Now is the Time for Andrea Oliva

It’s been a busy year for Andrea Oliva, what with the release of his debut album, 4313, out now on Objektivity, not to mention his current weekly OUTSIDE party at Beachouse Ibiza. We caught up with the revered Swiss DJ/producer about how he gets sick of hearing his own tunes and why, until recently, he thought that releasing a debut album was the kiss of death for an artist’s career.

Your debut album is out now. Did it feel like a long time coming?
You go through some very motivated times while you do your album, and then it can get very depressing because you hear your music too much and you are a bit insecure. But finally, when everything is done and you have great feedback, then you can’t wait to release it.

Why is now the right time for your debut album?
I always thought that doing a proper artist album should be something you do at the end of your career, because it should be something you look back on maybe in 20 years. If you look at a picture of how your parents dressed 20 years ago, then you probably would say, “Whoa, I would never dress that way 20 years back.” That’s the same with an album. If you are going to listen to your album in 20 years, you’d probably say, Oh, what I did at that time, I wouldn’t release that now.

But I think it’s the right moment because when I got this opportunity to do the album, I tried to think of what could be different on the album than what I released already, musically speaking. I worked with a lot of studio musicians, and I basically tried to combine all these house and techno beats with more musical influences—doing it more melodic, having a bit more vocals on it. I think it’s really something I can look back in a few years and say, “OK, this is really me.” And this is really a product you can really put out on an album.

So, your career is not ending. Whew! It was just time to take the plunge.
It’s not ending, no. You know, everything changes; your opinion and your way of looking at music changes all the time. This is the exciting thing about music. It’s not the end; it’s a new beginning!

Are you going to stay on the album path now? Will you make more albums after this? Or are you going to wait and see how this one goes over?
For now, I just think of releasing this album and seeing how it goes, and then you never know. When I go to the studio, it’s not because I want to do a release or an album or a hit. I’m going to the studio because I love making music. It’s like when someone is playing guitar and he likes playing the instrument. He doesn’t need to play guitar to be part of a rock band or to record music just because he likes that instrument. This is the same way I approach music when I go to the studio. It doesn’t have to be for a release or an album; it can be just because I like music and I like to jam on my gear and produce music.

You did a mix of live recordings and software. What did you do live? What did you program? How did you find the balance there?
I really had the chance to work with a lot of outboard equipment, a lot of analog stuff, which I bought. But sometimes you want to get things to the point very quick, and then you work with software with plugins. But working with outboard equipment gives a special thing to the music; it’s more original.

I worked with a friend of mine. He went to jazz school, and he doesn’t like electronic music. Once I introduced him to what we do, he could really jam on it, though. We did record tons of guitars and basslines. I worked with all this equipment. The album has guitars in it. It’s not just like techno beats. I like all the rhythmic stuff in our kind of music, but also like to add in the live instrumentation. We did jam sessions for days and nights, and then we were just recording everything we had, just to get more of an organic sound.

“Pop music is EDM. Avicii and David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia type stuff is pop now. Predicting anything in music is very hard.”

Do you ever get sick of hearing your own stuff?
Yes!

What about when you DJ?
I like to play music of all the other artists. Sometimes I think the music of other artists is much better than my music, but then I hear all the feedback I have from DJ friends when it comes to my music. Then I see all the big DJs playing my music, and it’s kind of surprising for me—but maybe it’s just because I hear it every day. I go to the studio, and I can listen to a loop from a track for maybe six hours, and it’s always the same. You try to make it better and make it sound better. So for me, it’s like if you have a chef and he cooks, he probably likes eating the food of other chefs more than his own food, because he knows exactly what it is.

What did you learn from your days of residencies in Ibiza?
If I learned something, it’s handling the pressure when you play between one big name and the other. It’s not just fun, but it’s also a good chance to show yourself to a broader audience. Our own party at Ushuaïa holds like 6–7,000 people every Saturday. You learn to move bigger crowds and to handle the pressure and deliver.

Where do you see the electronic music genre heading?
It’s like fashion: It comes and goes. Three or four years ago, you wouldn’t imagine that all the jeans our parents dressed in in the ‘80s would get big again. It’s a whole cycle. It could come back, or it could be something new. And in our kind of music, there was a time where all this minimal techno was big, the German/Berlin sound. Then, all of a sudden, all the old-school house that came from the States became big. But now again, everybody freaks out about all this melodic stuff, which could be almost trance 10 years ago, just pitched down. Pop music is EDM. Avicii and David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia type stuff is pop now. Predicting anything in music is very hard.

How would you describe the evolution of your musical style? Where are you now with this new album, versus where you started?
Definitely more mature. Before, I saw my music more as something that could work pretty well in the club, something which is more based on rhythm. But now it’s a bit more melodic, and it’s a bit more complex. My music before this was more like tracks or DJ tools; now it’s more like songs. So I think it’s getting more mature.

So, reassure us one more time—not the end of your career, right? Just the right time to release your debut. It’s not a career retrospect.
(Laughs) Not at all.

4313 by Andrea Oliva is available now on Objektivity.

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