A Sign Of Big Things To Come with Mendo

Image:Mendo

Step up Mendo, the Swiss born selector is partial to a remix, and he's pretty good at it too, if you've partied in Ibiza this summer then you'll have heard his remix of Hunzed and Harvey's 'Sheeta' reigning down on the dance floor with it's spellbinding groove built over scintillating drum parts.

Add in to the mix his flourishing label - Clarisse Records, that's absolutely nailed it with just about every release this year, and you can see why everyone's talking about him.

In sync with his upcoming appearance for Liverpool's Rubix at District over Halloween, we made it our mission to get the low down on a belting year for the tech house wizard and what he'd been up to at the colossal ADE last week. 

Hello! thanks for speaking to us. You’ll be heading to Liverpool for Rubix at the end of the month. Have you played in Liverpool before? Are you looking forward to it? 

Hello, hope you are fine, thanks for having me today.

No, that will be my first time and I'm really excited about it, especially because I love the English audience, they're very receptive to the music, and because I have a big amount of English fans on my pages.

For those of us that haven’t seen you in action before, what can we expect from your set there? 

Fresh music from our 'Gelatine' EP (hear that below) which we produced with my Italian guys Impellizzeri & Stupia released on Yousef's Circus Recordings. There'll also be some unreleased music, and a few originals and remixes to be released during next months.

I like to test tracks live beforehand to validate their sound with producers I like or I use to work with. For the set you can expect plenty of solid, sexy grooves on a four traktor deck setup, as usual - total madness will be the result, I hope!

Being born in Switzerland to Spanish parents, do you feel that your music has been influenced by both cultures? In what way? And what is the underground scene like in Switzerland?

Yes electronic music from Spain is very positive, fresh, and dancey. From Switzerland it's more sophisticated and cerebral - a mix of both is the perfect stuff for me.

In Switzerland we are lucky to have very good underground clubs such as Weetamix, Silencio, Motel Campo or Gravière in Geneva, la Ruche. Then there's D! Club in Lausanne, Hive, Zukunft, Cafe Gold or Bellevue in Zurich and Nordstern in Basel and a few very good festivals too such as Caprices and Electron.

We noticed you where at ADE last week, tell us about that, any memorable moments? 

That was really good and intense because I stayed there for only 36 hours, because I left to play an amazing party in Papagayo, Tenerife on Saturday night.

I had a lot of business meetings with people who wanted to see me again for future collaborations such as Coyu for Suara, Mark Knight for Toolroom Trax and Tube & Berger and Juliet Sikora for Kittball and some with guys I'm already working on projects for such as Hot Since 82 for his own label Knee Deep in Sound.

Every party was sold out, I have never seen that before, although they announced 300 parties in 80 venues with 2000 DJs playing to 300000 party goers, that was really crazy! It was the same for the one I played at, organized by Blue Marlin Ibiza & Magnum Bookings at Panama club, it was totally packed.

You're label Clarisse is doing very well at the moment, in its 11 year tenure what have been some highlights, and what’s next for the label?

You are right, this year has been the biggest one yet, every release got into the top 100 on Beatport to very good positions, and stayed for weeks or months.

Sheeta (below) has been #6 most Shazamed track in Ibiza this summer, we receive strong support from more than 60 top DJs and we have bigger and bigger releases still to come during the next few weeks with very famous remixers, stay tuned.

You've produced music on numerous labels yourself, which of your past releases are you still really proud about?

Oh that's always difficult question! Besides all time favourite tracks such as 'Inocencia', 'Aventuras' or '1992' on Cadenza, 'Everybody I Got Him' on Clarisse or 'Gringo' on 8bit, this year I'm really happy with my remix of Hunzed & Harvey's 'Sheeta' on Clarisse, which has now been released worldwide on every platform thanks to Ultra Music.

But also the EP 'The Bassement'/'Truesoul' that I produced with my mate Danny Serrano, and the techno remix I did with my buddy Yvan Genkins for Ross Evans 'Curve Ball'. Then there's the remix of Monika Kruse's 'Summer Drops' and, last but not least, remix of Damian Lazarus 'Lovers Eyes'.

Yeah you're renowned for your remixes - we're big fans of both 'Curveball' and that rework of Damian Lazarus that you just mentioned (below), what is it that draws you towards the remix? 

First of all, I really need to feel the original track the label sends to me when I listen to it for the first time. I recently refused many requests from really big labels and producers because I had no real good idea of how to use samples from tracks they sent to me.

After this, usually it runs very fast, 24 or 48 hours to produce the remix, often spending 10 to 15 hours a day stuck in the studio. But sometimes, things are not the same, for the remix of 'Sheeta' it took me almost one year and seven versions to complete because I was not satisfied on six first ones, I found that they weren't really at the level of the original.

Just like (film director) James Cameron, this track was my 'Titanic', I wanted to give up many times but at the end it was a huge success.

Your album 'Avalon' has a real range of contrasting styles in it. How did you enjoy the experience of writing the album? Was it more challenging writing the LP to say writing a single? And, when is the next one!?

It’s definitely stressful, because I worked purely on the album over a whole year and I didn’t release anything else. But I have no regrets. That's why I really had pleasure in producing tracks like 'Waterborne', 'Avalon', 'Amazone' and 'Libelllule' which are quite experimental for me.

But of course, I didn't forget to produce peak time tracks such as 'La Krika', 'Clavelito' and 'Samba' which are more like the ones I normally produce. And finally, I made tools such as 'Mintro' and 'Interlude' to get all the elements for an album. But it was such a big amount of work that I'm not ready to produce another one for a few years I think!

Last question, and it’s hypothetical, if you could sign any record in history to Clarisse, what would it be, and why? 

I think you will be surprised, actually it's a 14 year old track from Rui Da Silva featuring Cassandra called 'Touch Me' (above) which actually got to number one in the UK singles chart.

Nowadays you will certainly find it old-fashioned and a bit trancey but it's a track which always stood out to me with its very unique atmosphere. It reminds me of many moments early on in my career when I was resident DJ in Geneva.

Thank you Mendo! Catch him in action at Rubix on October 31st by grabbing your tickets here

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