FUTURISTIC is a good word to describe Dubfire’s music.

Since branching off from Deep Dish in 2006 he has gone on to become one of the world’s premier techno titans not just as a DJ but also as a live act. Marrying a cinematic experience with the dance floor and his brand of next level techno, his debut live show was one of the highlights from a fantastic ADE in 2014 when he launched the concept. He has since gone on to take the live show on a world tour and performed the show in Ibiza for the first time last weekend at the Dalt Villa for the International Music Summit.

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First of all how was the summer season? What were your highlights?

There were so many highlights. Summer was crazy. I’m glad Ibiza is behind me in some ways though and I know some of my colleagues feel the same way. But it was an incredible year. For the last few years I had been playing for everyone, Cocoon, Carl Cox, Loco Dice, DC10 and of course Richie Hawtin. But this was the first year I became an ENTER. resident playing exclusively for Richie and it was the best year yet for me in Ibiza. And also playing as Deep Dish on the Space terrace, that was a definite highlight. Also I’ve been working on my live set for two years realising this is a major highlight.

So you premier the liveHYBRID show tonight here at ADE. Sounds like it will be an amazing marriage of sounds and visuals. What can the audience expect?

Yeah. I feel the audience is a becoming a bit desensitised by what they are seeing on the main stages, especially the EDM stages, so I didn’t want to just be another act doing the same thing. I didn’t want to just throw images onto the screen. What I set out to do and the direction I gave to the visual guys, who are a really talented group from Brooklyn called Volvox Labs, I gave them the music and told them listen, I want to create a cinematic experience with this music.

We have to engage the audience and make them feel like they are part of the story, bring them into the story while making sure that they don’t get lost in the story without making the audience forget why they are there and to dance. So that became a real challenge.

Initially we thought let’s create a movie with actors. But it became unmanageable because my music is kind of futuristic so it was a bit impractical. So I said hey, you guys are really good at what you do creating synthetic environments, why not create a synthetic world and then we will have the story play out in this environment.

It was inspiring. I kept them on track in terms of projecting the right image and representing my branding and me. And then I let them run with their expertise. It was a big learning experience for all of us. For me it was not only a labour of love but something I’ve never done before. It was challenging and scary. The whole team and me are proud of the results.

You must have been inspired by ENTER. and working closely with Richie and his approach to this kind of thing in general?

Yeah and what Richie has done with Plastikman over the years. Rich is a very good friend so he definitely inspires me with what he has done in terms of pushing the limits of technology, visuals, sounds and concepts. Just when he has engaged a concept he is already thinking about what to do with it for the next two or three years! It’s scary!

When playing live or DJing the lines must be getting very blurred with the technology advancing at the rate that it is? What tech will you be using for your live show tonight?

Yes. In terms of the performance of the music it’s all Ableton Live. We have Push, which is a fantastic controller that I’m going to be using from the Ableton folks where I can run loads of drum sequences on the fly. I didn’t want to be looking at my laptop. I wanted to take that out of the equation. So I have an iPad mini and using a template, we created a visual representation of where I am at any given time in the performance so I can tell where we are in any given point. And I have another iPad for the instruments.

The show has to be mapped out in a specific way but all of us have the flexibility of changing things at any given time. We all have freedom to do stuff on the fly. The show will be a totally different show every time.

How important is it to come away from house and techno and experience other styles of music?

It’s very important. I’m listening to the new Interpol album right now and so many others. Spotify is fantastic for this. I’ll read about an artist outside of the electronic music genre and I can immediately go straight to Spotify to check their stuff out. It’s made it a lot easier to explore all kinds of music. I actually have to cleanse my ears from the relentless electronic music we are constantly being fed! But obviously I have to listen to the new promos and demos I receive as well and keep on top of that.

Are you completely hands on with that?

Yes I do all of the A & R for my label Sci-Tec so I’m getting a constant influx of demos that I have to stay on top of and then all of the promos for all my forthcoming gigs so that keeps me very busy. I can’t trust anybody else to make the decision for me on my music.

Now Deep Dish are writing and performing again, how have yours and Sharam’s solo experiences changed the dynamic and sound of Deep Dish?

It’s been interesting. For creative reasons we fell apart. Creative reasons were some of many reasons and we felt we had explored the full range of our creativity. We had all these other things that we wanted to explore that weren’t appropriate for Deep Dish. We exploded down different paths and after 8 years we proved ourselves to each other and to the industry and we thought that having achieved that kind of solo success and recognition and having realised all of our ideas we thought maybe that could trigger a new creative alliance. It’s working well and it’s nice to be back. We’re still trying to figure out what Deep Dish is supposed to sound like in 2014 and that’s the big question and that’s a question that we are still trying to answer. It’s been brewing for years. It wasn’t till we had a clear vision and lots of demos recorded and the Quincy single that it really started to happen.

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