I can use it for music and besides that, also use it to flash with it to get girls. But it has no midi, however a supermodel doesn’t have one either...Or....Does she?

Haha, good answer. Next week we will interview Marc Resman aKa dj Phage. He is the technical wizard behind lots of Mobilee releases of for instance Sebo K and Anja Schneider. Next to that he’s also part of the Pan Pot production team and has series of good solo productions released on Klang Electronic, Sender and Highgrade. You are allowed to make up a question for him.

I love Pan Pot! Amazing tunes. Mmm, well ask them what the craziest situation they were in while making a track.

Good question. We’ll let you know what his answer was. Good luck on stage and make the crowd go mental!

Haha, thanks. Hope you enjoy listening to my ghosts.