Not many people in the industry got around Nandu the past months. His releases and live sets went viral in a very short time. His Keinemusik live set podcast was the most played podcast on Keine Musik 2020 so far. Nandu introduced his audience to a series called “early morning mix” and released one of these remixes on Ontourage Music now. 

WWD: Hi Nandu. How are you doing?

As we speak I’m sitting in my kitchen in Copenhagen, it is 06 in the morning and I’m having the first cup of coffee of the day. My son is playing with some Legos on the floor and my wife is sleeping for a bit longer. So, when looking isolated at this moment, my life is pretty good. 

WWD: How has 2020 treated you so far? 

As for everyone, 2020 has been a very different year. For me personally and financially it’s been super hard. In the beginning of Corona, all the uncertainty was hard for me to cope with. I’m the type of person that deals with problems, by trying to solve them. But when the problem is totally out of your hands it feels like there is nothing you can do. All gigs got cancelled, and my daytime job in the music business also closed (and still is). I haven’t been touring a lot so I didn’t have any savings, so I recently started a job on a night shift as a storage worker. And that was not what I expected from 2020. But now it’s been a while and I’m slowly feeling that I’m settling in this new reality. In terms of music I have had (and still have) quite a lot of releases  lined up. The release plan for the spring was postponed, and this means that my output these last weeks has been massive. And there is more coming next months.

WWD: We just premiered your remix of Nico Morano’s Believe feat. GinGin, and what you have made is a “Nandu Early Morning Mix”. We have seen that phrase used before on some of your remixes. As we remember that’s what it says on one of the tracks Dixon played on his Boileroom for United We stream earlier this year. What does “Early Morning Mix” mean?

I’ve been doing the early morning mixes since my son was born 3,5 years ago. I’ve been asked by many if it’s because the Early Morning Mixes are made for sets early in the morning. I would say that they can be used for sets in the morning or closing. But thats not the reason for the name. It’s called so simply because they are made early in the morning. After my son was born, my daily schedule changed a bit. And I was up very early, and it was in these quiet morning hours the tracks were formed. This also means that it has this kind of melancholia and peace in them I feel. 

The remix for Morano was written on a slow corona morning a few months ago. He did send me the original which is a very beautiful track with the vibe I like for my Early Morning Mixes, so it made sense for me to do it. 

Besides this one I have been doing quite a few Early Morning Mixes. Some  just for myself to play out and some for labels. The one Dixon played was also just for fun, but Steffen liked it and played it. 

WWD: We saw your Livestream from Øresund. This was your only stream during Corona right?

Yes, I only did the boat stream from Øresund, so far. I was not really sure if I wanted to do it. There are simply so many streams out there, and I for sure didn’t want to do a DJ set. Dj’ing to me makes the most sense with a crowd and their reaction.  And with so many sets out there I feared that a DJ set would disappear. But then I decided to do a live-set instead. I started to build the live-set (the tracks are selected exclusively for this set). The idea was to create something that was good for just listening. My friend Elias owns a boat and he was up for us doing it there, and my good friend Mark who is normally working as a movie photographer had the time to do it  because of cancelled productions (Corona that bitch). So I did it with close friends which made the day magic. I hope that’s also what you feel when you see the stream. For now, the plan is not to make any more streams, but who knows, if the situation is not better soon, maybe we do something else. 

WWD: What does the future hold for Nandu?

As mentioned there is some music in the pipeline still for this year, which I will soon be able to reveal. I also have a lot of music finished which we are trying to make a plan for right now. But at the moment our biggest task is to try to rethink reality a bit. Even if the world goes back to normal in 2021, this forced break is a chance to see if there is anything we could do differently, and better. One of the things we (my manager and I) are discussing a lot at the moment is the ways of releasing music. In this digital age, is a label even needed, and if it is, for what. We don’t have an answer to that question though, but we are getting there.