How was 2018 for you?
Demuir: 2018 was a great year for me from a spiritual, creative and business perspective. Another year that affirmed my continued pursuit of doing music professionally and branching out to tech-based genres that I love. I was also able to launch my label, Purveyor Underground, and was pleased to see people connecting to the label’s message of “…music first and artist first.” Truly happy with all that has been created and that which continues to evolve.
Highlights?
Performance-wise, my gig at Toronto’s Electric Island was easily a big one for me this past year. To be playing in front of 8,000+ people at home with my heroes Carlo Lio and Nathan Barato’s Rawthentic stage was just pure delight for me! I was also happy to be gigging repeatedly on the West Coast with so much love coming from L.A., San Diego, and playing legendary venues like San Francisco’s Halcyon and The Endup. Lastly, I cannot forget the good times had at ADE with an impromptu B2B set with Cassy! Very much grateful.
From a production perspective, things were great moving more deeply in tech-based genres. I kicked off the year with my Raw Beatz EP on Rawthentic and finished with the first part of my techno album release, From Black to Technocolor, on Music For Freaks that has seen chart support from Jamie Jones and wAFF and will be followed up in 2019. I also had the honor of releasing an amazing collab based EP, Demuir et Ses Amis, on Purveyor Underground that included DJ Sneak, Mark Farina, Arturo Garces and Tommy Largo, who are all producers I wanted to work with in house/Jackin.’ All this with great remix opportunities presented by DJ Spen to name a few.
Lastly, in addition to taking on A&R responsibilities for Cassy’s Kwench Records, it was nice to have been a featured artist on Beatport’s Hype team.
Lowlights?
It’s quite upsetting to see artists struggling to get paid fairly and on time for work they have done within and outside of their team. Many people forget the artist is an integral part to having a scene in the first place. Also saddened to see continued division in race matters politically and within the dance music industry in a few cases. Thankfully, these experiences have been few and far between for me.
Song of the year?
“Jazz Klub” by HateLate on Ondule. I hammered this pretty much the entire year. Straight no nonsense grooves!
What’s your New Year’s resolution?
Same as usual: To focus on my own shit and not conform to someone else’s opinion while keeping toxic people and organizations out of my sphere.