Andrea Oliva: A three-year Ibiza resident and now mainstay at Dennis Ferrer’s label, Objektivity, Andrea has cultivated and heavily contributed to the underground music scene as we know it.
I caught up with the Swiss producer at last month’s Coachella in California, just in time for his EP Turn Off The Dawn. Released this week it’s a great teaser for his very intriguing upcoming album that’s coming our way later this month.
Here are 5 reasons why Andrea should be on your radar (if he isn’t already)…
He brings true Ibiza sound to the dancefloor, even on the other side of the world…
Ever since being booked as a resident for Ibiza’s leading underground party, ANTS, at Ushuaïa, Andrea is practically a local. With almost three years of residency at the island mecca for electronic music, he has cultivated the pure club sound that transports listeners, even as far as Coachella’s Yuma tent.
“Ibiza is all about the clubs. You don’t have festivals like you have here [in North America]. Coachella was different because it’s huge — you have so many stages. Of course, [in Europe] we have Tomorrowland and Creamfields, but the electronic music part [in the states] isn’t as big as it is in Europe. Here you have one techno/house tent, maybe in Europe you have a proper house tent, a proper techno tent, and then all the EDM stuff. But it’s important for all the music – our kind of music – to be represented in such an amazing festival like Coachella.”
…and he is passionate about bringing tech house to the forefront of every festival.
“The evolution of our kind of music is really taking off. I couldn’t be happier. When you see all the stats on Facebook, you see how many people from North and South America are starting to follow you. Ibiza is the best place to show this kind of movement to the world, but if we have festivals like Coachella supporting [tech and deep house] on professional stages, then this movement can only grow. We are still a small piece of the whole cake in the music industry, but we can show the world that not everything is about EDM.”
His upcoming album, 4313, was created out of a jam session and brings versatility to the genre.
“I tried to do something different than what I did before, and I’m very happy about that. Everyone who has heard the album is kind of surprised with the direction I took because I worked with singers, studio musicians, guitar players…I even had people who were in jazz school. I tried to add to my very rhythmic sound that I had before and it came out very strong.
“I didn’t want to follow a certain strategy, musically speaking. I just wanted to go to the studio and enjoy myself.”
“And I didn’t want to follow any hype of the music at the moment, or anything I did in my past. I just wanted to go and make it a jam session. I collaborated with musicians and singers and it took me to another level. It was a whole jam session experience. I didn’t want to follow a certain strategy, musically speaking. I just wanted to go to the studio and enjoy myself.”
His music is a reminder that tech house is fun and wholly accessible
“If you were to explain techno to someone who never dug deeper than what he’s heard on the radio, the first thing that comes to his mind is noise, or repetition. But the combination of producing techno in a classic, stylish way, like using live instrumentation or vocalists, could be something that can open more doors for people. If we can grab people by giving techno more musicality, and show them the real techno, we can win.
As you grow up, you don’t want to listen to Top 40 and the radio all the time. It’s like going out for a date when you’re 16 with a girl and you bring her to McDonalds, and when you’re 25 you’re going to bring her to a nice Italian restaurant. We are the nice food, and the rest is like McDonalds.”
Despite more than twenty years in the industry, he still doesn’t call DJing his job
“I started DJing when I was twelve, My friends introduced me to electronic music — they were playing acid house and techno, while I was listening to Rage Against The Machine and Nirvana. I started to DJ because to me, playing records was playing an instrument – like learning to play guitar and drums. I was fascinated by this kind of music and the art of mixing, the art of DJing.
Everything became bigger and bigger…
It’s still my passion, but I never say it’s my job.
“You get into more structure with time, everything gets more professional, but you have to make sure you don’t lose sight of why you love producing music in the first place.”
Bonus points – Night Of The Jaguar would be his anthem flying to outer space
In typical UKF fashion, we asked Andrea a brainteaser going off of last Coachella’s iconic spaceman: Who would you bring to outer space, and what track would you play at liftoff?
“I would bring DJ Rolando and we would play Night Of The Jaguar. It’s still one of my favorite tracks and it’s like 20 years old, but it’s a fundamental track for house. And if I could chose an artist not from our techno house scene, I’d bring Tom York of Radiohead. But I wouldn’t play music, I’d produce music with him — he’s doing music out of space, from another universe.”
