Lucid Mix with Dheeraj Sareen

Dheeraj Sareen drops an exclusive jacking tech house mix for Lucid. Grab a few cold ones before you press play.

Tracklist

1. Saudade Yerba Buena feat. Ari Oklan (Jay Haze Tool Remix) - Dheeraj Sareen (MakTub Music)
2. Mr. Jack (Robags Edna Mompf Remix) - Luna City Express (Moon Harbor Records)
3. That Philosophy Track (Todd Bodine Remix) - Sasse & Phonogenic (Highgrade Recordings)
4. Everybody (Surrealism Remix) - BalErik, Vadim Yershov  (Discoteca)
5. Twisted Plug Ins (Original Mix) - Afrilounge (Kaato Music)
6. Seven Moods (Original Mix) - Carlo Lio (Monique Musique)
7. Mizzle (Tom Flynn Remix) - Worthy (Anabatic Records)
8. Grabbing At Straws (Pedramovich Remix) - Tom Budden (Alive Recordings)
9. Grooveapocalypse (Original Mix) Rio Padice (Metroline Limited)
10. The Endless Summer (Original Mix )Luca Baccheti - (Hideout Music )

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A quick chat with him about music, gigs and influences:

How did a young boy from Delhi turn out to be the finest tech house DJs in the country? What have been your influences?

Thanks for the kind words! It all started out with just love for the music. After I returned to India from college in the US I started working a day job in finance and my only escape from extreme boredom in the day time was listening and hunting tunes at night, hanging out with friends and listening to podcasts, clubbing etc. Started posting mixes on the internet & submerge which people really took a liking too. My first break was djing for my good friend Arjun Khurana's Delhi Underground parties. I opened for Paul Woolford, Martin Eyerer, Bjorne Wilke, Jay Haze etc that really helped me get some exposure, Submerge & Nikhil Chinapa also asked me to play for their parties which was a great help. Current influences : Stimming, Rio Padice, Pedramovich, Reset Robot, Tom Budden, Justin Martin too many to list! Past influences : The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Fatboy slim, DJ Shadow, Moby, Radiohead, Deadmau5 (No Joke, I used to dig his earlier stuff!)  list goes on here as well!

You've made a brave move by taking up music as a serious career. What made you go this way?

Well as cliché as this may sound but I seriously owe this all to my parents and family. They have always been open about me DJ'ing but its my Dad who brought up the idea for me to learn professionally and take up making my own music. Pyramind has been an amazing experience for me and besides writing my own Electronic music, being an Audio Engineer opens doors to a lot of things in Game Sound Design, Film production, Post etc. I intend to pursue a career in one of these fields alongside my own productions and DJing.

We know you're a certified gear whore! What's the latest toy you acquired?

HaHa. Well these days since I am concentrating more on production I have been acquiring the right plug-ins and software synthesizers. In terms of plug ins, the most recent thing I purchased was all the new Rob Papen synthesizers that my friend Pedramovich suggested I try and I love them. In terms of hardware I recently purchased the new NI X1 controller for Traktor and its an amazing piece of gear. The integration with the software is superb! Better then any MIDI controller I have ever used for Traktor. But my next purchase is definitely an iPAd where I will run TouchOSC.

Your debut single "Saudade Yerba Buena" is out soon. Tell us more about it.

It comes out later this summer on my good friend Arjun Vagale (Jalebee Cartel) record label MakTub music with remixes from Jay Haze (Tuning Spork / Get Physical), Pedramovich (Alive / Supernature ) & Zero in Something ( Etoka Records ). The track was a project for my Mixing and Mastering class at Pyramind, and my friend Ari Oklan who's a seriously talented musician played Saxophone on it. We got to work in his studio in San Rafael and he has some of the best analog gear including a Spring reverb which makes the sax sound PHAT on a big system. The name in part comes from us recording ambience at the Yerba Buena Gardens here in Downtown San Francisco.

How would you differentiate the scene in San Francisco and New Delhi? Keep it clean

The San Francisco scene is very very well educated about Electronic music and extremely passionate about it is as well. Delhi unfortunately still isn't the EDM capital of India but places like Bluefrog in Mumbai support some quality acts. Bluefrog besides 222 hyde here in San Francisco is my favorite club in the world. The people is what makes San Francisco an amazing city, friendly, down to Earth & willing to help if you have the right sound. Unfortunately the quality of bad music vs. good music in Delhi or for India for that matter is quite great. Its all about Trance, Electro and progressive being shoved down peoples throats. I really wish the promoters would take a different approach and introduce some fresh music more frequently to the scene rather then just bringing the Top 20 DJ in the world every month. We all know the rankings blow and there is so much more quality music out there outside the Top 100.

Most memorable gig?

My most memorable gig has to be playing in the basement of my friend Rahuls house with Paul Woolford. After Paul got done playing for the DUG music festival @ Kuki we shifted the party to Rahuls house and I got to play in his basement for a good 2-3 hours with Paul enjoying a few Kingfishers. The party was so much fun that Paul eventually came upto me and asked me if he could join in! (Like he had to ask and I would have said no!) He also complimented me on how well I played and I was on cloud 9 after that. Paul is a legend. Another favorite had to be my friend Jonny's EFFECT party @ 222 hyde with Lee Burridge + Mike Khoury, that was an Epic morning/afternoon.

Anything that ticks you off while on the console?

Requests. Nothing annoys me more. In SF its a lil different because people ask for the right tracks or something I can usually work around but in India the request to play Bally Sagoo or Bob Sinclair really grinds my gears. Also people constantly touching your laptop and pulling wires out, its happened to me a couple of times and ruined the night by unplugging my computer. One drawback of being a digital user.

What can we expect from you in the near future? Any more releases lined up?

Coming to the end of my course here at Pyramind the last few months are intense with a lot of projects. I havent been able to work on too many originals but I have 2 more almost complete which I intend to send out later this summer once I finish them up. Also getting a remix oppurtunity for a Deep House label which I am excited about.

What should we expect from the Lucid mix?

The Lucid mix is more on the Tech House side of things, though I usually prefer a Deeper sound I will be playing a more jacking sound for the party on the 17th of July @ Kuki, hence I wanted to give a little preview to the night with this mix. (Feel free to post the tracklist up in this question)

Catch Dheeraj Sareen and Nishant Technoboy bring the house down at Pure, New Delhi, on 17 July 2010. For event details click here.