With a new release in Bonzai Progressive this week, we took the chance to have a chat with Matan Caspi on his career and future plans!

 

Hi Matan, thanks for taking the time to have a chat with us, how are you today?

M: I’m fine thanks.

How did you first get into music production?

M: I started experimenting with music since I was little kid playing the guitar and the keyboard, mostly thanks to my father who pushed me into that direction. Later I played in some rock bands but it was not always easy to gather everybody to play at the same time as you relied on other people. With Electronic music I fell in love somewhere in late 99’ after hearing a few tracks which really made me think that by producing it you are not dependant on other players and can compose the entire track by yourself, and so, with time passing and constant practice on some music production programs I understood that this is what I want to do, so I started producing my first tracks Just for fun over my free time on the weekends. Once I realized that the tracks actually had potential I started to take things more seriously and in 2002 went to study professional sound engineering. After studying I had a long period of time where I produced trance music and only 4 years ago made a switch to progressive house, tech house and deep house.

How would you describe the EDM scene in the Ukraine today?

M: I’ve been living here for almost 6 year now and I think that the scene here is constantly evolving and stays updated like in rest of the world. Thereare varietiesof great clubs and styles and you can see good names getting booked in the big cities, most Ukrainian clubbers understand good music and would not compromise on lack of quality and they are always a great and supporting crowd to play too.

Who or what would be your biggest inspirations for making music and in life generally?

M: I get my inspiration mostly from the state of mind that I’m at and the things I experience in my life or in a certain period of my life, also I would say my inspiration comes from a lot of different kinds of music that I like to listen too, not necessarily electronic music. I like many styles of music and many times in my productions I try to combine a fusion of styles to create a unique sound, I think that what differs me from many producers is the fact that i don’t stick to one style of music, this way I am always on the hunt after bringing something innovative and fresh in every new track I write.

How would you describe your sound?

M: I would say a fusion of melodic groovy progressive house combined with tech house & tribal, where sometime I pool it to the edge of the deep house & house and sometimes to the techno and prog-techno basically depends on my mood.

You seem to be a very busy person, running your label Outta Limits, producing and DJing. How do you manage your time to take care of all these things?

M: Always stressful, as there are always things to do and every day something else is coming up that you need to take care of but at the same time I think it’s very challenging. The Label I run with my buddy Stan Kolev, we both push the label and we split the work between us, so we help each other keep everything in flow. We also really love what we do, with the music and the label and we believe it can grow nicely and give an appropriate answer to the quality underground music producers and listeners, now we are both working on our albums which we will release this summer and we are almost done so there is always something to look forward to.

Which would you prefer if you had to choose and why, DJ or producer?

M: If you ask me what I would prefer mostly to do if I didn’t have a choice, only to produce or only to play? I believe it would be a very hard question to answer, hard for me to imagine one thing without the other. In my sets, I mostly play my music and the labels music as I would never get the same satisfaction by playing tunes which are not mine or the labels. I think that every electronic music producer which aims to perform his music worldwide should have the appropriate DJ skills.

How did you get hooked up with Bonzai?

M: Fly contacted me last spring with a remix request and I agreed, since then we signed another two remixes and one original track which is supposed to come out this summer!

You’ve remixed two great tracks for Bonzai Progressive, Chantola’s “Make It Happen” and Mindgamers’ fantastic “Chasing The Sun”, which of those is your favourite and why?

M: I love them both, I think they both came out pretty good though I think I played “Chasing The Sun” the most. If I would had the chance I would change a few things on my “Make It Happen’ remix but I’m totally not objective as I’m very critical about my work.

Describe a typical day in the life of Matan Caspi?

M: My typical working day would be – Coffee, Morning studio session as I find the mornings best to produce when the ears are fresh and nothing on your mind, all energy in the place, later on label work & mastering work till the evening.

What do you have planned for the future?

M: I’m not planning so far ahead, I mostly concentrate on the near future, I believe like all the other producers and artists worldwide to spread the music & talent as much possible, get more people to like your stuff and book you, to grow and evolve in the scene…

Finally if you could be anywhere else in the world right now, where would it be and why?

M: mm.. There are many places I would choose… and so many places I still haven’t been and hope to get the chance to go but I think I will always see the centre of my life in my homeland – Israel.

Well, thanks so much for chatting with us, it’s been a pleasure, take care.

M: Thank you!

MatanCaspi