Techno para dos is an up-and-coming fresh talent based in Mexico City. The artist behind this eclectic blend of IDM-techno-aerial-electronic sounds is Raúl Villamil. He finds inspiration from artists like Tim Hecker, Murcof, Clark, Ricardo Villalobos, and Violeta Parra. His particular sound is definitively a collision of the earthly and the digital to new heights. His upcoming ‘Drama’ LP continues the stunning trail of previous releases like ‘Nos Prometieron Futuro’ (2019), ‘Un Breve Fragmento’ (2020), and of course, ‘Hope’ (2020).
To celebrate the drop of ‘Drama’, Raúl Villamil’s Techno para dos invited EG into the studio for 5 creative tips every producer needs to implement.
1. Check out other disciplines
Something that’s really important when it comes to creating is to nourish ourselves with other forms of artistic disciplines. For example, it can be really enriching if you study a painting or read a short poem before you start to make music. For me, it is very important to explore other disciplines to be able to match what I am doing. Watching a good movie and analyzing it in detail can be a good way to start creating, I can recommend some very good music like:
Pola X – Leos Carax Music by Scott Walker
ODDSAC – Danny Perez Music by Animal Collective
Aguirre, the Wrath of God – Werner Herzog Music by Popol Vuh
2. The book of dreams
A really interesting way to start to know ourselves on a more profound level is in the following way: Every morning just after you wake up, write the first thing that comes to your mind in a notebook and don’t read it until 3 months pass. When 3 months are over you can read everything that your mind wrote during this lapse of time and find inspiration in something that is truly engaging. Even if you don’t dream anything and you feel blocked it is important to record it in a notebook, so you can read it later. Trying to capture those dreams in sound can be very interesting, let’s try before creating a melody, harmony, or rhythm to transpose the dreams only to sounds.
3. Error is beauty
It’s interesting when machines make ‘mistakes’. It’s good to leave a certain amount of error in your productions to give a human touch to the music. It’s even possible to add in these ‘mistakes’ with granular synthesis, granular delay, or the method that I use, which is to do it manually. To me, the best way to work is “artesanal” (handmade) editing and cutting by hand in the software of your choice. This will always give a very personal touch to your production. Editing is the most important thing to take a course in your productions, take your time and try to do as much as possible for yourself, leave the least possible processes to the machine, in order to humanize your production as much as possible.
4. Play around with the way you record
It’s a good idea to combine recordings made with top-quality preamps (eg: Apogee, Antelope, Universal Audio, SSL), and then, afterward, you can contrast this with recordings made on your phone or other more dodgy methods. You can use different equipment in the same take leading to some really interesting results.
Always take advantage of the environment, recording in bathrooms or spaces with natural reverberation always has interesting results. Try to record the same shot with different perspectives, one from a distance, another from close up, from below, then combine them and play with that.
5. Steal
All music has already been created, so to quote Igor Stravinsky: “A good composer does not imitate, they steal”.
Techno para dos’ new ‘Drama’ LP will be out on June 24th.
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