The Clubber mix 034: Chus & Ceballos

Throughout the past decade Chus+Ceballos have been on top of the world and they keep on brining us new music all the time. It took them 15 years to finally release a long-player, but now it’s here and it was worth the wait! This amazing Spanish duo found time to do a podcast followed by an interview for us. We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did!

Hi guys! First of all, thank you for your time! How are you? How’s everything going?

We are doing great, thanks. Very exciting times after the launch of our debut album ‘NOMADAS’, we are so happy due to the great feedbacks from media and fans, right now focus on the album tour, bringing the nomadic spirit to our favorite cities and some new amazing places. In just a few weeks we have a crazy New Year’s marathon celebration playing in Toronto (Club Nest), New York (Club Space) and Montreal (Stereo Night Club) and right after that, heading to the BPM festival in Playa del Carmen, Mexico for our annual Stereo Productions Showcase.

You’ve been working together for over 15 years now, what would you say is the key to your successful collaboration?

One of the most important things is the trust and the respect we have for each other, we are complementary personalities so that make our relationship lot more easy, its also important to separate some duties in our different fields dj-music production-label to don’t clash too much on each other work. And the last one is to keep the fun factor and the excitement in the new projects, when things are happening and we are enjoying what we do, to share that moments with someone, that is first of all your friend, is priceless.

How would you describe your music?

There is a phrase that means everything to us ‘From House to Techno, Drums Always Present’.
This is the milestone and the common path of our music, the groove and the rhythm elements are what identifies us the most and what people recognize by the first impression in our sets and productions. We love to tell a history when playing music, creating expectation, climax and many other different sensations. Our music is full of organic elements, nice melodies and some vocals, because music is also about to spread a message and also to dance and release yourself. We play music for your feet and your heart. We also like to take our audiences on a musical trip and you can experience this perfectly in our extended sets where we move between styles, changing often the dynamics of the night, bringing a full experience on the dance-floor.

Your first album “Nomadas” got out a little over a month ago, what was the inspiration for the tracks and for the album’s name? And what’s the reason for taking such a long time to release an album?

‘Nomadas’ is the Spanish word for Nomads, we like to say that we are Nomads not to scape life but for life not to scape us. We had a life-changing experience at Burning Man last year and this was for sure the spark that started the fire of this album. It was an intense week, very spiritual, surrounded by art, music and friendship, we got inspired musically and personally to get into the studio and transform those experiences in music, and not a regular bundle of tracks but a long player project. Conceived as a listening experience, an inner trip to our deep and ethnic roots exploring new musical landscapes and vocal collaborations unknown for us. Sharing magic musical moments with so many different people in so many diverse places and countries has been an endless source of inspiration for the album.
We believe that this album happened because was just the right time for it, it took long but it was worth it 🙂

You did a lot of remixes over the years, the most recent one was for Elio Riso & D-URRS, how did it come to this collaboration?

Elio is and old good friend and also one of the resident DJ’s at Space Ibiza, we are also a big supporters of his music, we loved this studio collaboration along with D-URRS so we decided to release it in our label and made our own remix, the pack turned out very good getting great feedbacks, the remix is a dance floor killer!

A little while ago you had the opportunity to play at MixMag’s Lab in LA, how was that experience for you?

We loved! Usually the streaming shows are located in places with no vibe, its a bit cold to perform in an empty room but this MixMag Lab one was great, the place it’s a very cozy with a proper DJ Booth and a very comfortable set up where you really forgot that you are surrounded by cameras. This intimate experience is always a nice change of pace to us. We had a blast, it was so much fun as you could see on the video 🙂

What would you say is the best part of working and creating music as a duo?

Working as a duo you reach places that you wouldn’t reach as a solo artist, we believe that music is a sharing experience and collaborate with other people is a never ending learning process, it force you to improvise much more, leaving your comfort zone, pushing and motivating each other to get further.

You’re nominated in three categories for Vicious Music Awards: best album, best tech-house artist and favourite male artist, how does that feel?

We believe that any real artist make music to win awards but is always an extra motivation, a good recognition to the hard work, it really pays off. We feel good and realized when the industry and specially our fans loves our work, they are telling to us that we are doing things right. This year was even more special to be nominated for our debut album, it was so much work and a big effort and dedication on the making.

You founded a label called Stereo Productions and a lot of great artists have been released on it, can you give us some kind of a sneak peak for future releases?

We are so proud of the label, so many talented people have been released on Stereo and much more to come. Its always great to have on board names that are leading the market and other ones that will lead for sure in the near future. We have to give an special mention to Rafa Barrios, Dosem, Supernova, Technasia, Loco & Jam, Fernando Campo, Jose M & Tacoman, Ben Grunnel, Simone Liberali, The Deepshakerz, Spencer K, Anthony Attalla, Vidaloca & Piem, Paul C & Paolo Martini, DJ Dep or Ramiro Lopez to name but a few.

What are you working on at the moment? Do you have any special plans for the future?

Right now we are in the middle of our album tour and preparing the compilations and show cases for the upcoming Stereo Productions events at the BPM festival in Mexico and the Miami music week. Apart of that always working on new music and preparing a new Live show for 2016 where we will be integrating new human and electronic elements to our Dj sets.

What kind of set have you prepared for our readers/listeners?

We have a live set recorded at a very intimate room that we love, Cielo Club in New York. Its so good to play for a limited audience, its like to share your living room with friends and take them all to a musical journey.
We hope you like it as much as we do. Merry Xmas and a very happy new year 2016.
best always.

The Clubber mix 034: Chus & Ceballos by The Clubber on Mixcloud