Challenge Accepted
INTERVIEW: NADJA PREYER
When it comes to digging new music, Crusat’s approach is all about finding fresh and challenging tunes. What maybe doesn’t sound too surprising is gonna make a lot of sense when checking out her mix for TISSUE. A few minutes should be enough and you’ll know what the two terms fresh and challenging really mean.
Born in and raised near Barcelona, she decided to leave the area of Catalonia’s political and cultural centre in 2007, after finishing her studies in fine arts. Following two rather short via’s in Munich and Cologne, today Crusat is residing in Hamburg. Here, she had her first gig at the temporary Kraniche club. Closed today, but sporadically still active, Kraniche are an important space for Hamburg’s underground club scene.
Speaking of which: Crusat’s next challenge is to find a venue in Hamburg where she’s able to host her new party “Zange”. A series that is, of course, meant to be all about giving fresh and challenging club music from all over the world a platform. Challenge accepted? Send leads, we’ll forward them.
Your mix for TISSUE is a pretty challenging mixture of break and heavy dub-bassy bass lines, interspersed with lots of glitchy moments. How did you approach the selection?
I like how you describe the mix as challenging. It’s a mix to listen to, definitely not to keep playing in the background. Mixes (compared to DJ sets) are easier when it comes to displaying some sort of „show window” of music that I find to be relevant nowadays. The more I’m digging the broader my style spectrum is becoming. The challenge after that is to choose my favourite tracks and present them to the people as what’s called „a mix”. To be precise, for the mix I was overlapping a lot of tracks. I enjoy finding some more rhythmic tracks and mixing them in a vocal only one for example. Some of the tracks I play only a few seconds alone without being inside a transition again.
What’s your favorite source of digging new music?
I’m a big fan of Soundcloud, which is the only source I’m digging music at. So all the tracks in my TISSUE mixtape are directly downloadable from there or can be found on Bandcamp. I find Soundcloud a very varied and comfortable place to navigate through all kinds of unreleased, bedroom made stuff that otherwise might never be discovered. I’m very interested in the direct access that you can get from such platforms. And there’s a big community there which I also really enjoy.
“It’s a pretty international mix with artists from Australia, Egypt, China, South Africa, Kenya, and USA.”
There’s a lot of UK in your mix. What do the styles coming from that broader spectrum of Uk-sprung music mean to you?
There are a few UK artists especially in the first part of the mix. I mean who doesn’t love those breaks and rhythms? Definitely big! Still, it’s a pretty international mix with artists from Australia, Egypt, China, South Africa, Kenya, USA.
For your day job you work as a motion designer. Parts of your mix sound like they’ve been taken from a movie score. How important is visuality for your work as a DJ? Do you draw inspiration from your visual work for your music self or vice versa?
Well, I never related music with imagery directly really. Music for me is a much more experimental and abstract thing which I rather like to experience with my eyes closed. I do enjoy the impact of light sources when I’m in a club, but I find screens with image content more distracting than helping, at least in a club context. But what I really enjoy are video clips though. They are actually what got me inspired to work with moving images as my job.
Your Soundcloud bio links “Welle Ultra” and “Zange”. Could you tell us a bit about both projects? Are both of them just a party series’ or is one also a label or label to be?
I was joining F#X (aka Kraisy) and his party series “Welle Ultra” at Golden Pudel club end of 2017. It was super inspiring to be able to play there regularly and also to get to invite artists we love to our neighbourhood in Hamburg. This club became a very comfortable place for me to get loose, find my style and explore my sound. Soon after that, I got a connection to which was a very new club in Hamburg back then: a basement called “Slot,” which was situated in a big shared house organised by artists. I thought that this was the perfect place to invite some of the musicians I really wanted to be playing in Hamburg. Artists who were playing sounds that I thought were rarely heard here. My fellow DJ colleague Joney and I organised one party there and it really was a great success. But right after that, it all got on hold unfortunately. My new project “Zange” is planned to be a place for very fresh club music.
What’s the exact plan with “Zange”?
We hope to be able to drop a party before the cold comes again, but Hamburg has very few places where u can legally organise a party. So it’s kinda tricky. I need good luck (smiles).
“We hope to be able to drop a party before the cold comes again.”
TRACKLIST
Please note: Big servers and streamed data are eating up energy. And our planet. So do the world a favor: download this mix and play it on your own device. Keep mother earth alive. Thank you.
Introduction jingle by Harmony Horizon
Digital cover artwork by Foxy — originally published with an article by Damilola here: https://tissuemagazine.com/series/how-to-grieve/
Visitez:
https://soundcloud.com/crusat
https://www.instagram.com/irmacrusat/