Matias Aguayo

Gerd Janson

So, welcome to the first lecture of today. The gentleman here goes by the name of Matias Aguayo, has been working on music since the ’90s, was born in Santiago de Chile, grew up in Santiago de Gummersbach, near Cologne. His biography is as idiosyncratic as the music he tends to make, which ranges from very delicate electronic love songs to heavy rhythmic patterns. We will hear about that now. Please give him a warm welcome.

[applause]

So, Matias, before we hear one of your tracks, can you run us through your interesting biography? How did you come from Santiago de Chile to Cologne?

Matias Aguayo

Well, like many of the Chilean people who live in Europe, or Chilean descendants, I was born in Chile in Santiago, and my parents had to leave the country because of political reasons. They were exiled in Germany. That’s why I grew up for a big part of my life in Germany. Nevertheless, I also lived in Peru and Argentina and later in France. But I think the place where I spent the longest time in my life continuously was definitely Cologne in Germany.

Gerd Janson

And that’s where you started getting interested in music, in Cologne?

Matias Aguayo

No, not really, I was always doing music or related to music somehow. But in Cologne there was the possibility of really doing it in a way where somebody would listen to it and getting it to people interested in music. I see a lot of continuity in my life considering the process of music making – especially continuity in the idea of recording, because I had this small boombox when I was a child and I could record with it, and once I realized there was a possibility of recording, that’s when everything started.

Gerd Janson

And how old were you when you came to Cologne?

Matias Aguayo

I think when I came to Cologne I was a teenager.

Gerd Janson

Already? Maybe you can talk us through the music scene that you found there.

Matias Aguayo

Yes, it was the ’90s and it was a very active scene and very revolutionary for us at that moment.

Gerd Janson

We’re talking about what genre?

Matias Aguayo

House music. And a lot of these people are still doing music today, at that time in a less organized way. But the people I still collaborate with today, on the one hand the people of Kompakt in Cologne, who were already in a music context at that time, when it was not yet called Kompakt; but also these people who are participating in Cómeme, the label we’re doing now, such as Christian S. So, there is a long story there and I think one can say it maybe starts in Cologne.

Gerd Janson

You mentioned Kompakt. When you got to Cologne they were still working at the record shop called Delirium probably, right?

Matias Aguayo

Yes.

Gerd Janson

So, maybe for people who aren’t familiar with Kompakt can you talk a bit about that?

Matias Aguayo

Kompakt is a label that started with Delirium Records. I think the most important people are Mike Ink (Wolfgang Voigt), Michael Mayer. They were already releasing at the time they were at Delirium Records in Cologne, they were already releasing music on different smaller labels they were doing themselves, like Profan and stuff. And this was something that was soon associated with a sound of Cologne, which was a certain groove, a certain rhythm. It would very soon be called minimalism, but I think it’s a bit of a mistake. It’s more that people in Cologne with their means were trying to do house music, but the result was something else because obviously they didn’t have the same means and musical education and background and so on. So, in this thing, there was always this idea of fun and also romanticism or pop in this context of musicians.

Gerd Janson

It was also called schaffel techno, right?

Matias Aguayo

Yeah, it was called schaffel techno but I think it’s misleading. I would call it boogie because it’s... [imitates a beat] It’s also a shuffle in a way but that’s another topic, it’s not so interesting maybe. But this was the context in which I came to Cologne and I heard DJs like Michael Mayer who was playing a lot of DJ Pierre, like Wild Pitch house music. This is where I found everything together. In techno music or house music, the possibility, having this background, being an alien, coming from somewhere else, but growing up there, speaking two languages, not fully belonging here but not fully belonging there. So, I think for displaced people, techno or electronic music was a very good place to be because the background, the context and everything were less clear and it was more open.

Gerd Janson

Also, because it had no vocals… less messages in a way?

Matias Aguayo

Yeah, but also because it combined something that wasn’t combined before in a way, which was the groove. That’s something we grow up with when you come from Latin America, and, on the other hand, the electronics, the modernism and all that. That’s two things at the same time – the new wavey darkness with the celebration. These are things one has inside and, in a way, there was not a possibility to have both at the same time. That’s the impression I get. It was a very good moment. In the context of Cologne we started, together with a friend called Dirk Leyers, this project called Closer Musik. That was the end of the ’90s and obviously the sound we did was not the typical Cologne sound. So, I never thought of the possibility that we could really release it on Kompakt, but I played it to them so they could maybe give me an idea of where to release it. But they liked it very much and it was also the first 12” that didn’t have these dots. Kompakt had a very straight kind of minimal line of music that was a bit more serious and the design was very standardized. But we did something completely different, and that was the beginning of getting heard.

