Julietta & Ana - Mun-Ich Liebe Heroes

Ahead of their B2B set at Cocoon Heroes Club Edition with Zutekh Vs TPot this weekened in Manchester, Ana & Julietta tell us about their residency at Harry Klein, girl power and Paris Hilton's career choice.

You guys are both residents at Harry Klein in Munich, could you tell us a bit more about the club and agency, your affiliation with it? A: In a few weeks we gonna celebrate the 9th birthday of the club with a big party where i am gonna play w/ radioslave and another resident, named Sissi. I am resident there since 2006 – it was simultaneously quite the beginning of my dj career. The whole harry klein crew has become like a small family, most of them are good friends and know eachother very well. The club itself is very small and intimate, with a great soundsystem and focus on live visuals as well. The construction itself of the club is also very special because of its 'room in room' concept. They built a cube on springs inside of the room, thus no noise can pass to the outside. Our booking agency started in 2007 with our own fellow artists. With the years more and more artists has been added. Julietta: The club itself already exists 9 years, but we moved to a new location 2 years ago. The special story about the new club is a “room in room” construction which means that the club is isolated from the rest of the building and is built on springs – quite wicked if you have a proper party going on and you suddenly realise that the whole room is shaking. Back in the days I felt very honoured to be asked as their first official resident! Since then I’m playing there regularly every month. The booking agency was an implication of the club development because our family was growing pretty fast and there was somebody needed to hold all those confused nerds together. In the beginning peter (one of the owners) did that job, but as he was more and more busy with the booking of the club, he handed the artist booking agency to alex, who cares about us now with a big heart!

Harry Klein club is now an established hotspot for German techno, but how’s the label going? What does the future hold for Harry Klein records? A: In the beginning we started the label with some releases from some of our talented residents. After a while we started to invite some artists who are good friends of the club too. The 7th release gonna be some really cool stuff from Regen! J: We decided to put him alone on one release because all tracks were so beautiful and strong – it was impossible to choose only one or two for a split ep. So watch out

Do you often play B2B in Germany or is this something new for you? What do you enjoy about playing with each other? A: We played B2B many times before! Its always fun and a great experience because you never know whats gonna happen. You have to adjust to each other and being more spontaneous because of never know what comes next. The sounds gets merged into something entirely different but with a personal note of each. It provides building common ground in music. Also travelling around together makes so much more fun because we are best friends since years and share also the same sense of humour, basically we have fun everywhere! J: I personally love the challenge of a b2b set. You never know towards which way your set will reach one point because everybody has his own story. you have to find a common way to get there without showing your balls with every single record.

Your B2B set is part of a marathon fifteen-hour Cocoon Heroes club special. Can you guys remember playing anything equally as epic? A: I remember one time we played together B2B in berlin at wilde renate. We arrived at the club and the party seemed to be almost over. We started playing and after a short time the atmosphere became such amazing with happy dancing people around. The party was magnificent that we finally played a few hours longer than expected. The people went crazy the whole time, sometimes I thought Ii am going to faint because there was almost no oxygen in the club anymore, but I survived. J: We started at 6 in the morning and ended up in the evening, people still going crazy. That was one of the first moments in my life I was thinking about looking for a chair to sit on while playing.

The venue is split between the outdoor courtyard area and the inside club for the Cocoon Heroes party – can you both tell us of your favourite clubs around the world? A: Basically its hard to name only one, because there are so many cool and nice clubs where i loved playing like club der visionäre or clubs like robert johnson. One of my alltime favorite clubs worldwide definitely is panoramabar/berghain where i am really excited playing my first time in autumn. J: Whew... that’s always hard to tell. I definitely love every single party of my new Half Baked residency in London – they are simply outstanding! I loved playing my first gig at fabric last year, at eleven in Tokyo, Le Salon Daoumé in Montreal, Kontrol in San Francisco a couple of months ago but over the last years there were lots of more for sure!
 

What do you think makes a good party? A: If you can feel a special atmosphere, some good vibes, funny smiling dancing people, good soundsystem!! J: A good sound system, an openminded crowd (and a crowded dancefloor of course) and a smart warming up dj. Some friendly promoters are not necessarily needed to improve the party but are the cherry on top of the cake.

