Discover Top Posts Tagged with #martel ferdan

Introductions first: for anyone who doesn't know, who are you / where are you from? Howdy i'm Martel Ferdan, a young soul whose family comes from Barcelona, now settled on the French Riviera. I'm finishing off my art studies this upcoming year.

What music did you grow up listening to? I've started drumming as a teen and had the chance to get some well educated professors who not only taught me percussions but broaden my musical scope early on. It was a little bit of this and that, from participating to afro-caribbean workshops (Horacio « El Negro » Hernandez, hey) to jamming with funk bands. I ended up focusing on electronic music when i was 17, moved to a little studio in Paris and started going out at night. I then sold my instruments, got a laptop and a Roland drum module instead and progressively got into producing club related material.

Something that's always been consistently impressive to me is how technical the level of sound design is in your productions, particularly the way your percussion kind of hangs and echoes in space. What's your process like for making a track? You know, that's flattering but i'm actually a rookie producer really. Toy Gun, which was my first track to see a release was literally the fourth one i ever made. I’ve had the chance to get noticed by great people (multitask-ey Teki, especially) early but that means i wasn't any close to perfection technically. Since then I've tried to develop my skills and have a better sound through learning from sound engineers on youtube, chatting with comrades, experimenting etc. As far as making a track, i tend to first program/design drums while i make strange synth patches and then arrange tons of bars in which i cut out excerpts i like. When i have some worthy material i slowly build a structure from these little selected bits and move on to the global mix; quite a long process.

You've been involved with Sound Pellegrino over the past year or so and you're featured on their SND.PE compilations that have served to coagulate the developments in what is a globalized yet geographically disparate dance scene. What Teki has been mentioning a lot in interviews lately, however, are his opinions on the creation of a specifically "French sound of now". Since - along with several others - you're a name that readily comes up when talking about that burgeoning scene, I wanted to get your thoughts on how you see yourself in relation that idea. Yes indeed, we’re trying to shape -if not push out- a french sound. There’s a group of people selected by Teki (Le Dom, CLUBKELLY, Betty, Paradoxe Club mates, Doline, Basile, Detente, OKLOU etc) who do nourish this idea/project, both by producing music/events and by exchanging ideas through physical reunions & a secret internet group. Coming from abroad yet being born here, I do not think of french club music identity as a frozen idea and i know i belong to this patchwork. You probably have heard about the black diaspora being present here, the popularization of local rhythmics such as logobi, Northern Africans as the first people to have generalized the use of autotune, the legacy of more or less cheesy filtered house & french boogie, etc. That’s the strange heterogeneous corpus we’re trying to think about and sort out.

To follow on from that, do you think your music might be understood differently in a context that's physically removed from the French scene? How different, if at all, do you see your involvement with labels - like Beat Werk and Sans Absence - that are based away from France? Well, i currently live in an area where the club community is still to build. While i put some effort in managing something local, i do rely on more active scenes when it comes to having music released or dates. The person i currently relate to the most might be dJJ and the first people who wanted to release my music were Beat Werk so i have to say i’m not too surprised when knots are tied between UK and FR; proximity isn’t exclusively a geographical matter these days. Moreover when i look around, i see this relationship growing (i.e. CLUBKELLY about to release an EP on Crazylegs, OKLOU and Sylvere being all around, Basile w/ Gang Fatale etc) and that’s great, i assume mutual recognition and influence is now rooted and i hope it will keep going both ways as the french scene affirms itself.

Do you have a favourite French artist from outside of the club / dance music axis? Not french but french language : Francis Bebey

The mix you've put together is a definite outlier in the series so far, in line with your recent Overdrive Infinity appearance. What were your intentions behind the mix? How did the "Slow Kaleidoscope" name come about? Yes right. Might sound eccentric at first but i doubt any of us listen to club music all day & in any type of context. It was made during an afternoon, shutters closed because of the insufferable heat. I now have decks at home so after i made a selection, i immediately moved on and constructed something from it. I believe that « home listening » mixes benefit from non-linear structures and don’t need constant power ups. So i worked with slow tracks, some rhythmic illusions, acoustic material with a moving bpm or no bpm at all and overall some sonic diversity, making some sort of kaleidoscope with moving landscapes and frequent, noticeable transitions.

The way the mix is structured comes off like a mixtape or particularly clearly intentioned radio show for me. What have been some of your favourite mixtapes (in either the hip hop or electronic worlds)? Really enjoying what Cousin Stizz put out since last summer, Suffolk County mixtape was a blast.

What do you have planned for the rest of the year? For 2017? In late september an amazing collective project will be released, the first one by a french crew you’ll hear about more and more in the future. I have a track on it that i’ve made with a Brazilian friend based in Ireland -if you see who i’m talking about (wink). Then there’s something going on with the lovely buddy Akito through his new label Sans Absence. Might go to London to play out sometime soon. Also you can expect a few more collaborations, a first EP and i’ll probably develop a sound installation project as well if i find the time to achieve it.

If you had to pick something for people to listen to immediately after this mix what would it be? If it’s daytime, i’d advise you giving a listen to the recent Mr. Mitch set at Musée du Quai Branly which kinda inspired this mix.

Tracklist: Forest Swords - Shrine Djou Pii ft Angolano Lisboa Santos - Me Assu Sam Binga & Om Unit - 1000 Cats Martes Martes - City Lights (Tanuki Song) Filomena Maricoa Ft Dj Doraemon - Danca Do Joïc - Nou Boucane Arewhana Gang ft. Dj Dav’ - CLEAR 32 (Crystal Clear rmx) H Takahashi - Highball Sendai - Other Etcs Night Lovell - Up North ft Cousin Stizz Elisabeth Waldo & Her Concert Orchestra - Mountain Spirit Dance Mina - Pull Up To Mi Steelpans Sylvere - Katsu Katsu (ft Roz Mihah Drey) Lucky Dragons - Typical Hippies Natalie Beridze - Winter Boredom Dj N.K - Nao Chora Mais Nao (Instrumental) Batu & Lurka - Untitled (B2 on the Fringe White EP) Rrose - Worn Scarred Acre - Dek U PIKMIN Main Theme