Made In Mexico: Sebastien Vorhaus

For all of the global agenda that currently pervades electronic music, few countries have embraced a 4/4 beat quite like Mexico over the past few years. One man who’s at the forefront of this underground movement is Sebastien Vorhaus, a multi-talented DJ/producer whose sound has already come to prominence on Danilo Plessow’s MCDE label. With Vorhaus’ own label, Vicario, currently burning bright thanks to a stunning EP from Rhythm Operator, we thought it a good time to drop Mexico a line. Here’s how our conversation with one of house music’s brightest stars went down…

I wanted to start by asking about the latest release on your label by Rhythm Operator. How did that one come about? Well, basically since last year, I started noticing Calvin James aka Rhythm Operator’s music, because of his track, ”Anytime” on Needwant Records. It always impresses me that there’s great underground house producers near my city. In this case, Rhythm Operator is based in L.A. I just sent him a message telling him that I wanted him to do an EP on Vicario. He was very interested as he liked the concept of the label, and we have all this first quarter of 2014 with  releases, compilation tracks, remixes by himself. 

And your remix with 4004…Did it end up exactly as you imagined it would? Not really! We did like 2 or 3 drafts each one, then our own deadline was near, and with a bit of inspiration, 4004 came out with the idea and we finished it. 

Do you prefer remixing or producing your own work? We’re all about doing our own stuff, that’s our priority. Remixing is very cool too, we always want to give a unique twist to the track, as it was a completely another song, but with the key element of the original.  

You tend to favour a quality over quantity way of working. How often do you get to the studio? Can you talk us through your way of working a bit?  It may seem like that, but I only release about 30% of the stuff I actually do. In 2013 I did around 3/4 tracks per month with 4004. But yes, my strategy is always keeping the quality intact and doing ”timeless music”.  Even if the work is for a big or small label, I always want to give my best. I really can’t be 24/7 in the studio, because I have a part-time job and I’m just finishing up in University, but mostly every night since 7 years ago, I’ve been messing with my DAW in my bedroom studio. I’m constantly in contact with 4004, as most of my stuff is a collaboration with him. He uses Ableton and I do my productions with Maschine & Logic Pro. 

Are you always looking for new producers to join the ranks at Vicario then? How do you get in contact with most of them? Are you always looking for new music?Yes, but when I started the label, I was all about looking up for the big names. After many mistakes and errors, I realized that my label needed to develop its own unique sound, and the answer was: new producers. I’m always contact with them via Soundcloud, or even on Facebook. I’m a really open-minded person and I listen to every kind of music. Sometimes we get demos of other genres like Techno, electronica, experimental, I hear them all. But yep, mostly I sign people who know what they are doing, not people who just make a kind of genre because it’s trendy and shit.  

What, for you, is the most exciting thing about running a label in 2014? What’s the most challenging? The most exciting thing for me right now is that I have a full catalogue of digital only EPs, and Vinyl only releases. Now the roster has a lot of cool artists like: 4004, Rosenhaft, Alex Wax, Brame, Urulu, and Rhythm Operator of course. The challenging thing now is that I really need to keep it very constant, but also keep the quality. Fortunately there’s a plenty of new excellent producers. And I don’t see it really as a competition, as there’s a lot of new labels out there, and there’s very cool music. But the only challenge is keeping the unique tracks, and not releasing the most popular trend or whatsoever.  

Talk to me a bit about DJing and producing. When did you start? What prompted you to begin?I started when I was 14 years old. I had a bit of musical education as I went to guitar classes in middle school. But I wanted to record what I was doing, so that’s was the moment when FL Studio appeared. I’m kind of a geek and self-taught, so I learned quick and I immediately started to do Chiptune and 8bit music, so I did a project with my neighbor, Ricardo Mejia, and we started the project called ”KRY-LON” which it had a lot of relevancy back in the myspace days. I used to sneak illegally into house and techno clubs at the tender age of 15, there was one called ”Club Neon” in 2007, the manager of the club liked our music, and we became residents (still illegally) but it was very fun. With this project I opened for people like Damian Lazarus, and at that time I really didn’t knew who he was, hahaha! But it’s there where I met Fabricio, A.K.A. 4004,  and since those years we became very close friends.  

And did you start on vinyl or CDJs then? Does your hometown of Tijuana have its fair share of record shops or is electronic music difficult to come across? As the club where I played prohibited the DJs to use a computer, I started using CDJs. In Tijuana, there’s only one good record store, ”La Ciruela Eléctrica”, which is where I buy the soul, rare grooves, and funk records I actually sample. In our neighbor city, San Diego, there’s a cool store called United Records and Sound. And 2 hours from Tijuana, there is Amoeba Records in Los Angeles, which is pretty dope. Nowadays I’m building up my record collection and I buy most of my records on Discogs. Electronic Music in Tijuana is well known because of raves, or events in LA, San Diego, or Mexicali.  

And did you get out clubbing there much as a teenager etc? Do you still play a lot of hometown gigs? Yea, I used to go to a lot of festivals, clubs, around the city, and Mexico. I liked to party a lot, but now sometimes I feel like it’s a waste of time, not because there’s bad electronic artists, but instead of being there I just wanna do music. it’s an obsession, I just think about doing tracks, and play my vinyl records all the time.

So what do you make of the scene in Mexico right now? Is it in a healthy place? Yes, the scene in the country is growing up very fast. Most of the producers last year were into Nu Disco, G-House, etc. Now it’s more Techno, electronic influenced. There’s a lot of dj/producers who are very relevant on the global scene, people like Métrika, Rubinskee, Louie Fresco, etc. In my city the earliest electronic music background we had was the Nortec Collective which allegedly combined Techno rhythms with Norteño music, nowadays, there’s many artists (which most of them moved to Mexico City), created the Ruidoson genre, which it’s a experiment of a raw combination of tropical music, cumbia, 3ball, combined with techno and lo fi sounds, I know them since when I started doing electronic music, artists like Los Macuanos, Siete Catorce, are very cool. There’s an important label in Tijuana called Static Discos, it’s more techno oriented too. Mock the Zuma and Mextape are doing the job in Juarez City, and there’s a lot of clubs all over the country. Festivals like Mutek, BPM, are giving a big chance to Mexican producers to play to bigger audiences. Recently Boiler Room Mexico did 5 live transmissions. So things are getting better here. Speaking of House Music, there’s a few enthusiasts in Mexico, but we are trying to spread the word by ourselves. 

What’s your favourite thing about going out in Mexico then?Cheap beer and very good local artists!

Is music a full-time hobby for you right now then? Or what else occupies your time?More than a hobby, it’s a passion for me. School occupies most part of my time, I’m finishing my career in Communications and I’ve only one year left! I work part time in my family business, a Printing shop. And I spend my weekends with my girlfriend Ely. For me it’s all about of being organized and I can have some extra time to dedicate myself to my real love…tacos. And music, too. 

And what else can we look forward to from you over the next year? Any big plans?Strangely, I have a lot of followers in Russia, and some cool promoters booked me to play in St. Petersburg, I will stay 2 weeks touring / producing all over Europe,  I’m working on a release with 4004 on FACES Records & MCDE, Four Fingers Hand, Kolorit, and more. There’s a lot of releases for Vicario this year. Watch this space!