Giving a platform to and championing new music from emerging artists has long been a goal of Nick Warren and his well-respected label, The Soundgarden. As an exciting creative highpoint in the label’s calendar, The Soundgarden welcome Argentinian DJ, producer and commercial airline pilot, Nicolás Rada, to release his debut 11-track album ‘Resilience’.
“Resilience is the ability to be happy and successful again after something difficult or bad has happened. For me, to transform bad things or difficult moments into music in a positive way, this was the concept for my album.” – Nicolas Rada
A master of emotional expression, who travels beyond stylistic boundaries, Nicolás Rada studiously avoids the tedious in favour of the vibrant, with his broad creative palette playing into his all-encompassing sound. Bringing together both his passions for music and aviation within ‘Resilience’ LP, Nicolás’ diverse musical ideas and attitudes allow both passions to unite, seen across his musical compositions and the names he has given to them.
Throughout ‘Resilience’ LP specific terms and references to flying and the physics of nature generally can be found. In the relaxed, downtempo opening track ‘Briefing’ Nicolás signals to the beginning of process before moving on to use more terminology relative to physics in the driving, meditative feel of ‘Coriolis’ and ‘Maelstrom’ along with the melancholic, heart-melting ‘Vantaa’. The floating, melodious ‘Haneda’ and the dopamine releasing, melody rich ‘Narita’ find their names as a nod to the main airports of Japan, before diving into chilled melodic techno territory with ‘Aleppo’.
“My passion for Airplanes, as a pilot, brought some airport names, flight physics and technical vocabulary to the names of the album tracks. I love merging my two passions!” – Nicolas Rada
Building in both pace and power, Nicolás reveals a unique brand of forward-thinking progressive house constructed within the subtle, hypnotic throb of ‘Ignition’. Introducing Russian singer Eleonora on ‘Gravity’ her enticing vocals glide of the arrangements of Nicolás, before sitars sparkle and soar on a higher celestial plane throughout ‘Borealis’; another nod the native terms of aviation, also found in the percussively driven ‘Ionosphere’ that gentle brings proceedings back down to earth.
Drawing stated inspiration from many miscellaneous sources such as Radiohead, Chopin, Beethoven, Led Zeppelin and Pavarotti along with Syrian-Lebanese music, the dramatic and in places frenetic nuances of those touch points come through in the music of Nicolás Rada. His classical training has percolated across this new body of work, manifesting in an original and enlightening debut LP. You can listen to the full premiere of ‘Haneda’ while reading the great interview Nicolas gave us. Enjoy !
WWD: First of all, hello, where are you answering this from and what does your day entail?
Hello guys!, Thanks for having me. I’m in Buenos Aires, Argentina in my house having breakfast and starting my day.
WWD: Your latest LP is entitled ‘Resilience’. Has there been a particular time in the industry where being resilient has proved critical?
Good question! Well, I think within art, as music is, you may encounter different moments where you have to solve things not always in the same way. For me, music depends on my state of mind, but you need to do it however you are, (happy, sad, eager, etc.)
WWD: Can you tell us a bit more about the name of the album and how you chose it?
Connected with the last question, moments in your life which define particular situations. And Resilience transformed some bad moments into music.
WWD: You have a passion for music and aviation. With track titles paying homage to aviation. Production wise do you record and include particular sounds that the aircraft produces?
Haha, no more than some speech included in this album like the track Briefing. But who knows, maybe someday I will record something from planes 🙂
WWD: Your LP Resilience takes the listener on a journey from start to finish, can you take us on your thought process for the album from start to finish?
I focused on the first 3 tracks which are downtempo and the intro of the album. I knew I needed it to start really down. Then I knew that it would not necessarily be direct for the dance floor. So I freed my mind and relaxed making music… from that thought came some particular tracks like Narita, Borealis, and Gravity (in which Eleonora helped me with her vocals). Then I tried to merge downtempo songs with deep-house or progressive-house, and I made some “bridge tracks”, like Vantaa and Aleppo, which connect the two parts of the album. I tried to make it without kick, and this helped a lot. Then when I mixed it for the first time I realized about the continuous mix and how many minutes I had. So, I decided to make one more track to finish it, and Ionosphere appeared.
Once I listened all the mix, I discovered that I had made an album, and I was super satisfied with it.
WWD: How would you say your production process has changed from when you first began in 2007?
Definitely a lot. If not, I wouldn’t have grown. The quality of the sound is not the same, it has been 10 or 15 years ago since I started, so the technique has changed, the process and my brain too, of course. I’m more focused on high-quality, so it never ends.
WWD: What is your current production set-up?
My DAW is Ableton Live, then I’ve my soundcard UAD Apollo Twin MKII, two monitors KRK Rokit 5, an Access Virus Ti2 Desktop and Behringer MS-1 Synthesizer. Plug-ins speaking, I’ve the Arturia V5 Collection, the Dune 2, Omnisphere and Kick2.
WWD: Can you tell us about how you became involved with Nick Warren?
Nick has always been a representative DJ in my world of electronic music. I didn’t know him. I have always been sending my music to him. Then we met, spoke about ourselves and discovered each other. He had some works in progress and I helped him. After that we continued working together.
I realized that there are some people you have to pay attention to and learn a lot from them. He’s an excellent person.
WWD: Last year you collaborated with Nick on ‘Land Of Dreams’ EP can we expect anything more from you two as a collaboration?
Of course, we continued working together. He was concentrating on his album “Balance” and playing around the globe, but there are always new projects and music to do.
WWD: It looks as though the electronic music scene in Argentina has been getting strong over the past couple of years. What are your thoughts on the current scene?
Undoubtedly, it has grown a lot and I’m super satisfied with it. We are living an excellent electronic moment, but we need to learn more about respecting each other. There are big difference between Europe or other countries where electronic music takes part from decades. We need to take care about drugs, but it comes from the implication of the government on it. Meanwhile there are a lot of fans of electronic music, young people listening more and more music every day. I’ve travelled around Argentina and every year people know more about this movement.
WWD: From an insiders point of view where would you tell a clubbing enthusiast to experience the best nightlife and venues in your native Argentina?
Well, I like the sunset parties like Jet-Desert In Me, or Rio particularly in summer. I also remember a party in a woods named Aurora. I like the outdoor-sunset mode. Of course there are excellent venues like The Bow, BNN or Crobar that are super solid venues. And people, here we have the best energy in the world.
WWD: Lastly, does 2020 hold anything exciting that we can look forward to?
I’ll be focus on new music, originals. And playing around the globe. More countries to discover and of course my own country, more places where I’ve never been. Thanks for this interview When We Dip !
Release date : November 1st, 2019. Buy Here
Follow: Nicolas Rada // The Soundgarden