Mexicali: Climbers

They say good things come to those who wait. Tell that to Mexicali duo Jay Blakk and Kiko Deal, better known by their joint moniker of Climbers who despite forming only a year ago have already taken the electronic music scene by storm as there name gets bandied around dance hotspots around the world for their fresh faced take on house music.

Their debut ‘Law Of Attraction’ EP on Culprit, as well as the slew of well received remixes for esteemed labels such as Lower East, Noir Music 2 and Electronique have already found their way into the crates of some of the hottest underground DJs in the game today including Art Department, James Teej, My Favorite Robot Tanner Ross, Miguel Campbell, Catz n Dogz, Death on the Balcony and Richy Ahmed amongst many others.

Though they come from different musical backgrounds, Blakk and Deal haven been friends since high-school. Early last year they finally decided to join forces to make music, and they haven’t looked back since.  Now with a fresh release about to drop on Faceless recordings entitled ‘Left Your Love’ featuring the vocal talents of Yasmine Asaiez and a hectic tour schedule booked in across Europe including a headline date at Vertigo festival for this summer we caught up with the duo to discuss their meteoric rise, wax lyrical about their life philosophy and discuss the emerging south American electronic scene. 

If I could take you back to the beginning and ask you what first drew you to electronic music?

Jay Blakk.- Well for me I guess I was really into the sound of a band called Orgy and loved Placebo as well, but I didn’t know they had any connotation around electronic sounds.  I realized I really started loving this was when Kiko and I went to a rave and saw all these people dancing and having such an impact in a positive way about the music, and how can you meet people that love to love.

I imagine growing up in Mexico you’ve seen a lot of changes. What changes do you think have been for the better and is there anything you’d like to change back?

JB.- For me since I started here in Mexicali was really hard because at first there were different groups of people loving different genres and I always thought that instead of creating distance would be better to hang out with everyone and just love music.  What I think is that Mexico has grown and is able to finally decide to make music in a more interesting way rather than just saying it’s a hobby and hide around that shield to not be criticized because of your sound.

I think nowadays people are taking chances and finally agreeing to support each other.

How do you think it’s affected your musical style? Who influences you?

JB.- I think what has influenced me the most has been when I used to play in the first floor of a friends house for about 50 people, without a doubt.

It was so pure the feeling and how people interact with each other, and for influences I would have to say James Zabiela and Damian Lazarus as both were crucial for me. I remember not knowing a lot about techno or more experimental sounds and when I heard Robophobia by James Zabiela or Damian Lazarus playing Siren by Paolo Mojo its when I realized all the possibilities around the music.

Tell us more about the Mexican electronic scene. It seems that dance music is really blowing up in Central and South America right now- why do you think that is?

Kiko Deal.- I think has to be about cycles, like I take for example when all started with Detroit, Chicago and New York, then Canada joining and this sounds going back to Europe like London or Germany but at the same time Germany can argue it started their own sound like Italians.  So I’m guessing after we learn so much from all these different artists coming to our cities we deliver this sense of knowing that we can share our sound and be a contribution to the electronic scene.

Where was your first gig? Did it go well? 

KD.- It was at Ensenada, like 3 hours drive from where we live and it went really well because we were introducing “Go With The Flow” to the people and that for us it was a milestone in our career.

The new single from Climbers can be streamed below. Click on page two to find out what happened next when we caught up with the duo…