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Brooklyn, N.Y. – Call it from artists on his SCI+TEC label, a second wind, reinvention, 2014 saw the long-awaited reuniting or new life; but however you with Sharam come to fruition for slice it, Dubfire has built a an official Deep Dish reunion. Since dance legacy two times over. the release of the group's comeback Ali Shirazinia's story began single, “Quincy,” and subsequent live in 1991 when he formed the dates, Dubfire has brought his his- now-legendary group Deep tory in line with his now. Dish with fellow Washing- DJ Times caught up with Dubfire ton, D.C.-based DJ/producer the morning after a performance at Sharam Tayebi. Fifteen years, Space Ibiza New York this winter two studio albums, and an as part of his SCI+TEC label night innumerable amount of high- at the club, and he dished on the profile remixes later—includ- new live show, Deep Dish's reunion, ing a Grammy-winning re- and how technology has shaped his work of Dido's “Thank You” career. in 2001—the pair called it DJ Times: How did that initial quits to pursue other ven- concept to do a live show come tures. to be? The rise and fall of a suc- Dubfire: I had been wanting to cessful musical group is typi- put something like this together for cally the fodder of a VH1 Be- years, but it is wasn't until I felt like hind The Music special, with I had enough material and a body of down-and-out artists remi- work that I was proud of that I felt I niscing on the glory days of could put it together in a unique way, a band's exploits. For those reinterpreting all the ideal tracks, former members who do and also collaborate with the right continue in the solo realm, people. The visual design company— it's common for the former VolvoxLabs—is based in Brooklyn. members' further pursuits to Once the idea came together, then be held against and compared I had to find the people. When I to the group's seminal work. found the people everything kind of Somehow, Dubfire es- fast-tracked to the first show basi- chewed this tradition entirely. cally, from the time we came up with Completely redefining his the idea. While I have been thinking sound by abandoning Deep about it for years, it wasn't until I Dish's peak-time, vocal-heavy found the visual design team, but progressive house aesthetic then it happened very, very quickly. in favor of a dark, techno- DJ Times: How did you find centric style, Dubfire crafted those artists? a new identity that owed Dubfire: With VolvoxLabs, I ac- little of its success to his ear- tually initially approached Jarrett lier career. With a series of [Smith] from Derivative. He is the massive releases—including guy who is basically responsible for last year's “Exit” with Miss the Plastikman show, and he devel- Kittin and his 2009 remix of oped the TouchDesigner software Radio Slave's “Grindhouse”— which has become the sort of in- and tight, technical DJ perfor- dustry standard of software in terms mances integrating the latest of live performance. He initially ac- gear and technology, Dub- cepted, but it turned out that he was fire's legacy as a solo artist going to be too busy. He knows a lot is just as storied as anything of people in this industry who are he's done collaboratively. trying to get our foot in the door, so He's showing no signs to speak, and he recommended Vol- of resting on his laurels, ei- voxLabs. They were fans of my work, ther. This past October, he and we had an initial meeting in New debuted a brand-new live York and hit it off, and the rest just performance concept at the happened very naturally. Roest Warehouse as part DJ Times: The title is Dubfire of Amsterdam Dance Event Live:HYBRID. What does that refer 2014. Bridging the gap be- to? tween a DJ set and a truly Dubfire: The word “live” is in live performance with cus- there not only visually—like when tom visuals, real-time lighting someone sees my name on a flyer— and video, and pure freedom but also concept-wise. It's to tell of artistic expression, Dubfire everyone that it's not a DJ set; it's Live:HYBRID represents a fur- a live performance. I knew I wanted ther evolution of the Iranian- to do more shows—maybe the next American artist's work. show centered around something The show's name is a fit- like an album with a completely ting title, as Dubfire's pre- different concept—so I wanted to sentation is a hybrid of his make sure that “Hybrid” was there. past and future. While he Hybrid obviously has a lot to do with continues to push on with the narrative that is sort of playing out visually in this performance. We Photos By Andrew Rauner Andrew Photos By new releases by himself and Sound &Vision wanted to show that we do have a specific look and a specific concept, and Hybrid is this particular show's concept and look. I haven't figured the name for the next one yet, but it will have a completely different look and concept. People will be able to talk about all the tours that I do and not only have a name attached to each tour, but visually see each tour as an identity unto itself. DJ Times: From what I recall from the performance at Time Warp US in Brooklyn last year, many of the visuals were inspired by the meeting of sci- ence and technology. What inspired that concept? Dubfire: What I didn't want to do is just take a bunch of images and throw them against the screen and do it the way everyone is doing it these days. You see, a lot of the festi- vals and the more EDM-centered art- ist kind of trying to throw in much as possible—not only on to the screens, but also on to the audience—and I feel that audiences are becoming a bit insensitive to the barrage of light and visuals and sound. What we wanted to do is create a story, something that people can follow, and have a great interplay between light and sound and visuals. That is where the members of the team had to really take a step outside the comfort zone and realize we are all coming at it with our unique sort of vision, and we will have to try to work kind of like jazz musicians. DJ Times: How so? Dubfire: We all had to try and create some sort of a balance be- tween what we are all doing. There were moments in the show when we were developing it where I had to ask or the lighting guy would suggest that we scale things back and allow of visuals to come to forefront. Other times, the visual guys said they are going to totally kill what is happening on the screen behind me so we can zero in on the screens that I am sort of placed in between, and that was a cue for the lighting guys to take over. There is a great balance between what everyone was doing. We were doing it in a way where we didn't just throw everything that we had at the audience. DJ Times: What sort of equip- ment are you using up there? Is it dif- ferent from a regular setup of yours? Dubfire: During a DJ set, I'm us- ing [Native Instruments] Traktor and [Ableton] PUSH as well, which is also something I am using during the live show's setup. However, the live shows are based around Ableton Live, and all the music has been reinterpreted. Everything is coming out through its own separate channel, and I am able to completely rework the tracks on the fly or—if I want—to let the sequence play out. We made it really, 14 really flexible so I am free to experi- ment as much as possible within the parameters that we've set for a show that has a beginning, middle, and end. DJ Times: What kind of freedom are you afforded each night? Can the music change significantly from show to show? Dubfire: Totally. It has to do with my comfort level. I have done three shows so far, and those three shows were a sort of test to see if all the technology was going to work. Funnily enough, we had virtu- ally no problems with the first show, but the second and third show we had completely unrelated issues. It's hard for me to completely dive into how everything is laid out. We work everything on the fly now, but once I get more comfortable with the tech- nology and once we know everything is working fine, then I will be free to do that. DJ Times: How has the response been? Dubfire: Really, really good! In some ways, it is sort of an uphill bat- tle because these days there aren't a lot of artists who are doing a live show in the techno field. A lot of the producers who aren't DJs that are getting booked will have sort of a plug-and-play set up. They don't bring a visual concept, they don't come at it with their own lighting and sound guys, and they are not really like put- ting forth a performance-based live show.

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