Gerd Janson

Was it on purpose that you didn’t do a Kompakt “dot” record?

Matias Aguayo

No, Dirk and me, we wanted to do this record with the astronaut on top and whatever. With all this, this is what we want, where can we do it? And Mike said you can do it on Kompakt. “Really?” But yeah, that’s how it started.

Gerd Janson

Let’s hear it.

(music: Closer Musik – “One, Two, Three (No Gravity)” / applause)

Matias Aguayo

Thank you very much. Dirk’s nice guitar part comes a little bit later. It was funny how we recorded this track, because we recorded it with two Commodore Amigas and each one on the program we were using was a program called Sonics, and each program had only four tracks. So with two Commodore Amigas, we had the possibility of eight tracks. Apart from that we didn’t have an artist recording system or something, so we had to record it all in one take. Dirk is playing the guitar as you heard, and I’m singing. Also, we couldn’t use the delays at the same time, because there was only one effect, which we used for Dirk, and I had to sing the delay myself because I had no effect on my voice. I think until today reducing the possibilities of how you work is always very stimulating for the creative process. Especially when we’re doing electronic music production, I think all these technical possibilities – when they’re called possibilities – they can keep us very far from expressing ourselves, because they become obstacles. Suddenly, you can start concentrating on details, whereas the main idea, which I think is the most important thing, gets lost a little bit.

Gerd Janson

So, you don’t collect lots of vintage drum machines, modular synth systems and reel-to-reel tapes?

Matias Aguayo

No, not so much. I have some stuff. I think it’s also possible. But I think it’s important to focus somehow. If you have that stuff you can also focus on that stuff, but I think if we jump now to a more recent work, which is my album [Ay Ay Ay]… I’ll give you some examples there – I did almost everything with my voice. It’s also not a conceptual thing, but more a thing of how do I want to work? What set-up can I work with, in the sense that I can make the way as short as possible between the inspiration and the idea and the final result?

Gerd Janson

So, when you say you did a lot of it with your voice, that includes the rhythms and basslines? How did you do that… just record certain noises?

Matias Aguayo

Yeah, there’s not an instrument I really play well. I would consider myself a singer, that’s my best instrument. So, when I have the idea for a bassline or a rhythm, the easiest thing for me is to sing it first of all. Also, I think when I play a keyboard it’s not so good, it becomes too much of a cliché. When I sing it’s a little bit more original, so I prefer to develop melodies and harmonies with my voice. Sometimes I decide to replace it with a synth bassline or something. But, for me, the easiest thing is to develop things like that, because this is something I think one should always focus on the skills one has and I have them more in singing than in playing.

Gerd Janson

What did you mean by piano cliché, when you play the keys?

Matias Aguayo

I don’t know, it’s not… I play, but I don’t play well.

Gerd Janson

Because we were just talking about it, do you want to show us something quickly from the Ay Ay Ay album?

Matias Aguayo

Wait a second.

(music: Matias Aguayo – “Ay Shit – The Master” / applause)

Matias Aguayo

And I’ll play a little bit of another one so you have another idea of it.

(music: Matias Aguayo – “Ritmo Juarez” / applause)

Matias Aguayo

OK, just another example from Ay Ay Ay.

Gerd Janson

This is again very different for a label like Kompakt.

Matias Aguayo

Yes, it’s also quite a change, because we’ve jumped 10 years or something. I don’t know, with Kompakt it’s a very special relationship, because they’ve always given me all the possible liberty to do whatever I like. This is not a typical record for a German music electronic label.

Gerd Janson

So that’s important for an artist, that you can work with a label over a long period of time and they trust you, you can trust them?

