suruba x, a sublabel of the spanish suruba label for which i recently did a remix, has released my new 'back to móstoles' ep. it features 2 tracks, and is in a sense a continuation of what i did before and a breaking away from it.

suruba x is dedicated to the deeper shades of electronic dance music and, as is custom with the suruba label itself, no corners were cut on the design. they opted for a more abstract and darker look though, which makes me feel right at home. the fact that the good people of suruba hail from móstoles, a madrid suburb where i spend a good part of my childhood, helps as well.

the a side, 'maqam', is build around the exploration of an arabic scale, or maqam. in contrast to the western tradition, where harmony underpins everything, traditional arabic music builds its larger structures on melody. to that purpose, an elaborate system of maqams has evolved over the ages. a maqam is not just a collection of notes, it is also a set of rules on how to explore those notes. a similar system, called ragas, can be found in traditional indian music.

as a true child of post-modernity, i took what i deemed usable from this tradition and integrated it with my own perspective. here's a part of the track where i start the main melody on a note and slowly expand the range of exploration until i hit the same note an octave higher:

after that, i return to the root note only to get ready for another exploration of the maqam in the second part of the track. this is a way simple melodies can be used to build larger structures. and it shows what music is all about: well dosed tension and release.

i'm quite proud of the result. but at the same time, i feel that a track as conceptual as this is bound not to make a very big impact on the dance floor, where instant gratification and a focus on surface texture reign supreme.

it represents where i come from though. i am trained as a composer of electronic art music and as such used to conceptualizing music. nevertheless, 'maqam' represents a turning point for me. it made me realize that if i wanted my music to have more direct appeal on the dance floor, i needed to rethink my strategy.

in that light, it's insightful to listen to the first final version of 'maqam', or 'persian miniatures' as it was then known. this version is almost 1.5 years old, and as you will probably hear, it focuses more on atmosphere and less on drive and impact:

the b side, 'personality is a disorder' is much more recent and moves away from the conceptual style of 'maqam'. the focus is more on the groove and the surface texture, even though i couldn't resist to lose myself a bit in the composition and the sound design.

there's not really that much to say about the track, except maybe that i put my recently acquired shitload of small percussion instruments to good use. the amount of usable sounds that can obtained from recording live percussion never fails to amaze me. if time permits, i'll share some homebrew percussion samples in the near future.

if all this talk has made you curious, here is a preview of both tracks in good quality:

the ep is available digitally on beatport or as vinyl in your local record store.