Swedish House Mafia v 2.0: part 1 – Alaa

Since there have been lot’s off talk about the future of Swedish house scene, we decided to make some research on the future candidates. This stuff is purely hypothetical and we hope that the original SHM won’t start bombarding us by angry emails and lawsuits. =D

The first candidate needs no further introduction. Appart from releasing massive tracks as Dust, Why and latest They never learn, Alaa have also have been busy spitting out very creative remixes one after another.

My main man Kevin caught up with the future star producer to talk about this and that:

I’m starting this interview with a standard question. Who is Alaa?

My full name is Alaa El-Bechlaoui and I’ve been producing under my real name for about a year now. Before that, I was more into trance and released a couple of tracks as “Transparance”

How does a day in your life look like? You don’t spend all your time in front of a computer producing music?

Not at all. You should know that I only produce at nights when my family is sleeping. I have a regular job. I wake up at 6, check emails then go to my job. When my shift ends, I go home to my wife and kids, and try to spend as much time as possible with them.

3-4 nights a week I spend about 4 hours producing. So that means I spend maximum time of 16 hours producing each week.

Which of your own track are you most satisfied with and why?

That has to be my upcoming track “Apértife”. This is the first time that I create something that can become a bomb on the dancefloor. I never release anything that I’m not 100% satisfied with but as a DJ, I do want my own tracks to work on the dancefloor.

Edit: Final version of Apértife will be released as “Titan”. New EP, Rhea/Titan will be released on Nellie Reocrdings in feb/mars 2009.

Can you live on your music today?

Not even close. As mentioned before, I have a fulltime job. But I do earn lot of extra money from my gigs.

How does the future look for Alaa? What are your plans?

My plans are to be able to make a living from my music. So I think 2009 will be a very important year when it comes to both my own productions and my gigs. I hope to be playing at bigger house events and I wish that I could get some good festival bookings this summer. I’ve proved my skills as a producer, but now it’s time to prove my DJ skills aswell.

Tell me about the craziest/wildest gig you ever had. (lie a bit so it sounds good 😉

What can I say? I can’t really pick one crazy gig, all my gigs are crazy, somehow. No, seriously, most remembable gig gotta be when the crowd smashed down the table where the CD-decks were. Not that they were dissapointed but there was simply just toooo much people and I just knew that something was about to happen… I had no staff or security near me to calm down the people… the music stopped for about 5-10 minutes, then it was all ok 🙂

Finally, do you have any yummie secrets to reveal or anything for your readers?

I’ve got secrets! Nothing I can tell you about… haha! But, when it comes to producing, I think drums and basslines are so important for clubmusic, that’s not a big secret but that’s something that young and unsigned producers might forget about. So I wanna give one advise for you, learn how to use sidechaining and gate. That’s one big thing that really improved my sound and took my music to a whole new level!

Some cool Alaa tracks:
Britney Spears – Circus (Alaa unofficial remix)

DJ DLG & Erick Morillo – Where Are You Now (Alaa Bootleg)

Alaa – They Never Learn (AGS Remix)

Thanks to Alaa!
Thanks to Kevin for sending us the interview.

Peace!
Skyjacker

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House Music With Love crew

About Alex Esser:

DJ, surfer and entrepreneur residing in Malmö, Sweden. HMWL label daddy. My music network is always open. Holler at alex@hmwl.org