Pig & Dan’s new album “Modular Baptism”, released this month on their label Elevate was listed as №4 of Top 100 Releases on Beatbport. And that means something. It means that the day they met on a plane flight to Barcelona in 1999 was the start of an era.
The beginning of their story is something you don’t invent on purpose. They started talking on a plain and understood that they thought alike, shared mutual philosophy and had the same roots deep in the start of electronic music boom. Their further collaboration gave birth to tracks that got support from Sander Kleinenberg, Felix Da Housecat, John Digweed and many others, and in 2005 they started their ongoing relationship with Sven Vath’s Cocoon, that celebrates 20 years this year.
We talked to Igor Tchkotoua (Pig) and Dan Duncan about their new album and their future plans.
- TS: When you launched the label in 2012, you told RA that you think it’s time to push the new sound. How is it going? What can you say about the past 4 years?
P&D: It’s going very well so far. We have been delighted with the progress made in such a short time and that such fantastic know and unknown artists have come on board to make it what it is today.
Last year we celebrated being the 18th top selling Techno label on Beatport. We’ve very much kept true to our sound and our aim to push artists that we believe need to be heard.
- TS: Where do you see your label in another 4 years?
P&D: Well we hope that we build an even more solid foundation of followers and artists. We’ve gained more respect than we could have ever imagined and hope that we can keep that positive flow growing.
- TS: Tell us about your new release.
P&D: Our brand new album “Modular Baptism” is a collection of organic raw techno tracks. Ranging from deep all the way to euphoric anthemic productions. All created by hands on synth work and played live without in the box quantising. It’s all about back to the roots music using melodies and hypnotic grooves with a foundation of grainy beats and round deep baselines.
- TS: Do you have a dream collaboration and if yes, who would this be?
P&D: Of course working with Jim Morrison would be an incredible honor to us.
- TS: What would the track be like?
P&D: Well as we’ve used some of the vocals from recordings of Jim talking of the future of technology, I think it would be very much along the lines of those previous releases he was featured on : )
- TS: What’s the funniest situation you’ve got into during your gigs?
P&D: In Tokyo at Ageha the whole light system went down for more than 30 minutes however the sound system remained in working order. In the centre of the gigantic room there is a massive disco ball and I shined a real high powered flashlight I had in my pocket upon it and the crowd thought it was all staged. It was an incredibly powerful moment and I had control of the only light available for a rather long time. We used it to our advantage making it pitch black then lighting up the room when needed to add the dynamic..
Listen to Modular Baptism:
