- Smooth, eclectic house from the Slow Life DJ.
- Slow Life, the crew and label cofounded by Laurine, embody a certain kind of cool, calm and collectedness in dance music. It's right there in the name. They take their time with everything: refining their craft, releasing their music at a steady rate of around four records per year. Their sound is also easygoing, and incredibly appealing. Think '90s techno at its most exploratory, with traces of trance, dream house and illbient. It's warm and fuzzy dance music, with musicality and soul.
As a DJ, the Berlin-based Italian Laurine embodies this approach. Her DJing is almost impossibly smooth, and the records she plays timeless, drawn from the same silky, rarefied atmosphere as the Slow Life records. You could probably hear any of her sets blind and realize who was DJing three or four records in—that's how distinctive her style is. This RA Podcast is no difference, splitting the difference between head-in-the-clouds house and tough, jacking beats with organ basslines. It's a heavenly hour of DJing that might sound extra nice because of the break forced by the pandemic—Laurine says that it helped her fall in love with spinning records all over again. She wants to get back to it soon, but naturally, she's not in a rush. She's blessed us with this mix, and that's good enough for now.
What have you been up to recently?
It's important for me to maintain a certain routine in order to stay active, so my weeks are more or less the same as before the pandemic—mainly centered around music (digging, edits etc). But since I have free weekends I'm hanging out with friends more often and taking my time to relax. Also, having no gigs, I finally found the time and motivation to focus on the studio, which was something I had pending.
How and where was the mix recorded?
At home right before Christmas, with two Technics, 1 CD player and an Ecler Nuo mixer.
Can you tell us about the idea behind the mix?
When I make a podcast, I like to create a journey, trying to go from point A to point B with a specific order of intensity and moods. I didn't have a particular idea of what I wanted to do, so I just went with the flow. There was something that gave me the motivation to start though, and it was the very first record (in the mix I just put some seconds of it, the main message). I found it in the previous days and just thought, 'I want to make a podcast that starts like this.'
How do you keep yourself interested in dance music and DJing when there are no dance floors? Do you have hope for the near future?
It's not been an issue for me to keep my interest in dance music despite the closure of the clubs. I love to keep searching for records and listen to this type of music almost everyday, and in general I think this break was good for me. I know I am in a privilege position for the job I have, and I'll always be grateful for that, but being honest I was a bit saturated before the Covid-19 outbreak. Sometimes when you are in the loop of gigs after gigs, you start to take it for granted, so being forced to stop for such a long time has been a reset. I've started to feel the drive again, the fire and excitement for going back on the road. I've realised that for me it is very important to feel motivated, to look forward to every gig, and sometimes when your passion becomes your job, you can lose that. I still want to arrive to every gig and be excited, rested and willing to give a little bit of my soul to the crowd.
Regarding the second part of the question, I really want to be positive and think that even for the club scene this forced 'reset' could turn into a good thing. I hope this break reminds all of us why we felt in love with electronic music in the first place, and it brings back a more pure and uncontaminated relationship with it. No ego, no judgment, no competition, we need an higher consciousness not only in our life but also in the club scene to keep it "safe and sound."
What's coming up this year on Slow Life?
Right now we are awaiting the pressing of the second album from Ethereal Logic (S.Moreira and Indie Zone), Intergalactic World Music, in which they have expanded their own sound from the first one, blending ambient and tribal music. It's a great trip.
Next in line we have another album from our beloved Primary Perception, a great mix of sounds and tempos. And almost ready, the second part of the Chromophore various artists compilation, an album from Paolo Mosca, and my EP debut. We would love to release all these this year but we are having a lot of delays with the pressing plants, so the timing depends mostly on them.
What are you up to next?
Everything depends on how the situation evolves with coronavirus. I hope this summer I'll manage to play some records in front of a dancing crowd, that would be already a big achievement! In the meanwhile I'll just keep focusing on making music and keep finding records for when that time comes.