Uruguayan born but Spanish adopted son FERNANDO LAGRECA is one of the most solid and analogue-machine enthusiasts when it comes to composing on the southern side of Europe.
The multi-tasker (he also runs Miracle MGMT agency and his own Beautiful Accident label) is about to debut on TEENAGE MUTANTS label TRAGEDIE, bringing a pair of smashing hits of unique techno quality with ‘Atmosfera’ and ‘Ozonoe’.
Here is what he has to say about this release and his major gigs.
Which artist inspired you the most when you first started your musical journey?
My first inspiration came from names of the likes of Kraftwerk, New Order, Joy Division perhaps, and of course music from mid 90’s such as Aphex Twin, Orbital, The Orb, Future Sound of London, Roni Size, Goldie, etc.
What does the title of the EP ‘Atmosfera’ refer to?
I love to use space references in my names, Atmosphere would be the name in English and it comes on the inspiration of seeing a lot of space movies from early years 🙂
What kind of ambiance you were aiming to achieve in this release?
Basically textures, i worked with several layers of field recording. I picked lot of noises from the street, traffic, conversations in airport cues, engines, etc, and worked with all this stuff composing an own ‘atmosphere’, blending them all and then lowering down the volume a lot, to get a final layer of mixed noise that forms the background of both tracks, then i build up the rest of elements around, so, all in all it was like solving a puzzle.
What were your working tools and some of the techniques you used in the studio when producing the tracks?
Once i’ve got the noise fundamentals, based on those field recordings, start building up the structure and other pieces of the tunes, that is all studio work, using both analog devices such as Moog Sub37, Novation Bass Station and Sequential Pro3, combining it along with Arturia’s software like Pigments and some old synths emulation. For several years I quit using vst instruments but now, during the pandemic, I re-start using some selected pieces of software. For DAW i am using Ableton Live for a couple of months after a long period (before i composed all in Logic and before Logic was Protools but now i am feeling comfortable with Ableton) so i’d say it is a work with several restarts on its own. Another important piece in these tracks is the Arturia Microfreak, which provides all the arpeggios, and there is some drumming using the superb Nord Drum 3P.
What is coming next under your sleeve and being cooked in the studio?
Well, I’ve got two EP’s already in the planning for 2023 and working on new stuff, and I am reformulating the live show a bit, testing some new hardware and keep doing collaborations with brands, like I did in the past already.
What are your touring plans for the coming months?
Got some options on the pipeline, with confirmed shows in Barcelona, Malaga, Madrid, Istanbul, Berlin, etc. for the upcoming months, so, things seem to be nice on the booking department.
Any particular venue or festival that you are really looking forward to play at next? and why?
Well, even I played twice there already, I would like to play Sonar (official) again, that’s always on top of my wish list, it is the best festival in the world; and then for sure i would like to play again at ADE and of course would be amazing to play at Tomorrowland or some big stages like that. But what would be a dream is to play in Japan or Australia. In regards to venues or festivals where i already played and would like to repeat, well, i would gladly go to all of them again, but if I should mention just a couple as my favourites venues, i’d say Ritter Butzke in Berlin, RX in Istanbul, Tanzhaus West in Frankfurt and Razzmatazz in Barcelona.
What was the craziest thing ever happened to you in a gig?
Well, i would not say i had several crazy stuffs when gigging; perhaps it is more like lot of small accidents, such as an adapter is broken just a couple of minutes before start a show, crazy delays in airports, in one gig in which i was using a portable sampler with batteries, the sound guy simply took the batteries to test them in another piece of gear for another artist and forgot to turn them to my sampler and of course he did not advise me at all, so I was trying to switch on the unit and nobody was there, things like that. Fortunately, nothing serious and all was solved in due time 🙂 thanks for the interview and greetings from Barcelona to the Techno Station audience!