Matias Aguayo

Yes. I think there is this continuity of working with one team, for me at least is super-good. These are people I can fully trust, it’s family. If, musically, I’m in a weird position there, it’s very helpful because, first of all, it’s people I appreciate a lot. They were always very helpful and very straightforward. It’s trust in common. They also trust me and my decisions, whatever they are, and obviously when I sent them this record it was some weeks of silence… “Yeah, yeah, we’ll do it.” They were a bit shocked about it but on the other hand they also trusted me, that there was a reason why I was doing it that way. This was possible because I’ve worked with them so long, so they also have gained this confidence.

Gerd Janson

You spoke about the jump of 10 years between Closer Musik, “One, Two, Three (No Gravity)” and your Ay Ay Ay album. What happened in those 10 years for you? Closer Musik folded as a project, right?

Matias Aguayo

Yeah, we did some other tracks and toured a lot together. But you know how it is with bands – when you’re playing so much together at some point you develop artistically into different directions. So, this project stopped at some point. There’s a lot of musical story and background to tell. All this time, after Closer Musik, where Christian S and I did these Lost parties, which were very important for our musical development, being resident DJs.

Gerd Janson

Why were they called Lost?

Matias Aguayo

I don’t remember. Why were they called Lost? Oh yeah, actually it had a bit to do with the fact that all this music thing became a bit more professionalized and suddenly there were all these genres we didn’t like. There was a bit of dissatisfaction with the music that was surrounding us. It was losing the groove that was one of the reasons why we liked it. It was losing also the craziness. At that point, electronic music started to sound a little bit more normal, a little bit more standardized. Our parties were a little bit lost in that context. So, also, when I did the album Are You Really Lost?, that is very much related to this period. It was also dedicated to all the very talented people who didn’t have so much luck in their things, because suddenly there were all these new, very geeky people with a lot of ambitions and will to develop careers, but there was something missing here [indicates his heart]. There was something where we developed this context to make the music for the people who didn’t make it somehow, who were often very talented people. As electronic music is produced on computers and in kind of offices, it can happen that it’s the more ambitious, the more professional, that gain success. But it’s sad, because you can hear it in the music – it sounds like it was done in an office, it sounds cold. It doesn’t have the same necessity or the same strength that some revolutionary music has. So, Lost was a bit opposing to that.

Gerd Janson

What kind of music did you play there?

Matias Aguayo

We had our references in many different things and I think what we’re doing today with Cómeme is like an extension of that. It’s developing that further and further, so the idea of not belonging to a genre, not playing only one kind of music in one night, but to create a feeling that goes through the whole night, to develop this magic somehow. To avoid the standards, to avoid the genres where someone can say “this is this and this is that,” because that’s where it starts to get boring. When I started listening to electronic music, the deepest impact for me was the fact that suddenly a lot of different music could stand together and be played together and suddenly make a totally different sense, and then one would go to hear stuff that nobody knows. So, this was the initial point and, in that way, nothing has changed. We’re still looking for that in the context of the people I’m doing music with.

Gerd Janson

Was that also something that happened to Kompakt, that all of a sudden it was a genre and people were placing it into one corner?

Matias Aguayo

That’s not my position to judge these things in that way, to make an analysis of what these or other people are doing. I also think that, for an artist, it’s important to not fall into these evil things of having to contextualize yourself and explain yourself or relate to musical movements.

Gerd Janson

But you also left Cologne, right?

Matias Aguayo

Yes, I went first to Buenos Aires. I was starting to go back and forth between Cologne and Buenos Aires. I was often in Buenos Aires, and with people there we started to create free spaces of creation that we called Juventud Clandestina.

Gerd Janson

What’s that in English?

Matias Aguayo

“Juventud” is youth and “clandestina” is clandestine. Clandestine youth, then. So, it was open spaces where we worked with some artists and musicians. It involved many people from Buenos Aires but also some from Cologne. Christian also came to these things. We had Sarah Szczesny, who was doing the artwork for Closer Musik, Fernanda Laguna, Pablo Castoldi, Gary Pimiento, a lot of people from the Buenos Aires art and music scene… We were doing these parties and these things. When I got to Buenos Aires the first time with Dirk, there was some idea, some feeling in common. To me, it felt like home. They were very related to what we were doing in Cologne, and, on the other hand, I had this South American background, so it fitted very well at that moment. So, I stayed there for some time. But then I went back to Cologne, then I went back there again, and I was living for some time between Paris and Buenos Aires.

