Page 30 - DemoZone Magazine Issue 003

LABEL FEATURE [Croatia]
The beginning of Silvio's DJ career was in 1997. In a short while his talent for music and communication with the audience has been recognized by many, and he became one of the headliners of Omegaritam - leading DJ group in Dalmatia.
In the next couple of years he became a charismatic name on the Dalmatian Electronic Music Scene and shared decks with many great artists like: Carl Cox, Jeff Mills, Stacey Pullen, Laurent Garnier, Mr. C, Craig Walsh, Plastikman, Marco Carola, Westbam, Bryan Zentz, C1 ...Dance floor oriented set with a range from tech-house to funky techno, packed with dominant bass lines, a good feeling for the dance floor and interesting mixing techniques are only some elements of his performance. An artist that is definitely worth a listen.
Together with his wife, Izabela, he starts music production, and their first vinyl release was in 2005, signed for Omegaritam Records.Release was called “Natural Selection”, and apart from them the release featured Markus Stork, Aztec and Alenia. So far they have releases on All Over It Records UK, Decoded Mini Records, New Era Recordings, Bronzai Records, Sempai Music, Music Records...
Currently he is holding residencies at Moondance Festival, Bacvice Beach Festival, and was invited two years in a row to perform at UMF stage @ Ultra Europe Festival.
2013 they started a digital label called "Family Grooves" which is now recognized localy and globaly!
Hi Izabela and Silvio, it's great to have you guys in for an interview with Zone this month. Your label has been gaining massive support since its inception and has become Croatia's biggest import into the music industry.Hi Paul, thank you for kind words. It's our pleasure to take part in this interview.When was Family Grooves started and what's the idea behind the name?
We decided to start a digital label in March 2013. and our first release was “The Bell Ringing EP” by “No Government“ on April 10th, 2013. Soon FG will celebrate 2 years anniversary, it's still a baby We were thinking about using “Family Grooves” as a producer alias for Izabela and me, but when the name issue for the label popped up, our plan has changed. Family Grooves describes our label as a “family label”, not only because of our marital status, but also as an idea to gather various artists in our musical family, and progress together, as a family. Family is a strong word, we are always trying to push, support and promote our artists – and we expect the same from them.
What involvement have you guys had in the music industry other than running Family Grooves?
Silvio has been a DJ since 1997. Back than the scene in Croatia was very strong and we had luck to meet and hang out with many world league artists.Production wise, It was difficult, because back than you had to have a lot of hardware, computers were not so powerful as today, but somehow we managed to build a really small home “studio” and started learning about production. We had some releases in the
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past, even on vinyl, but nothing we would describe as significant.
Tell us about some of the recent support that you've gained on your releases?
The support on the releases is very strong from day one. We were pleasantly surprised with the amount of feedback and support by many really big DJs, and it's still going strong. Our releases were (and still are) supported and played by world league artists like Carl Cox, Cristian Varela, Dubfire, Stefano Noferini , Da Fresh, Groovebox, Steve Mulder, David Herrero, Marco Carola, Richie Hawtin, UMEK, Paolo Barbato, Terry Francis... For all the updates, check our Facebook page
lLatest support is Cristian Varela charting
one of our tracks in his March 2015 Top10 on Resident Advisor, Da Fresh using two of our tracks in his monthly Podcast, and a lot of cool feedback from our promo pool.
What's your proudest moment since forming the label?
We are always proud when we hear some of our releases playing in DJ sets.
This is very important, specially if it was on some big event in front of many people, because if the music is not being played it's worthless. A producer can have huge amounts of brilliant tracks somewhere in his archives, but if those are not released and actually played, they become just random bits and bytes of data. The proudest moment is every moment when we stop and look back upon all that support the label got. Big thanks to all of our supporters!
You support a lot of up and coming artists as well established, what do you look for when considering a release?
We like to support up&coming artists, everyone needs to start somewhere and somehow. If we like what they did, we will for sure consider it for a release. There is no pattern in choosing the tracks for FG. We both listen to the track and try to understand what was artist's intention and idea. On what kind of energy is his track based, and how it's actually done. Sometimes we take tracks which are technically not on very high level, but the idea behind it is good, but also turn down some very well done tracks which we find not interesting or not fit for our label. This is actually the hardest part of the job, because we are getting huge amounts of demo materials, and it's not always easy to pick the ones for the label. Producers must also understand that if we don't take their tracks, it's because we didn't "click" with them, and that "click" is hard to explain :)
Which events do you attend regularly?
Well, to be honest, we are not big party goers as we have a lot of other things to take care of in our everyday life. When some old friend, or a fresh name that we would like to hear live comes to play somewhere near, we always try to attend. The only events we attend regularly is when Silvio plays, haha
The scene in Croatia has been all about festivals in the music press, tell us a bit about the club scene and whether you think festivals have had an affect on the clubs?
Croatia is a big festival destination for the last couple of years, that's true. That fact did some good and some bad things for the
local scene. Many of those festivals are managed by foreign promoters, and often they don't put much effort in including local DJs. Sometimes it feels like they have just rented the location and they "do their thing". Some festivals feature local DJs as well and that trend is lately rising, which is good thing, because I assure you that Croatia has a lot of DJ talent to offer.The festival season ends with the summer, and than we all go back to more private and personally much better atmosphere in the clubs.
You recently had Evil Eddie Richards over from the UK, what made you choose such an established dj and how was the night?
Well, it's hard to go wrong with such an experienced and established DJ as Eddie. Croatia, especially Split, was always pretty fruitful area for UK DJs and that typical Tech House sound. That trend goes back for many years, and our logical choice for the party was someone from Wiggle, Fabric... Eddie was available, so we booked him. It was a great party, the club was packed, we are looking forward to our next Family Grooves party, this time with Jamie Anderson on April 3rd.
You don't just release one genre of House music do you, do you think that's helped the success of your label?
That is a tricky question, and we will never know the answer. We believe that our exposure and sales would be better if we released only one genre, but that is not our mission. Of course, we won't go that far to release any genre, but quality release is a quality release. Techno, Tech House or Nu Disco.. It doesn't matter. Uniformed labels that release only one genre of electronic music are more DJ friendly, and you always know what to expect from them.
You never know exactly what to expect from Family Grooves, and even if a DJ won't play the track because it does not fit in his set, he can at least have some good times while listening to it in the promo pool.
Did you guys have any experience in running a record label before Family Grooves?
None, whatsoever.What's your all time favourite label release?Our favourite release is definitely FGA01, our very first released album by Partito Jesus Comunista – "Couch Guerilla". It's an outstanding peace of art, out of all boundaries, and we are very proud of it.
What advice would you give anyone starting a label?
If you don't have time and passion to do it, don't. You need both in order to do what you like, when you like.
Can you tell us a bit about what to expect from Family Grooves this year?
This year started great, with many good releases. Our "family" is expanding, and we will try to push the label one step higher in all segments. We are not planning anything spectacular, but hey, you never know :) Putting music aside, what do you do for fun when not running the label?We are trying to spend some quality time with our two beautiful kids as much as possible. Our real Family Grooves!
Words By Paul Sawyer Pic By DK Photography