He named his new release Breakthrough and that defined his future – the album was in the Beatport top within 24 hours and stayed there for weeks. Now Carlo Ruetz got the attention he deserved – Carlo has been Djing for over a decade by that time. It was 2013 and Richie Hawtin noticed the new name. the invitation to Enter. followed, a release on M-nus was dropped and here he is – Carlo Ruetz, the new face of M-nus, who takes the world by storm with his colleagues, who were nurtured by Hawtin at Enter. within the last two seasons.
It’s almost impossible to find in an interview with you in English, so let’s ask a classic question – who is Carlo Ruetz, who we see now and who he what 10 years ago?
Carlo Ruetz today stands for minimal techno and techno. In the last 10 years I have experimented a lot with music, have tried to incorporate other genres in my productions. At age 20 I wasn’t even fully aware of the genre “Minimal Techno”. Today I’m more aware of my productions, know exactly what suits me and what does not.Today I know that I have found my musical path. Compared to tracks or sets from the past, everything is now a bit more mature, intelligent and expressive.
How did you get to the point where you are now – releasing at MINUS and being a part of their showcase?
2013 I released my first album “Breakthrough” on Supdub Records. At the time, it would have never crossed my mind to send demos or promos to MINUS, although I have always been a big fan of Richie Hawtin, Gaiser and the whole crew. But Richie heard about my music and so I received an invitation to his ENTER. Parties in Ibiza, followed by my first release on Minus “Controlled by Robots”. After that I was able to be part of several showcases such as Fuse Brussels, Toffler Rotterdam, Watergate Berlin, City Hall Barcelona or Guendalina in Italy.
Can you share your first clubbing experience? What was the mix / track did Influenced you and inspired you to become a dj / producer.
Oh yeah. It was a club around the corner from my house. I was very excited. At that time I still played with vinyl and couldn’t even manage to get the needle exactly on the beginning of the track, that’s how shaky my hands were. Although there were only 10 guests, it was an experience I will never forget. In my early days as a local DJ I played a lot of DJ Hell’s label “International Gigolos”. The craziest and most inspiring EP back then was Vitalic’s “Pony EP”. I still get goose bumps from this track “La Rock 01”. Also Marc Houle’s “Restore” album was a crucial point for me in going exactly into this direction of music and production.
What is your plan for the rest of the year 2016? Special gigs, releases etc
The first time in Tel Aviv is very exciting for me! And there are also a few other events I look forward to, in example Sofia Bulgaria or Helene Beach Festival in Germany. Lately I published two successful EPs on Moonplay and KD RAW… the RAW009 EP even went to no.1 of top minimal releases on Beatport, and no.12 of techno releases. Super cool! Right now I’m sitting in the studio and produce new things. We will see 🙂
Tell us a bit about your work in the studio – what is your approach when you finish start working on a track.
First of all I always jam around on my external devices such as the Analog Keys and the Analog Rhythm of Elektron, which are my main devices. But also the VST instruments may not be missing such as The Omnisphere of Spectrasonics. I first always build the main part of a track before I begin to work on the breaks and intro part. Sometimes there’s also a phase of “heard it too often” and I would just start on something new (laughing).
Which are the top 3 tracks you would use to make a crowd of sleepy people dance?
1. Rodriguez Jr. – Petropolis
2. Truncate – Drum Trax
3. Carlo Ruetz – System Hack
What was the most hallucinated experience you had as a DJ?
Luckily in my short career I haven’t really had that moment yet, which made me absolutely shocked or nervous. Last year I played at the Spring Festival in Graz. During the 2-hour sets the power went out completely 3 times. In that situation, it was challenging for me repeatedly having to start anew without losing the flow that you’d want to build throughout a set.