Gerd Janson

All of this gave you another creative push in your music?

Matias Aguayo

Of course. I don’t like so much the idea of searching for solutions in music creation, but more the idea of creating conditions under which one finds solutions. So, the street parties we did in Buenos Aires later on are a very good example of this. We did the parties for free on the street and we had to deal with an audience that is completely different from the one we already knew. In the clubs, we had a very standardized audience. It’s a specific age, maybe a specific social class, specific people with specific interests. So, you’re talking to someone who’s maybe taking part in a certain discussion in a certain context. When you’re on the street, you’re playing to people who have no idea what they’re listening to. This is musically a very inspiring process, it opens you, you suddenly have to speak another language. This very club-oriented language is like a discussion that occurs within a certain specific genre or scene. It’s something that people who stand outside cannot understand. Suddenly you have some kids, some friends, some old people and you somehow want to make them dance. And that’s the challenge.

Gerd Janson

So, what did you do to make them dance?

Matias Aguayo

We realized that you have to develop skills. As a DJ you develop skills in clubs, no? You start learning how to make people dance, what music you can play at what moment, the relationship to the soundsystem. You hear stuff and think this will work very well in a club. So, you have to develop some skills for these parties. Then we realized it needed more melodies, it needed more percussion, it needed more changes of rhythm. It couldn’t be [makes a beat] for two hours, of course, or people would leave. I always try to create situations that somehow inspire the music, because I think you can’t put so much into music by yourself, because music is such a big language. It has so much more story than you, that it will tell more about yourself than it will really reflect your intentions. If you’re really like this musician/office worker and try to do really crazy stuff, it won’t sound very crazy if you’re not really a crazy person. Music talks more about you than what you want to put into the music, I guess.

Gerd Janson

You were talking about more melody, more percussion, more rhythm changes. That’s also what you’re doing with Cómeme, right?

Matias Aguayo

Of course. This was very inspiring for that musical process. We suddenly realized we’re playing music on the street and we’re playing cumbia songs and we’re playing reggaeton, and we’re playing old house music and some old techno tunes. There wasn’t really a reference with what we were doing as musicians ourselves, so we started to do the music for these parties and in that process of music-making, the ones who started were Rebolledo, who was also playing here yesterday, and Diegors, especially. You can hear it obviously in the result.

Gerd Janson

And what does Cómeme mean?

Matias Aguayo

Cómeme – the stress is on the “o” – if I translate it directly it means “eat me.” But it’s obviously a little bit of a nasty thing to say. It’s like “Give it to me” or something like that.

Gerd Janson

Do you have something?

Matias Aguayo

Of course. Maybe I’ll play one of the classics [laughs]. I’ll play Rebolledo with me on the vocals, the track called “Pitaya Frenesi.” Here it is.

(music: Rebolledo – “Pitaya Frenesí” / applause)

Matias Aguayo

So that’s one example of Cómeme and here’s another one, Diegors.

(music: Diegors – unknown / applause)

So I’ll quickly go through some other examples of Cómeme rhythms, like “Pata Pata,” a rhythm I did together with Lerato

(music: Matias Aguayo feat. Lerato – “Pata Pata”)

So that is Lerato. The last example for getting a bit of an overview of Cómeme, we’ll play “Mugre” by young Ana Helder, who is also participating here.

(music: Ana Helder – “Mugre” / applause)

As you see, it is reflected somehow in the directness of the music and not so much the idea of the author being in his thing, not so much this introspective thing but something that is ready to share.

Gerd Janson

Ana’s track sounded a little like a jack track from Chicago.

Matias Aguayo

I think there’s a lot of inspiration in a lot of music that we have heard in that context. Often it is music that is maybe not the most modern, but for sure there’s a reference in old house music.

Gerd Janson

You took the parties also outside of Buenos Aires.

Matias Aguayo

Yeah, we did them a lot; we did them in Buenos Aires, we did one in Asunción in Paraguay. We did them in Santiago. We did them in Medellín, Colombia and we did two in Europe, or three.

Gerd Janson

Is this also where you find artists for the label?

