Interview & Mix: Boris Dlugosch

20/12/2015 -

Boris Dlugosch

About ten or eleven years ago, I’ve started to engage in electronic music. Every weekend, I’ve searched the web for new songs according to mixes from Boris Dlugosch. When I started to go clubbing and I realize that I already knew so many songs on the dancefloor, because I’ve heared them in his shows before, it was the time I found my addiction with this genre. For me, he was kind of a tastemaker and he still got it. That’s why it is such an honour and pleasure to have him for this little interview and of course with this huge new mix.

[Exclusive] Boris Dlugosch – December Mix 2015

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LM: Hey Boris, it’s a big pleasure to have you for an interview, especially for a fan like me. Let’s start with an essential question about yourself. When and how was your first touch with electronic music?

Boris Dlugosch: Hey Lorenz, thanks for having me – it’s a pleasure!
My first musical love were The Beatles and as I discovered their later work I realized I was not so much into the “rock vibe” of their music but much more into their experimental stuff. Maybe that lead me into 70’s and 80’s electronic music. Also when I was younger this music was still played on the radio. And radio music back in the 80’s was a lot of good music even in Germany. Stuff like Depeche Mode, New Order, Blancmange or OMD – I loved that musical vibe.

Do you have any musical apprenticeship? Like playing a real instrument or something like that.

I started out as a drummer. When I was 8 my parents gave me a drum set as a present. Well, first a snare drum for my birthday, then a kick and toms for Christmas and so on until I had a full drum kit. I even took drum lessons for a while but mostly played to my beloved The Police records trying to copy Stewart Copeland – one if not the best drummer in the world but didn’t succeed 🙂 then I started playing in school bands and stuff before doing a school-practice week at a recording studio here in Hamburg. That got me fascinated about studio electronics and production.

Let’s go back to 1995, I was like seven years old, played with some toys and you’ve made one of your most successful songs. “Keep Pushin’” was and is still an huge song – timeless – released on Peppermint Jam. Do you remember how you’ve made the track? Especially compared to the producing process of today.

Yeah, it was very simple… I had just met Mousse T back then and we decided to spend some time in the studio together. We sampled some sounds and played around with them until we came up with some beats and this bassline. But the working process hasn’t changed that much for me. I still sample sound and drums and play around with them only the process is a lot easier in software samplers compared to the then common Akai and Ensoniq hardware we were using.

Feel free to correct me, but the second song from the “Keep Pushin'” single, called “Ready“, is filled or based of some early 70’s sounds and some latin-house vibes. Would you say that the music from this decade have had a special influence in your productions?

Another sample track yeah. Featuring trombone player legend Raul de Souza. Well, I grew up with this music, it was around me all the time, and I was always collecting records from a very early age on. When I came back home from school there wasn’t much else than music for me. So yes that era had the biggest influence.

Show Tracklist

1. Boris Dlugosch – Keep Pushin’ (Oliver Dollar Main Mix)
2. Boris Dlugosch – Keep Pushin’ (Purple Disco Maschine Vox Mix)
3. Boris Dlugosch – Keep Pushin’ (Session VIctim Remix)
4. Boris Dlugosch – Keep Pushin’ (Boris 2015 Mix)
5. Boris Dlugosch – Keep Pushin’ (Cassara RMX)

Boris Dlugosch – Keep Pushin' 2015 Remixes

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Now to the 20th anniversary you are celebrating the re-release of “Keep Pushin'” with remixes from Oliver Dollar, Purple Disco Machine and Session Victim. Why did you choose these three acts?

Well, all three are great artists that I admire. I have and play a lot of their music when I DJ. So I chose them because I knew they would make the track playable, especially for me again as I can’t listen to the original much anymore ha ha ha 🙂

You’ve also had your last release together with Purple Disco Machine, a truly beautiful house song, which also sample a song from the 70s again. I guess it is Sandra Richardson “I Feel a Song” – am I right? Is it kind of a revival of your own roots?

Actually it’s Gladys Knight’s version of the same song that we used. I had this sample on my hard drive for quite a while already and when Tino (Purple Disco Machine) and I had a studio session I was playing him some stuff and he liked this a lot so we started working a track around it. Well it is every couple of years I think that I’m getting tired of playing/producing that exact same sound over and over again. So after a very electronic, quite “banging” phase in my life my style got a lot housier again. I guess it comes in circles or waves or so.

Purple Disco Machine & Boris Dlugosch – L.O.V.E.

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So as if it comes in circles, you wouldn’t exclude the possibility to make another track like “Bangkok”? And please don’t answer with never say never 😉

Well but that’s exactly that… In these times where everything circles so quickly you never know! Depending on what you mean by “a track like BANGKOK…” surely I wouldn’t copy myself.

Do you know the story behind Bangkok?

Erol Alkan was handed a mp3 of “Bangkok” just before an Australian tour a few years ago and decided he would test it out at his first festival date once he landed. Unbeknown to him, his set was being transmitted live across Australia on Triple J. Within minutes of stepping off stage, Erol had half a dozen people emailing and texting asking what the hell ‘that third track’ was that he’d played. Somewhat jet lagged and uninterested in emailing at that point, Erol went to bed not knowing that a corner of the internet had lost it’s mind for this new, unmastered and unamed track.

By the next day, that half a dozen requests became 100!

Upon returning home, Erol promptly signed the track and released it within weeks. “Bangkok” crashed into every club chart imaginable. A then up and coming Roska delivered a brilliant remix.
The sleeve was the first to be designed by David Rudnick for Phantasy, brilliantly animated by 2manydj’s as part of their live dj show (as well as fusing it with The KLF’s “What Time Is Love”.
Via Phantasy Sound

My research into your discography just raised a question, why is there no LP and compared to your years in the music business, the amount of EP’s isn’t that big. Do you prefer to DJ than producing?

I never really considered myself a musician. I m a DJ-Producer. Writing music is not really what I’m good at. I always co-write. And I never felt the urge to release an album. I’m way too impatient to wait until I have 12-15 tracks ready to go.

As we speak about revivals and circles in music, what do you think about the recent hype of “EDM”? You’ve must see a lot of trends come and go over the years. Is it just another one, but maybe bigger in our perception because of the new medias like social networks and stuff?

Exactly. It’s the same same but different. It’s so much bigger as people brought the money-making to perfection. The music itself? I couldn’t care less.

We speak a lot about the past and the present, but let’s have a look into the future. What can we expect in the next months? Usually that’s the moment where you can tell us some big secrets. 🙂

I’m working on some quite “Big-Name” remix here as we speak. Another 20 Years Anniversary Release as my “Keep Pushin” I have just released with Peppermint Jam. Apart from that a follow up to “L.O.V.E.” my collab with Purple Disco Machine is almost finished. And so on…

Last but not least, and just let me say thank you again for taking your time and let’s finish with two charts. First, which songs could you never live without? And second, which songs would you definitely put into your Essential Mix?

Oh man…these change all the time. Well I couldn’t live without my Beatles and The Police collection, I guess. Essential Mix? We’ll see when I get asked to do one, ok? 😉

Aboslutely, it’s high time! Don’t you think so?!