On 27 January Ciutat was dressed up with the release of Brandon, the debut album by the Barcelona duo formed by Jordi (JP Sunshine) and Guillem (Guim), two well-known DJs on the Barcelona scene and members of the Mainline collective. Now, the pair are back to present ‘Remezclas Brandon’.
Ciutat‘s proposal on his first album moves somewhere between downtempo electronica and pop. Brandon is made up of slow breaks that in no way renounce dancing, airy synths and Mediterranean melodies, but also has room for sounds close to jazz, flamenco, electro or the most danceable house. Today the duo gives a new life to their debut with the help of friends from the national club scene, presenting Remezclas Brandon.
A varied remix album, suitable for both club and chill. With space for the calm cumbia with Mediterranean aromas of GAZZI and the most powerful speed garage by Alvva. Orion Agassi and Natural Language remix (You’ve got) El Groove, using the codes of Chicago house and electro. The mystical and unique Ulldeter gives voice to Gasss and Jasiel dreamy deep house to El House de la Ciutat. The album closes with a sped up and underwater version of Techo.
HIGHXTAR. (H) – How was the duo CIUTAT born and how did its members JP Sunshine and Guim meet?
CIUTAT (C) – We met in 2019 at a Kamal Williams concert where we met by chance.
At that time we were both coming from producing just club music and we felt like making something we could proudly show off at family meals.
(H) – From this perfect match was born your first album Brandon, which was released in January. Why this title?
(C) – We saw that the instagram username @ciutat was already taken by a certain Brandon Ciutat. We tried to contact him in several ways (even calling the number we found in the yellow pages) and when we saw that he was inaccessible we decided to title the album with his name.
Brandon, if you are reading this we send you a big hug!
(H) – The sound of birds plays a symbolic role in the album. What is your relationship with ornithology?
(C) – Actually the music is an excuse because what we are really passionate about is ornithology.
On the album, each track has a different bird sample depending on the mood of the song. There are swallows, nightingales, hoopoes, Argentinian parrots, chickadees… Some of them have a meaning for us, like the parrots in House de la Ciutat, as that’s what we hear all the time when we produce in the Barcelona studio. Or the swallows at the end of the track Techo, as it is also a sound that is very much associated with urban mornings.
We were also lucky enough to take a weekend course with Jaume Soler (Institut Català d’Ornitologia), which helped us a lot in deciding which bird to use in each track.
(H) – CIUTAT is influenced by different genres, how would you define your musical style?
(C) – We don’t really like labels, but we could say that, unlike many of today’s artists who are inspired by references from abroad, we draw a lot from here. Before making Brandon, we were listening a lot to groups from the Ona Laietana (a music scene in Barcelona in the seventies that combined Mediterranean sounds and jazz-fusion). On the other hand, we have also been influenced a lot by chill-out music like Cafe del Mar in Ibiza.
We like to think that another important reference is the birds themselves.
(H) – You have just released “Remezclas Brandon”. What’s in store for us with this new version of your first album?
(C) – It’s a way of bringing the album back to life thanks to friends from the national club scene who we admire a lot. We both DJ and we wanted to be able to mix our tracks on the dancefloor.
In addition, at the end we also added an auto version of “Techo – Underwater Sped Up” with a mini video presentation 😉
(H) – The new album is full of collaborations, how did each of them come about, what’s fresh about the first version?
(C) – “Brandon Remixes” is Brandon’s remix album, which contained quite a few collaborations. Most of them came about organically as we knew the collaborators and it was just a matter of proposing it to them and doing it. Some of them were very curious, like the one we did with Xavi Bufa, “Gasss”, in which he plays a fence as a flute. Recording it was some of the most fun we’ve ever had. His house is like a magical place where most objects can be played and he’s a fucking genius.
(H) – t a time when new projects are constantly being born, what place does CIUTAT occupy on the scene?
(C) – We don’t know exactly what place we occupy in the scene, but we do know our place in the anti-scene. One day we had the idea of forbidding people to come to the gig as a way of promotion and now they boo us at the gigs instead of applauding.
(H) – And how do you see the current national music scene?
(C) – It’s a pretty exciting time. Right now we have our eye mainly on the scene in Madrid and also in the south of the country. We are mainly attracted by the fact that the barriers between pop and clubby are being broken down.
(H) – Where can we see ‘Remezclas Brandon’ live?
(C) – As most of the remixes are electronic dance music, we expect them to be played in clubs. At the moment we are not planning to incorporate them into our live set.
(H) – Looking ahead to the new season… where would you like to perform?
(C) – We would like to repeat Observatorio, one of the best places we have been <3. We plan to return to Madrid and of course Barcelona. We would also like to visit other Spanish cities we haven’t played yet.
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