Matias Aguayo

Most of the artists of the label, it’s very complex how they appeared. Some are like old friends, and DJs like Christian S, Coco Del Bay. It wasn’t only people from South America, but also people from Cologne. Rebolledo I got to know through my travels in Mexico. Diegors I got to know when I went to Chile for a musical exchange project. This is six years ago or something. The Cologne people I’ve known for ages. Ana, for instance, was completely different, that was when we were still very active on MySpace. Nowadays, we’re not using that so much, but when we started the label – and this is maybe interesting to tell – we didn’t really exist as a label. There wasn’t really an idea to sell vinyl or whatever, so we just pretended as if we were a label and just put that on MySpace. We made small movies of records turning – you can find them on YouTube – where we filmed records that didn’t really exist. So, we pretended as if label existed already, we’ve got all these records. Then suddenly we’d get all these requests, “Where can I buy this vinyl? Is it on 7”?” When we got these requests, we realized, “OK, let’s put them out for real.” So, this is an interesting moment. With the example of Ana Helder and how we got to know her, she was one of the followers of the label from the beginning on the page. We were investigating what music these people were doing, and there was one track that Rebolledo and me liked a lot. We wrote to Ana, and that’s how she came into this thing. In other cases, it’s like some musician brings in a friend, “I’ve done a collaboration with this guy.” In the case of Rebolledo and Daniel Maloso, that’s how they suddenly appeared.

Gerd Janson

And do you get a lot of strange demos by people who wouldn’t fit at all, but they still send it?

Matias Aguayo

Yes, of course. We get demos that really have nothing to do with what we do. I have the impression some people send demos to 50 labels.

Gerd Janson

Some of them do, for sure. Did you travel with the soundsystem to all these places like a reggae soundsystem would do?

Matias Aguayo

It was a little bit smaller than a reggae soundsystem, because the idea was always doing the parties in the middle of the city. You can’t just show up with a huge [PA]. It was a system made by lots of boomboxes put all together. But I organized these tours with the Cómeme artists through Europe, three of them, but that was more going from venue to venue. We tried not only to have the club – not that I don’t like clubs, I love them – but also to play in spaces that are a little bit alternative.

Gerd Janson

And in those public spaces you never got into trouble with the authorities?

Matias Aguayo

Of course… Of course we got into trouble, but that’s also part of the fun. It’s also a little bit like you test something, you test how much freedom you’ve got for real. If you’re dancing on the street, once you’re doing that, it’s normal. It should be a normal part of human rights, but you realize that it’s not. So, it’s an interesting moment in life to realize that. It’s different from cities to cities. In Buenos Aires, we didn’t have much trouble in the beginning with that. The format is very weird. There’s two policemen, they’d go down the road, and suddenly there’s 50 people dancing on the street corner. What should they do? Is this legal? In Chile it was a little bit more hardcore. After us dancing for four hours, so it was OK, the police came with motorbikes and kicked us out of the place. We couldn’t do this in London probably, we’d last for 10 seconds.

Gerd Janson

But you never ended up in prison?

Matias Aguayo

No [laughs].

Gerd Janson

And got fined?

Matias Aguayo

No, nothing.

Gerd Janson

They just wanted you to stop.

Matias Aguayo

Yes.

Gerd Janson

That’s fine then. It’s fine not to be fined. You spoke of freedom. Do you also need the freedom of traveling and living in certain places to make music these days? Or can you see yourself staying in one place for 10 years? You have quite a nomadic lifestyle.

Matias Aguayo

I’m kind of forced into having a nomadic lifestyle. I sometimes wish I would stay for 10 years in one place. For me, it’s a little bit difficult. We people who are exiled Chileans with an emigration background, we always have this problem. You’re born somewhere, you grew up somewhere else, but you still have your family where you were born and then you go back and when you’re there you miss your friends in Germany; when you’re in Germany you miss your friends in South America. In the end, it’s just fate. I have to travel. If I stay here I’ll be missing something there. So, my situation is a little bit weird, but doing something with Cómeme or collaborations with musicians beyond Cómeme is a possibility to keep it… no, I brought my South American friends to Cologne and now my Cologne friends are friends with people from Chile or Argentina. This is a way of keeping a balance and feeling at home in both places.

Gerd Janson

Do you also feel like a bit of a father figure for all of this? You’re the guy who started the label and you have all these people around you, you travel with them, you have to take responsibility.