What sort of sound can people expect from an ANA B2B Julietta set? Who’s music has got you guys excited right now? A: Basically I try to avoid talking in genres. Particulary its limiting the music and the terms can be definded differently by each. But to give a frame to the people i prefer to say my music is in between house and techno... that goes for our B2b aswell. At the moment I am really up for trippy dubby housestuff. I love almost every track from Mr. G or John Daly. There is also a lot of new stuff which is inspiring me from guys like Myles Sergè. J: It’s always hard to explain your own style, especially if you are not focussed on one specific direction. I’d say that we play an impulsive homogenous mixture from deep house to dub techno. Talking about music, I’m still in love with every single release of Delano Smith and Mr G and I just discovered a guy called Nu Zau who does quite interesting dubby stuff.



This event spans from early afternoon all the way up to 4am but how do you guys usually differentiate your daytime and nighttime sets? What are your current sunrise/sunset favorite tracks? A: During the day you are able to play more different stuff – more deep not only clubby stuff... you can experiment more
Some of my actual sunrise/sunset tracks: Schatrax – The Almighty, Spooky- little bullett (dum dum mix), Jacques Greene – Prism. J: I think you can play more deep and dubby and with less “peaktime pressure” during a daytime set.  My current sunrise/sunset top 3: Rhadoo edit of Janelle Monane / Glenn Underground Indians & Bagpipes (Professor Inc Remix) / Leonel Castillo 1974.

Obviously you guys are a major part of the Munich scene right now, but what do you know about Manchester’s musical heritage? Have either of you played here before and if not, why are you looking forward to? A: For sure! Its the city of the famous club 'La Hacienda'. One of the first clubs which had a key role in the electronic music history! Bands like joy division played there in the beginning. The movie '24 hours party people' dealt with this topic. Further I have read a lot about the history of electronic music because I wrote my final diploma thesis about this topic inter alia! I`ve played several times before in UK like london or leeds – it was always great and big fun, so i am keen on my first playing in manchester aswell. J: I heard about the legendary Hacienda, as I recently played with Buckley who told me that he was a former resident of that club. There seem to be loads of mystical stories around this venue! It’s actually my third time that I come to play in Manchester – the vibe was amazing at the first two parties I was invited to. But the Cocoon party will be the biggest one so far. I’m a big fan of Cassy’s dj sets and I also had incredible fun at last year’s Zutekh vs. TPot party – can’t wait for this one! 

How do you feel about the recent tariff increases proposed by GEMA? Do you think that the German clubbing landscape is capable of surviving such scandalous regulations? A: Its a hard burden for small clubs because these gema tariffes have their focus on commercial clubs. But above all, these small underground will suffer most and there existence is threatened. Due to this discussion I am gonna organise with resident-mate benna a gema free night in harry klein club to show solidarity. Its kind of exciting how easy it will be to find gema free music for this night. J: We have a demonstration on the 6th of September here in Munich.

As two female Djs who have clearly put the hard work in to get to where you are, how do you feel about Paris Hilton’s recent ‘career change’?  A: For me its a totally different issue, because this way of djing as paris does, lives more from the show than from the music. Music is not the main thing and this you can feel. Paris is booked because of her name, not because of her special technical skills, I guess. On the other hand, there are artists living for music and this you can feel in their sets. For me, music is one of the most important things on earth, I could spend all my money on records even I wouldn't have enough for buying clothes, I dont know if this even applies to Paris. J: Honestly I don’t care at all about her career because her musical taste is obviously just similar to the clubs where she is booked – very commercial. And that’s quite the opposite to what i like and the clubs where i go. It’s okay to have different styles of music, different clubs and different people who fancy that. Imagine everybody likes the same music! I’m glad that those ominous Paris Hilton fans have their own spaces to party and we have our own.
 

Last year not one female Dj made it into Dj Mag’s top 100 and with only a few weeks to go until this year’s list is released, do you think 2012 will tell a different story? In your opinion is the industry still as sexist as ever? A: Its still a man dominated scene. Espescially in the beginning, as a girl you have to prove yourself more, that you are able mix. Sometimes you can even listen to comments like: 'Ohh for a girl you have great technical skills. You mix great!'. The people do not realize that they just made a sexist statement even they havent meant it mean. I am even able driving cars or hammering nails into a wall – I can prove it! On the other hand, as a girl you may get more attention behind the decks. So this is also a result of different treatment of boys and girls. But in conclusion, I can say that I do not feel disadvantaged in that sense. J: Hmmm... I don’t think so. I don’t have the experience of being treated in a different way than the male djs – maybe in the beginning when I still had to prove myself in the predominant male DJ world. But I think one of the big reasons is that there are just still not enough female djs around!

Listen to Julietta and Ana on Pulse Radio.