It´s Thusday August 19 2014 – this is the eighth TEA at the ZOO! Today we are proud to present you Module 23 an DJ duo from Lisbon | Portugal. Module 23 comprises two artists, Jorge Campino and Marques Oliver both are from Lisbon. It was an pleasant suprise to get contacted by this two guys, especially after we heard their set for this podcast for the first time.
Where are you living most of your time?
Jorge Campino and Marques Oliver, both are from Lisbon although Jorge had lived some time in London.
We have been spending our time in studio, not only to start producing original tracks but also looking for fresh music to enrich our collection.
When and why did you started DJing?
Marques started playing 16 years ago, at the height of the boom in Portugal´s electronic music, where he acquired the taste for the electronic music in one of the many epic nights of the 90s, Jorge would acquired his enthusiasm later, more precisely five years ago on a trip to Lux Fragile where he saw Dubfire, and became interested in this world.
When and why did you decide to DJ together?
Module 23 was something that we already had in the drawer for quite some time, but for professional and personal reasons, we never had the opportunity to do so since both had our personal careers within the electronic music until the opportunity arose and we had time to evolve and talk about what we wanted to do, and this project was finally created.
Which equipment/set up is your favourite and why?
Currently our homemade equipment consists of two pionner cdj 400, 3 technics 1210 mk2 and a pionner djm 600, our favorite and we are unanimous there would be no doubt the Allen & Heath Xone 92 for robustness, filters (got to love those filters), sound quality and especially the extremely malleable equalization of the 92, on wich we can explore every detail of each track and mix tunes perfectly, and 3 Cdj 2000, because of the reliability of the equipment and especially the speed on which we can change the tracks and explore the entire collection that we have available.
How would you describe your music?
We tried to put a bit of our personal experiences in our sets in order to humanize our work, nowadays we notice that lacks soul in many of the performances we see, there is a mechanization of the music and sometimes there isn´t even a right sequence, something that the audience can follow and can relate to. We always like to tell a story, to drop a certain sequence in every thing Module 23 gets their hands on. If there is something we cherish is to finish a gig and both us and the people lost track of time. We always try to make a trip between Module 23 and our listeners.
That´s our mark.
Who are your idols?
There are so many old and new names that fuse perfectly, we have old names like Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Robert Hood, Joey Beltram and Kevin Sauderson and so after and then we have a newer wave such as Lewis Fautzi, Nihad Tule, Rodhad, Takaaki Itoh, François X and so many more, the list is long.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Module 23 consumes a bit of everything, which is perhaps one of our strengths, as being a project with two different people, and because we come from two different cultures, we have a perfect fusion of old school and new school, we hear a lot of House and Techno of the 90´s, but also we are always with an eye out in the current scene. Add this to our everyday experience and that´s our inspiration. Module 23 is constantly growing and changing.
What was the first vinyl you bought?
Marques was Rhythim Is Rhythim edited by Derrick May’s for Transmat, that followed him for quite some time, Jorge was Delano Smith Dark Shades of Detroit from Sushitech, a masterpiece.
What was the last vinyl you bought?
Ligovskoi, Dilip Ep from Dement3d and Lewis Fauzi, The Gare Album from Soma records.
Both a must have in any collection of techno.
Where was your first gig?
It was an epic start for Module 23, we were a bet from SS events, one of the biggest promoters in Portugal and they booked a date for us in a microclub in Lisbon called Bairrazza, right in the center of Cais do Sodré that is an area with lots of microclubs and pubs, we started doing what we always do and started building our story and at one point, we noticed that all of a sudden we had a full house with people dancing and cheering for us, we were impressed that we had such a night right on our first appeareance as Module 23. That also marked the beggining of our story with SS events.
Where did you like the most to DJ and why?
Bassment in Lisbon, was the most intense experience so far. It´s a club that operates only in after hours. It starts at 7 am but has no time to finish, and it was fabulous to play there. The energy and proximity of the public makes you want to play more and more. It was memorable, so memorable that we were scheduled to play for three hours and we ended up playing five. An experience to be repeated very soon.
What was the funniest / craziest thing that ever happened on a gig?
With Marques was once that he was playing on a gig and the sound technician inadvertenly disconnects the CDJs while he was playing making the full venue to go silent for a brief moment, looking back it just makes you want to laugh but at the moment things became a little tense.
With Jorge was a girl coming up on stage and bites his forehead, claiming that it was in gratitude, go figure.
Do you have any residencies?
The market in Portugal operates a little differently, we have fewer clubs and they prefer to be always changing Artists, just a hand full of clubs allows for residences, but we are always open to that possibility.
Are there any upcoming releases or recently released stuff?
We are currently in studio working to release an Ep until the end of this year, that is one of our objectives.
What are your plans for the future?
We traced annual goals, we prefer to do a step by step work method to make sure of what we do, how we do it and where we do it, our plan for this year is to produce an Ep, in addition we are working with Troop which is a project involving music, film and graphic arts, and it is increasingly strong in Brazil, we are also working with SON (Sounds Of Nature) also from Brazil, both collaborations with some of the best Brazilian and Portuguese artists and we are working closely with the SS events, which promises a few surprises for next season.
Where ar your upcoming gigs?
At this time Module 23 is in the studio to produce, but we have a gig scheduled for the end of August, a little experiment that we are going to do with some new sounds. And we have another one scheduled for September 28th where we will return to one of the houses that marked us -Bassment.
Favorite animal?
Zebra, for its simplicity. It´s black or white, no grey area.
Chatch them if you can on one of there gigs, so they can tell you a story with their music, you will not forget. We´re looking foreward hearing a lot more from this two. And don´t forget to say hello from us!
– Larry