Matias Aguayo

[Laughs] Responsibility is something that’s very difficult to take. I can’t say so much about it. It’s a huge kindergarten of a lot of people you have to take from one place to another, and it’s a lot of fun and you also get back a lot of energy from it.

Gerd Janson

There’s another episode in your life that has to do with your record collection, which for some people is maybe the worst nightmare ever.

Matias Aguayo

He is talking about that once when my flat burned down when I wasn’t there and I lost all my records.

Gerd Janson

And you started to buy them all again?

Matias Aguayo

No, that’s impossible because most of the records don’t exist any more. No, I think the imagination of that happening to you is much worse than if it really happens to you. I think that having heartache is much worse than a flat burning down. Once the stuff was not there any more and I just had this bag, it was also cool. It was a good way of being able to travel so much without so much weight. I had this room full of records and full of stuff, and full of memories that also can become a weight. It was so messy, I’d never have been able to clean it up. So, it was OK, it wasn’t so dramatic. But it was also an impulse for making music, for doing things. Some records I didn’t find, so I tried to remember how they were and did something similar. Every situation in life, you have to try to turn it into an inspiration somehow.

Gerd Janson

So, it rather freed you up then?

Matias Aguayo

Yes, of course.

Gerd Janson

Maybe we should listen to another of your recent tracks. The most recent thing, maybe?

Matias Aguayo

The most recent thing is obviously unreleased.

Gerd Janson

That’d be nice.

Matias Aguayo

I’ll play just a few rhythms for you. Unreleased rhythms, just to explain my way of working. Sometimes I just do the rhythms and then I improvise on top. When I DJ, I sometimes have trumpets and this effect thing to loop my voice, so I often just play rhythms and I sing on top while playing. From gig to gig I try to develop something and this is how I develop some ideas. It’s just loops, just rhythms, so you’ll get an idea.

(music: Matias Aguayo – unknown)

So, for instance, I’ll play this and then sing something on top, play some percussion on top, maybe some keyboards. But this is just one idea.

(music: Matias Aguayo – unknown)

Actually, what I did now, because I’m traveling again to South America the day after tomorrow, and I will tour there a lot, so I’ve spent the last few weeks mixing down rhythms so I can play them and, while I do all these gigs during the travel, I hope to find solutions, to sing on them or whatever. I sometimes find the situation of playing is more helpful for me to get idea than the situation of sitting in the studio at home.

(music: Matias Aguayo – unknown / applause)

Just quickly through some other rhythms.

(music: Matias Aguayo – unknown)

This is just to give you a few examples of what I’m working on [applause]. Thank you.

Gerd Janson

So, these days you basically have to work on the road?

Matias Aguayo

I’m kind of forced to, because I’m steady touring at the moment. But I hope to create a situation where I can stay in one place for some time.

Gerd Janson

Do you still have a studio?

Matias Aguayo

Yes, I have a studio.

Gerd Janson

And how often are you there?

Matias Aguayo

Now it’s quite often, because I was finishing all this stuff.

Gerd Janson

And maybe we should open it up for a few questions.

Audience member

Hello. So, you say you think you’re more of a singer, that’s how you find your ideas, it’s easier for you to sing them. The most frustrating thing when you find you work on something and you have this idea and five minutes later you’ve forgotten it and you’re, “I had it.” I don’t know if this has happened to you or if you managed to remember them. If you don’t, how do you write them down? How do you collect all your ideas?

Matias Aguayo

On the one hand I think I have quite a good memory for these ideas, but some also get lost. I record a lot with the microphone. Also when I’m traveling I have a small recording device. Nowadays you can record on your phone or whatever, but to not forget the stuff it’s cool to have something. If you’re able to write on sheets and notes and stuff, you can do that.

Audience member

Do you think you won’t forget the really good ideas or do you think you have to catch them?

Matias Aguayo

No, I’m not afraid of losing them, I think I have trust in music that somehow it’ll speak itself. So no, not really.

Audience member

What was it like to work with the band Battles?

Matias Aguayo

That was a lot of fun. It was a very new experience for me, obviously. The music they do is nothing to do with what I would do normally. At some point, they had this idea of bringing different singers onto their album. It was a lot of fun. I had this opportunity to play with them and it was very nice to play with such skilled musicians on a stage. It was interesting, I didn’t know their music at all, and then suddenly I had this song and had to figure out something about it. I did something that I thought maybe they’d find it a little bit too crazy. They got back to me and said they’d like it even a little more crazy. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Some very good musicians and very nice people.

