Felix Cartal was recently upon in Ireland for his second visit to our shores. He’s since had a selection of tasty remixes released for his New Scene EP on Dim Mak Records and the impressive video shot with featured vocalist Ofelia recently dropped also.

We caught up with the chatty Canadian following his set on the Benny Benassi billing for Residence @ The Village. You can check out his new video and what he had to say to us on the night below!

First off, a very warm welcome to Ireland. 

Thank you!

So you’ve just come off stage here in Dublin but what’s the best gig you’ve ever played and why?

I played this after-party in Gothenburg Sweden. It was in a museum, a fully functional museum but they covered all the paintings with black curtains and they brought like 4,000 people into this museum. Everybody was like dancing up the stairs. There were two floors and it was fucking mental. Then the next day the museum was open again at 8am. It was cool.They only open it once a year for a party so it felt special.

You’ve been busy playing dates around North America recently. Any highlights?

I played 5 dates on the Steve Aoki tour and it was pretty mental coz it was all ages so it’s pretty crazy when there’s like fucking 14 year olds turning up!

Any funny stories from the tour?

I mean that tour was just funny in general coz he just cakes everyone at the end of the night. He used to throw one cake a show. Now he throws like 40! It’s fucking mental! It was so fun.

What did you make of the Irish crowd ? Did you enjoy yourself?

It was really good. I feel like Ireland and the UK ,  they’re really down for anything.

Any advice for North American DJs coming across to play Ireland for the first time? 

Just play heavy and assume everyone’s drunk because it’s probably true!

Yep, that’s more than likely true! Ok so one track that really got the crowd going tonight?

Well Deorro just did a remix of my latest song and that really set it off tonight. Any time I can play a version of my own thing and it works, that’s really exciting.

You’ve got the New Scene Remix EP coming out next week on Dim Mak Records. The original is quality. Lovely vibes off it. How’d you like working with Ofelia?

Thank you. She was really cool. She’s super chill. It was cool coz we just wrote a song together. There was no pre bullshit like ‘let’s make a dancefloor banger or let’s make a blah blah blah’. It was just kinda like lets write a song together and I’m gonna make the production that feels appropriate for the vocal and not really care about making this big dancefloor track but instead just try and make a song that’s good.

Well it did work out well! 

Yeah and we just filmed the video together in Vancouver and it was really fun!

Now with some tasty remixes to boot. Do you’ve a favourite?

The TOKiMONSTA one is cool coz’ it’s different from all the others. Like the Deorro one is dope, Lazy rich is dope the one me and Lucky did I think is cool. They’re all awesome coz they’re like dancefloor shit but I like the TOKiMONSTA one just coz it’s chill. It’s like 4AM vibey shit. So it’s dope!

It’s not your first release on Dim Mak though is it? You guys seem to go hand in hand!

Yeah I’ve been with them like forever!

How have they helped you hone your skills? 

Well they’ve just been supportive of me since day 1. I’m working on a new EP for them too. Hopefully it’ll come out February or March next year and then just take it from there one release at a time kinda thing.

And since that day 1, do you feel your skill set has kind of changed a bit?

Well yeah I mean i’m definitely making more commercial music at this point.  I think I’ve just enjoyed working with vocalists a lot more because I like writing songs that are catchy and songs that people can relate to with lyrics that people can be into. Songs that can be remixed infinitely. I feel like my earlier shit, Joker and stuff, it was cool making heavy shit, but I kinda got in a negative head-space after doing it for a while.Every time I wrote a song I found myself trying to make a heavier song and then that was all I thought about. It got to a point where I was like this is such a bullshit mentality to write music in because it’s not musical. It was just shock value. And that’s cool but it’s cool for the club, for that moment but I wanted to make music that I enjoy listening to in my downtime as well.

You made your breakthrough while on Erasmus in Glasgow. What advice would you give students stuck in between two minds regarding college and a life in music. 

 I dunno, if you’re going to college as strictly a back up and you don’t give a shit about it and you’re say 20, fuck it, give music a go! You can always go back to college. I think education will always be waiting for you but the window of music can open and close.

And what was the best production tip that you ever got? The one that made you think fuck I never knew that. Maybe not the obvious ones. 

Ok, so if it sounds good not quantized, leave it. I like that one a lot.

Irishman and WWD friend Reuben Keeney has recently joined the Dim Mak team with his ‘We Do It Big’ track with Rafii getting signed. What can he expect from the stable? A collab with names like yourself maybe?

I dunno Dim Mak’s good at pushing singles for new artists, especially a European artist because they have a really strong North American presence. I haven’t really collabed with too many Dim Mak artists though.

Have you any plans to do any in the pipeline?

I dunno I’m in the process of writing right now so I don’t really have anything lined up.

Shall we look forward to a third album maybe?

Yeah hopefully. Not planned right now but it’ll definitely happen eventually.

So coming towards the end of 2013.  Who have been the standout artists of 2013 for you and what have been some of your favourite tracks?

Awh man that’s always tough. It’s so hard to remember the whole year. I dunno, fuck! It’s like renting movie syndrome, where you get to the store and can’t remember all the movies you wanted to rent.

OK so we’ll move on then to our final question. Any up and comers you think we should look out for in 2014 ? Homegrown Canadian talent or otherwise?

I think Botnek. I think it’s gonna be Botnek’s year. They’re production is amazing. They’re from Montreal and they’ve done releases on Dim Mak. They’ve done releases on whatever label, they’ve done lots of shit. But yeah they’re production is unreal and they’re seriously underrated.