System Of Survival - Circolocals

Circo Loco's System of Survival have been long-standing residents of the club since it's inception as an Ibiza afterhour. In a typical laid-back Italian way they have been steadily encroaching on the world outside the venue for the last few years with their label's IANUS71 and it's digital sister FUENTI. Productions and signings have been picked up by the likes of Moonharbour, or the Time Warp Compilations, with the likes of DJs from Marco Carola to Ellen Alien supporting their sound. This summer their debut album will be released on BPitch Control, with a 4 track EP preceding it at the end of this month.  They've just completed their first US tour, which culminated in a headline gig at Circo Loco in DEMF, followed by a mad dash back to catch the daylight at DC10 Opening in Ibiza the next day. They recorded their set for us from the garden, and took some time out to answer some questions for us too.

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So how was the opening of DC10? Well the first impressions was the super new sound system in the garden area where we played – it was put in just for the Opening and it sounded great. Then the new main room with also an amazing sound system. The main room (inside) has been completely updated, with new lights and a new much bigger booth, it looks very posh now! The opening was huge! We think it was one of the best. We just came straight back from Detroit in the afternoon, literally got off the plane and went directly from the airport to the club, and we went to play in the garden area after the big master and our good friend Clive Henry.  We were pretty much completely dead after that 16 hour flight but the vibe of the crowd and meeting up with a lot of friends from around the world gave us a lot of energy! That's what the opening parties should be all about.

There's some new guests this year in DC10, how do you like all this new blood and who are your personal favourites amongst the new crew this summer?  Yes some new and interesting names this summer. Also there is the new night Paradise hosted by Jamie Jones that we are really looking forward to, with a lot of  new names' for the island. Can't say at moment our favourites, they all look pretty good, at the end of the season we could tell you who our favourites were!

This podcast is a recording from your first set of that party...can you talk us through it a bit, any big tracks we should look out for this summer? Yes it was recorded at the opening from the garden area. Our style is a mixture, and we mix a lot of old tune in with some new. We suggest to listen to it all until the end and if you are a house music lover you can recognize some very amazing tracks from the history of house and techno music. Not the commercial usual old tracks [Laughs]

You came straight from Detroit to play the Circo Loco party...how was that trip? Who else made that journey with you? The trip was looong. We played at the Circo Loco party in Detroit in the morning, which was fantastic, but the whole time we were playing we had a taxi waiting outside to get us straight to the airport so we could get back in time for the daytime of Monday. It was definitely a little bit sad to leave the party in Detroit, was amazing, but we would love to not miss also the DC10 opening. There were a few of us making that trip on that day to get back for the club. Andrew Grant, Davide Squillace, Shaun Reeves and Cirillo all crossed paths in the various airports to get back to the island in time. [Laughs]

And how did you like DEMF, it was your first time there no? Yes. It was the first time we've been to that festival, and we genuinely think it is the best festival in the world for listening to the most incredible music and getting to see the sort of DJs that are not often heard in europe, More's the pity! We had the honor to meet in person some really big artists for us, like Glenn from Glenn Underground, Boo Williams, Juan Atkins,  all of them very nice easy people. No bullshit just passion for the music! The best thing was too, that these guys are just dancing in the crowd, having a good time and being into the vibe of the party – no VIP or DJ box rubbish for them. We were pretty starstruck – in a good way....blown away I guess is the word?

So, that was the end of your first US trip wasn't it. What else did you get up to over there? Any highlights of the time spent there? Yeah we had a great time stateside. We stayed for nearly a month and a half, touring around and catching up with friends along the way. We started off in New York, then had some gigs along to way to Detroit, where we played TV Lounge, brilliant and underground place in Detroit. Then we hung out in LA for a while, we played at The Standard Rooftop for Culprit Sessions with Shonky. Such a good party, and yes, we really had a good time with the Culprit guys, Andrei, Brett, Justin, Jen and all the crew. Then we swung back to New York again before DEMF to do the Standard there, Les Bains, which was a cool venue. Dice and Guti were in town so we had a bit of a party – naked girls in the swimming pool type of venue...not so different to Ibiza! Yeah – the last months have been pretty good to us [Laughs]

So another year another summer – this one is a big one, as you have your first album coming out this summer with Bpitch. Yes is a busy and exciting summer and everything is looking special. During the last month we had a pleasure to meet a lot of nice people and great artists, so we have some studio plans for summer too if we can get away from the clubs! And the preparation for the release of the album is getting pretty intense now, it's all good, and keeps us busy. Ellen has been great with us, and helped us shape the album alongside us. She's a very special woman. Full of energy, and she's one of those people who spreads this energy – good vibes.

And tell us a little about the album and the ideas behind it. The album started from the point where we have always been interested in finding unusual samples and edits, and building tracks around them. Both of us have always been fascinated with digging out old music, looking through old movies, or soundtracks and experimenting with sounds or clips and developing them into something fresh and now. It's been a lifelong pursuit and passion and the album is kind of the pulling together of all those pieces. We've been producing tracks for many years and working with lots of different styles and paces, but from the beginning the album was always going to be the story of our musical life, it tells the story of our background and history with house music, all the way through we have dropped samples of records that have touched us and affected the way we feel about music. (of course that's not what we want to say to the publishers...!) but it is the way that the album was formed. From the beginning to the end.  Maybe you don't even hear it, we hope you don't even hear it, but throughout the album is this story this musical journey.

First up is an EP with a rather recognisable riff in it, can you talk us through this a bit? Well, I think you will recognise it when you hear it, but I guess it was quite prophetic in a way, we recorded the snippet of vocal last year in our stdio at home with a good friend of ours, Anna Guinta, BEFORE Whitney Houston died, so now we have a bit of a tribute track, which was not the idea! But we still love the melody and the sentiment. We've been waiting and waiting a long time to get permission to release, but finally this week we got it, so yes, finally the EP is coming out. We've heard it played out a bit already on the last few gigs we've done, so it's great that DJ are responding so well to it.

And anything else planned for the summer that we should know about? Yes we will have also a track included in Best Of Culprit compilation in August, it's a new track so we can't really give to much away but we're very pleased about that.  And of course we're still working on our 2 labels IANVS71 & FVENTI with releases from our young crew , OUTART, DOS, AUTRE, AEN plus some new entries like CLAY who will release his first 12” with 2 great tracks plus a remix from us and a special remix that we're organising. We have 2 great gigs coming up in next few weeks that we really can't wait for: first we're playing at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and then we've also got our first Berghain / Panoramabar gig too with a BPitch Control showcase. All looking good for summer [Laughs] 

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