Gerd Janson

Do you have it with you?

Matias Aguayo

Unfortunately not. We should have thought about that. The song’s called “Ice Cream” by Battles, for anyone who wants to do some research afterwards.

Audience member

Like the popular music, we usually listen to jazz, pop, electronic. It usually comes from countries like the United States, the UK, or Germany if we’re talking about electronic. But you find a way to mix that with your roots and the music you heard when you were a kid and how you feel about rhythms. Was it hard in the beginning? It feels like a really authentic thing, and it doesn’t feel like that when some other Latin artists are trying to do music that was originally developed in a different culture. I’m just wondering if when you were starting that’s something you were conscious of or just happened.

Matias Aguayo

I try to avoid this conceptual or conscious thing of mixing styles. The most honest way is just to make music, and then in the result you’ll hear the influences, of course. I never liked the idea of fusion, like say, of doing tango music with electronic beats or something. I’ve never found that an interesting approach and I think it’s more a natural result of having spent a lot of time there, having the background, having traveled there. I would never sit down and say, “I will do a cumbia song.” First of all, I can’t do it because it’s other people who know how to do it for real. But it can happen that I’ll do a track and then afterwards I’ll notice it, “Oh, I can hear a bit of the influence. I’ve been listening to Andres Landero records around that time and, OK, you can hear it.” But I’d always try to avoid the conceptual thing, I don’t like it so much.

Audience member

Yesterday, you finished your DJ set singing your “Minimal” track. Can you tell us more about the track?

Matias Aguayo

This track was called “Minimal.” Maybe I can play just a little bit of it? I’m sure not everybody knows it. It’s actually a very silly song and [looks at laptop]… Oh, it’s not here, it’s here. This is a song I recorded with a friend. We were having fun at home and I was singing this song where I was playing about the dullness of minimal techno and that I want to dance to another rhythm that is deeper, more sensual, whatever. I think some people took it as a political statement but it’s not so serious.

(music: Matias Aguayo – “Minimal” / applause)

Matias Aguayo

We made this song and it had an impact somehow. The remix is more famous than this version.

Audience member

Did you choose DJ Koze for the mix or was it the label?

Matias Aguayo

I don’t remember, I think it was an idea in common. It’s not so much my style. I prefer this version, of course. But, yeah, it’s cool. Yesterday, there were a lot of people asking me to play this song. I’ve played it very often and I don’t like to play it so much any more. But on the other hand I think you’re doing this for the people on the dancefloor, not doing it for yourself. So if they really want it I will sing it. But I’ll sing it in another version, or sing it a capella or sing it on another rhythm. If people ask for it then it’s a nice gesture to give it.

Gerd Janson

You mentioned it was taken as a political statement by a lot of people. Is that something you’re interested in, making a political statement from time to time?

Matias Aguayo

I think a political statement can be interesting in the way you work. How do you distribute your music, how do you relate with music? The idea of doing parties on the street is also a political statement. But, come on! Doing “Minimal,” we did this track and then it came out and there was this huge impact on – how do you say it? – forums.

Gerd Janson

Forums, or Facebook, sometimes.

Matias Aguayo

With people discussing things. I think a musician shouldn’t waste time with that. I find it really funny that people can find so much time discussing it. There were people saying it’s really serious and others making fun. It was quite funny, actually.

Gerd Janson

But it’s the best thing you can achieve, having all these different opinions on your work without putting them into one direction. Don’t have this black and white thing.

Matias Aguayo

Yeah, maybe.

Gerd Janson

There was another one, right?

Audience member

A lot of times when I hear your music I can imagine you performing with a band, maybe. There’s a live feel to it. Is that something that interests you? Or do you prefer to just DJ, do your own thing over your DJ sets? Maybe working with a band would be a pain in the ass? Would you be into that one day?

