House music’s NiCe7 duo have been lighting up dancefloors together for years, releasing their tracks on labels such as Nervous, Snatch!, and Rebellion.
Alongside their own impressive catalogue, the pairs D-Floor imprint has also seen releases from Patrick Topping, Matt Tolfrey and Riva Starr.
This month they will make a much awaited return to Nhan Solo’s Berlin-based Mother Recordings for the release of their new 3-track Groove Key EP.
We got the chance to briefly chat with the Italian artists about the new EP, which labels we might see them on soon and what’s to come on D-Floor, among other things.
You’re about to release your Groove Key EP on Mother Recordings, what’s the concept behind these tracks?
Hi guys and thanks for having us! We wanted to come up with something new and fresh after a period of being silent due to relocating to a new city, getting our new studio done and some daily life things, it took us a bit but we’re happy to be back and with our good friends at Mother!
Showcasing our sound and something that really represents us, a genuine house music pack where the groove is ‘the key’. So you know where the EP title comes from!
And you’ve also appeared on Snatch!, Sincopat, Nervous and Gruuv, what kind of things do you look for in a label when considering them for a release?
When we are in the studio producing we only think about bringing our feelings and vibes in music, sometimes the result is more house-y and groovy, sometimes more melodic. We always choose the label after we have an idea on which one could perfectly fit the sound!
Can you share any info on other labels you’ll be releasing with in the near future?
We’ll have a release on Crosstown Rebels soon and some other tracks on hold with them for further projects, along with a couple of interesting things we’ll reveal in the next weeks.
Your own D-Floor imprint has been silent since July last year, when will we see new music on there?
We spent lot of time on D-FLOOR in the last 3 years which moved us a bit away, we just needed to have the right focus on us, as artists, and come back to producing music with no stress. D-FLOOR will be back with something really good pretty soon, and at the right time!
Let’s talk about working as a duo, how do your studio sessions typically work?
Every track starts from an idea we already worked on separately. When we meet in the studio and we are working on the project we share feedback constantly to give the right shape to the track, while keeping our goal in mind.
And when DJing, do you go track-for-track, or split the set time into larger chunks?
We play b2b track-for track, we always choose together the music we want to play. We usually have a meeting every weekend (or before every tour) and have a listen together to all the music we got and bought. We’re DJs for 25 years now, and we played together for 15, we could play b2b from warmup to afterhours, giving always the right flavour to our sets.
Tell us one act that’s inspired your career massively?
We’ve been very inspired by the whole italian house music scene and club culture of the ’90s. DJ Ralf, Claudio Coccoluto and the whole movement really influenced our music and our approach to DJing.
And someone who has inspired you personally?
Laurent Garnier, he’s an incredible DJ and a big inspiration for us, always! Recently we heard an interview from him talking about his career and he said that DJs and producers should never do music just to be part of a trendy market. If you do that, at the end you’ll hate what you are doing. The way is to make and play the music you love. That’s what we do.
Thanks a lot for chatting to us, is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap things up?
We spent lot of time in the studio in the last year and we can’t wait to share new music with all of you!
NiCe7’s Groove Key EP is out March 19th on Mother Recordings.