The prolific Lisbon based producer who routinely decimates dance floors is back, premiering a six song EP that you absolutely need in your rave arsenal.
I first came across Stasya with their Big Ole Dick Edit and was immediately ALL IN. The backbeat had elements of jersey club, was heavy and full of club deconstruction, all moving under the priceless bop of Megan’s vocals, it was a no brainier.
Beginning to click thru their profile I found that Big Ole Dick was just the beginning of Stasya, they are a well of forward thinking dance music. Stasya’s edits move club and rave floors in a fresh way, with heavy danceability, hardcore weight and an experimental tenacity that’s just plain infectious.
And now they’ve officially given the world a six-track original body of work with their Lamurya EP, out now on Argentine based club label, Hiedrah Club de Baile.
Hiedrah focuses on fighting for the perspective, protection and progress of indentity and cultural minorities in Latin America through the music they put out. Run by Ybán & Nahuel out of Buenos Aires, it’s a natural fit for Stasya, the Circa A.D. collective founder out of Lisbon. They founded Circa with the same ethos, to be able to tell their own stories as queer and trans-agrresive youth on their terms thru the music they put out.
The joining of forces to put out Lamurya only doubles down on the power, reach and impact one can create for themselves and community of like-minded people. It creates space for a minority who’s terms are most often told from other people who aren’t actually a part of that community. This creates a disconnect in humanity and accuracy, leaving the people it’s actually about once again objectified and ‘othered.’
Well not this time. Stasya’s Lamurya is a bold, heavy, pulsing and cinematic body of work told and delivered in a first hand perspective.
Tracks like ÉTER, CINZA and ESCALADA kick off the EP, setting the dinner table to feast. ÉTER is an emotional journey that combines punchy timbral textures and swelling moods, creating a euphoric atmosphere. Broken up half way thru by raining mid tempo drums and percussion, ÉTER soon becomes head nodding palette for consumption.
You can feel the ride, the evolution of Stasya, throughout Lamurya. By the time CULPA ft. ODETE makes its appearance, the expressions and voices of the project have turned into an all out onslaught on the dance floor.
Distorted bass, triumphant synths and relentless tempos take over the EP, refusing to quit, only pushing further, boundaries, ideas and possibilities.
We got the chance to catch up with Stasya and delve deep into the mind behind Lamurya.
INTERVIEW
Sermon 3 Recordings: Let’s talk about your background. We were first introduced to you with blends and bootlegs like Big Ole Dick, Pop a Xen and BB. Your edits have such an intensity and is hella dance floor minded, which I love. What’s your production background and how did you get into making club edits?
Stasya: Club music is what brought me closer to the community I’m in and made me meet the people I know today so that has been a crucial element in my life and was what made me start producing music in the first place. I was also just getting started as a DJ at the time and I was mostly into industrial electronic music, which had this intensity you mentioned. I try to always bring that into my own productions now because it has such a raw feeling that I craved for at every party or club night I attended. Even though I feel like I’m developing a more club-friendly sound with time, my music was quite slow-paced and more experimental when I started, and that was partly because I was still not sure what I could or couldn’t do. I had tried making club edits in the past and didn’t work out very well so recently I decided to challenge myself again and started playing around with tracks from artists I admire eg. Arca or Shygirl, and thought it sounded fun enough to release!
S3R: Your first EP, Aspas, was dropped last year on Alp Records. What’s the biggest difference expression-wise for yourself as an artist between the two bodies of work?
Stasya: For me, ‘Aspas’ was about this sentimental take on slow-paced dance music, when I still felt very insecure and it was more than anything a cry for help as someone struggling with depression and dysphoria. There was no set technical proposal, only a conceptual one. With ‘Lamurya’, I had a different approach to it in the sense that I was already embracing some club archetypes to build the tracks. You listen to it and you understand it is way bolder than my previous project, and that is also about my personal and professional growth. It is still a very sentimental project though, I’d say. I don’t think the melancholy or the drama ever leaves my music. This project is also bolder in the sense that in someway represents my gender transition. From beginning to end, I go through a whole transformation, in an exhausting search for a sense of belonging in my own body, trying out different things, navigating through different musical genres.
S3R: Love the grittiness and attack of the kick drum in songs like Casulo. Tell us about some of your production techniques/approaches on the EP?
Stasya: Thank you! It really fascinates me when you have softness and vulnerability put together with harsh sounds. The whole EP is also about duality and polarity, so it only makes sense that these two elements would be mixed together. In ‘Casulo’, the dirtiness and impact of the crashes and the drums when put together with this delicate melody really make me float. I’ve been obsessed with this kind of grittiness in the drum kicks for a while now, and I tried exploring it differently in each track. My production techniques are not linear at all. I am still learning and I do things very intuitively, so I’m just playing around and seeing what feels right each time.
S3R: What was it like working with Odete and Alada, and who mixed the Lamurya?
Stasya: Both Odete and Alada are really talented artists so it was a pleasure working with them! As close friends of mine it was a must to have them participate in such a personal project.They mostly contributed with vocals and some sound design on each respective track but their input is powerful enough to help me build the composition and write melodies so easily to the point that these two features, ‘Culpa’ and ‘Tributo’ are my favorite tracks on the EP. I ended up mixing the whole thing together.
S3R: Are you incorporating Lamurya’s label release on HiedraH somehow with what you got going on at Circa AD? What’s next for you now that the EP is out?
Staysa: We both are queer collectives and labels working hard to showcase LGBTQ talent, and I believe we have been doing a really job for that matter. HiedraH Club de Baile has been an inspiration since I first came across them because I felt drawn to the project’s concept and to the music they were releasing. We are also connected in the way we are not proposing your typical club music: we are experimenting with more specific, regional, or ‘deconstructed’ compositions and sounds, building bridges between the folkclore, the traditional and the contemporary, futuristic. Right now I am focusing on producing singles and amplifying my range outside of Portugal, and that is gradually happening – I already have some gigs coming up in Milan, Hamburg, Berlin and I am beyond thrilled! Hope to share my craft with the rest of the world pretty soon.
Listen to the World Premiere of Stasya – Lamurya exclusively on S3R News
Great content! Super high-quality! Keep it up! 🙂
Awe glad it fed you!