Matias Aguayo

Yes, I’ve even tried. We did a band outfit last year, and I had two musicians with me, not so much of a band. But I’m really thinking of it and how to do it because obviously I don’t think the solution would be going to bass, drums, guitar. But I think it definitely makes sense. It’s only difficult as a musician organizing your time. Doing a label, releasing records, playing in clubs, doing all the administration for that takes so much time that sometimes it’s very difficult to organize yourself to seriously put a band together, rehearse and stuff like that. I hope I will achieve it somehow. I think I will. Also we did a little tour with Diego Morales and Philipp Gorbachev through Poland, where Diegors was playing bass and Philipp was playing drums and I was playing some beats and singing and we were playing each other’s tracks. This was already an approach to it. It’s not ready yet, but I’m thinking a lot about it.

Audience member

It’s interesting what you said about a fire burning down all your records, because I’ve been with a guy in the exact same situation. All his records were gone and my guitar too, and we started to make music afterwards. But since you consider yourself a singer, do you have any favorite ones?

Matias Aguayo

Favorite singers?

Audience member

Yes. What do you listen to?

Matias Aguayo

I listen to a lot of music. It’s very difficult, where to start with? Considering a singer that I like a lot, I could spontaneously think of Arthur Russell because of his playful approach to music. OK, he played many instruments but still I consider him a singer and how he developed things. That’s someone I like a lot. I don’t know, I’d have to think. Michael Jackson [laughs].

Audience member

I feel like a lot of your music comes from improvisation, DJing and also live. How much does sequencing come into play when you’re creating? Do you edit a lot or do you try to leave it?

Matias Aguayo

Sequencing in the sense of this left-to-right thing, arrangements and stuff? Obviously, I work with sequencers, I make electronic music, program beats and stuff. But when I record it I try to record a lot of takes and then choose the best one, then maybe edit it a little bit if I notice this part isn’t so good. Because it’s much more fun for me. It’s more fun because you improvise, you play, and that’s more fun than being on a screen and moving something to the left and then moving it to the right. But also, for you as a musician, it’s better. You learn more. Singing all in one take perfectly is much more of an achievement than recording three takes and then assembling together what sounds best. Also, I’m a bit used to it. This example of Closer Musik, we had no recording system or something where we could have been editing. So, we had to record it all in one take. Which meant we recorded the song 25 times or something like that. I’ve always tried to find the perfect take, rather than being too much on the screen. Also for me it’s a bit of a problem, because you’re arranging something and it goes from left to right, like this [draws line in the air], and I think music doesn’t work like that. Music doesn’t go from left to right. It’s a visual translation that can have a negative impact on your musical processes, at least for me.

Audience member

Let’s speak about your roots. You mentioned the cumbia and the reggaeton. What other South American or world music are you influenced by? Maybe you can name or sing some rhythms or some melodic structure.

Matias Aguayo

The thing is it’s always much more complex. So if I talk about South America I don’t necessarily talk only about the rhythms one would associate directly with it, like cumbia, salsa. But I also I can talk about rock music, about beat, because there’s a long rock music tradition in South America. It’s very complex. For me, it’s always difficult to talk about these rhythms in the sense that this name-dropping of genres is for me a big problem, because it’s what made music a little bit more superficial. At some point we’re not talking about music anymore, we’re talking about elements. Suddenly something that goes [does a house beat] is house and something that goes [does a minimal beat] is minimal. But, considering your question about Latin roots, obviously cumbia had a big impact on me. It’s what I heard at home or in the family party or whatever. It comes from Colombia, but it spread throughout the whole Latin American universe – except Brazil, of course, that’s always a special thing – but it had an impact on me again when I was going to Mexico, because in Mexico there are these huge cumbia soundsystems that have existed for a long, long time. I got to know the DJs there and the people who work in this movement. The thing I realized, when I saw La Changa play – a legendary cumbia soundsystem guy who’d played for 40 years and I was assisting him – the DJ there has an assistant who helps to equalize and use the delay, because it’s like DJ/MC what he does. Then I realized in the end, it’s very similar to what we do in the clubs, how do we make people dance, how do we relate to the dancefloor? The conversations the DJs had were practically the same as us DJs coming from another music context. So I’d rather try to search for the things in common than see it in a separated way of “this is that, this is this.” The influences are so many I could start… I don’t know where to start.

Audience member

Thanks anyway.

Gerd Janson

Any more?

Matias Aguayo

So, thank you very much.

[applause]