CF: How and where was the mix recorded?

I recorded it during a morning in my living room while eating fruit and drinking coffee. I like to record mixes in one take, errors and all. For this one I picked some recent finds and records I haven’t used on other mixes.

It took me a while to put this one together because I was waiting for a specific record to arrive in the post. It came that morning but cracked in half. So to get over the tragedy, I set everything up and started recording.

CF: Take us through your journey with music so far. When did you first get interested in it and how has your involvement progressed until now?

I think my interest began when my parents gave me a walkman. That’s when I started trawling through my family’s record collection looking for things to put onto a mixtape to listen on the long way to school in the mornings. Spending long hours with the headphones on made me want to play guitar like this or that guitar player. It also made me start to notice specific sounds and recordings of various instruments: guitars, organs, drums and their distortion and effects. I think that’s what developed my obsession with detail in music.

As a musician, I had a thing for the guitar from when I was a child, but it was always in a very DIY fashion until I was in my first band at around 20. It was a very jam based band, we were into exploration. It was during that time that I met the musicians I now play with on Twin Tones and Sonido Gallo Negro, which is when things became more serious, musically speaking.

As a DJ, I started about 7 years ago after hearing a few friends playing records. I got really into playing “weird” records and started assembling a collection and asking in a few local bars to play. I’ve been on quite a few adventures since!

CF: You are part of Sonido Gallo Negro, tell us about the band and the sound you are striving for. Any releases coming up?

SGN is a psychedelic tropical music band and since all of its members come from the Mexican rock scene, we have an inclination for fuzz guitars and combo organs in conjunction with tropical percussion.

The band was inspired by listening to psychedelic cumbia from the 70s. We really liked the sound and style present in those recordings. We couldn’t find any bands in CDMX or Mexico playing that sound, so we thought we could do it ourselves. Two electric guitars, two old organs, electric bass, theremin, congas, güiro and timbales. A big band with the desire to explore new routes in tropical music.

We’ve been together for almost 10 years and have recorded 4 studio albums and a live one. Recently, we put out two new releases: “Unknown Future” came out in September 19 on CD and cassette, with a vinyl edition coming out soon. Simultaneously, we collaborated with Brooklyn based Names You Can Trust to release a two-track 7″ with songs also present in the album. We’ll be promoting and touring this new album in the near future.

CF: What about your most recent project, Fhauna? What is it and where can people find it?

Fhauna is a vinyl record shop in Mexico City. Our motto is “diverse music to lift the spirit”. The idea is to find records by bands and artists who are not part of the mainstream with music that seeks to explicitly escape what’s dictated by the mainstream and provides interesting musical twists.

We are 3 partners and our selections for the shop are done very carefully. We stock contemporary music from Latin America, Africa, Asia or Europe, as well as records made in previous decades in lesser known scenes that have recently been made known by diggers either through reissues or if possible via original editions.

We’re not bound by specific genres. From the darkest Techno, passing by Industrial, through to the sweetest Ambient and exciting Tropical sounds. All of the many musical species coexist at Fhauna.

The shop can be found at José Rosas Moreno 123 in the San Rafael neighborhood of Mexico City. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

CF: What do you normally listen to at home? What are 3 of your favourite albums past or present?

At home I like to be in silence. In between preparing and playing DJ sets, rehearsals with the bands and finding records for Fhauna I’m constantly listening to music, so I like to take a break when at home.

Three records I like to listen to from start to finish are:

Sonic Youth – A Thousand Leaves

David Axelrod – Songs Of Experience

Stereolab – Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

CF: What’s your favourite thing about living in CDMX? What would you recommend to someone visiting for 24h?

I think I’ve always appreciated this city because one can always find tons of music. There’s a lot of people playing records, a lot of people involved in bands, experimental projects, punks, techno, cumbia. You can find whatever you like and that to me is the most exciting thing about the city.

Any visitor to the city should spend an entire night exploring the different sounds of CDMX. Go to Garibaldi to hear Norteño trios and mariachis. Then go to a DJ set in the early evening, swing by a live music venue to see a band, and end up at an afters until the early hours.

CF: Where can people hear you playing in the near future? What do you have planned for 2020?

I recently played abroad for the first time when I was invited to Cuba to DJ at a party called La Chancleta, hosted by Cami Laye Okun. It was an amazing experience and I hope to have the opportunity to travel more this year to share my selections with new dancefloors.