Recent posts: BL News

01. Nacho, many years in the music industry, how many exactly?
Well, in the industry I don’t know because it’s been gone for years but I’ve been involved in music most of my life. I look back and it gives me vertigo. They have been many years of commitment, not work. I don’t like to call work to something with which I enjoy, would be disrespectful to the destiny that has brought me here. I’ve done a thousand things related to music. There have been many turns, from playing with orchestras from town to town, to forming numerous bands of uncertain style and dubious quality that no one could stand. Anyone who thinks that was reaching success, to put my name out there and that’s it, they’re wrong. Later, I moved to Granada to ‘study’ where I began to devote in a more intensive and serious way to music, with my brother. My first album along with Francisco and under the pseudonym “Intro” was published in 1994, although before that we had already released some vinyl singles, so to sum up your question, more than twenty years but really it seems as it was yesterday. With “Intro” we did three albums and several maxis in vinyl, “La Roca” is on its nine volume, many albums aside from “La Roca” like “Inside” and “Time Out”, different projects such as “Newey” and several compilations of my own work like “La Roca Antologia”, “Ellas”or the recent “The best of Nacho Sotomayor”… frankly I myself think that I never go out of the studio and however I also have the feeling that I’m doing nothing (laughs).

02. What learning has your musical career given you?. If you were to begin everything all over again, would you do something different and why?
Well the main thing is to take it all with more calm and understand that time takes care of everything, that success is something which does not always bring good things and that it’s best to keep up at a regular pace than to have an ephemeral success and then fall into the most absolute oblivion. Also, the indifference of certain sectors of the “extinct” music industry worries me less and less because through our own label “Absolut Ambient” we have control of our music and although we do not have so much power as they do, the achievements give us more satisfaction. Surely if I were to start again I would do something different but we are all slaves of our own style. As Phillip Glass once said: “it is difficult to define our own language but harder yet to get rid of it”. I’ve never been very practical in my life but if at some point I would have been, surely I had not devoted my life to music (laughs).

03. Does your memory keep a moment where you can remember when and what started your path in music?
I remember many moments related to this. Surely by far the most important one and when for the first time I became aware that my life was headed towards this profession (if you can call this a profession) was when I moved to Madrid to work as a producer at a recording studio. Little by little I realized that it was almost a road of no return and one which I am now deeply pleased about.

04. There are several ethnic influences throughout your music, where does that come from?
Since I started with “Intro”, it  was an aspect that always attracted us when we tackled the composition of our tracks. The coincidence between aspects of other music from the world and our own, as different parts of very different cultures seemed to fit perfectly with our music or contemporary pop music. Over the years it has continued to interest me and rare would be the track in which you can’t find any “Ethnic” element to it.

05. Which is the style or genre where you feel “like a fish in water”?
It is strange and probably no one will believe me when I say that at the moment in which I begin composing I don’t question where it’ll go. It’s taken me years to control more or less my own language. This language that conditions perhaps more of the formal aspect of my music but the background is another story and that perhaps is the one that most interests me, the message, which goes directly to the heart and that nobody has the secret of knowing which matter it’s made of and how to get to it. I just let the music flow… and believe me, it is not easy.

06. When did you get the idea to release this album “The Best Of…”?
We had already spent some time thinking about it but couldn’t find time for this purpose between so many “La Roca” and other stuff. Thus, we reached 2014 and realized that we’ve reached 20 years since I first released my first album along with “Intro” and thought it was the perfect time for this album. Some people may think that there are already way too many Nacho Sotomayor compilations out there, but I can assure you that none are like this since others have been for “La Roca”, my female vocal collaborations like “Ellas” etc… “The Best of…” is the first compilation spanning my entire professional career and for those who are not aware of my music, it’s the album to have a clear and comprehensive idea of what my music is all about.

07. How was the track selection process?
A torture! (laughs). It has been complicated because of the amount of material that we had, more than 250 tracks and numerous remixes. We did several selections that did not convince us and in the end we chose the one on the album. I don’t know if it was the best because I’ve proven over the years that different people like different tracks. No one agrees on which are my best tracks, not even myself. So I guess that for some it will be the perfect selection and others will complain about the lack of certain tracks. Impossible to please everyone.

08. Ambient, Chillout, Downtempo,… Ethnic, House, Lounge, anything else?
As I said before, I don’t think about it. I can decide certain aspects when I start a track, such as the bpm, the kind of rhythm, things that in some way affect the progress of this project in particular but as I advance everything unfolds on its own. Sometimes it seems as if I I had nothing to do with it and someone was directing me but unfortunately I can say that it is in fact me and me alone who’s behind the wheel (laughs).

09. Where is Nacho Sotomayor headed towards?
It is very complicated to know that, I don’t even know it myself. What I do know is that I have the same enthusiasm from twenty years ago and that is the engine that will make me to continue composing and producing music for people.

10. Last year you had the bliss of being Resident DJ at a paradisiacal place such as Maldives. Tell us a little bit about that experience and if it has somehow influenced in the creation of new tracks?
It was incredible!. I spent three months at a resort in the South of the Maldives as a resident DJ, spinning for about 3 to 4 hours every sunset at an amazing location. It was great on a personal level because I spent many hours alone just in the middle of nature. I composed music and wrote.

11. “AbsolutLounge”, your radioshow on BeatLounge, accompanies us since the beginning of our station. What do you want to say to your listeners?
It has never been my thing to give advice or say something to someone, simply value the work of others and thank you for being there.