Exclusive Interview: Indira Paganotto

MUSICOne on One

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Fresh off the back of her huge Jungle EP debut on OFF Recordings, the imminent launch of her label Phase Insane, and a huge compilation on LA-based imprint Octopus Recordings confirmed for the end of February, there’s no denying it’s been a hugely prolific start to the year for Spanish techno sensation Indira Paganotto. Taking time out of her incredibly busy schedule, we caught up with Indira from her home in the Spanish mountains for an exclusive interview to find out more…

Good day Indira and thanks for chatting with us! This is a loaded question these days but… how are you doing?

Hello guys, nice to meet you! Within all this situation and madness, I am in good health and mind, since I live isolated in the mountains and I do not have much contact with the city. The truth is that these difficult times have helped me to focus more on my career and I am taking advantage of it in a positive way to create.

Where in the world are you answering this interview from right now?

Right now from my home in the mountains of Madrid, Spain!

With the last twelve months being so exceptionally different to any year before it, I have to ask: how have the last few months been for you? 

At first with a lot of uncertainty, cancellations of Tours and gigs like all artists, but in the end I have tried to find the positive side, I have not been carried away by the drama of this professional break in terms of gigs and tours, I am focused on creating music and on my new record label that will be released in a few weeks time. I have just made my debut on the incredible OFF Recordings with my Jungle EP, I have my Invisible Connections compilation coming out on Octopus Recordings at the end of February and I’m in the process of launching my new label Phase Insane. Many news and light at the end of the tunnel !!

Where did you spend lockdown and how did you keep busy and motivated?

I spent it in the mountain house that I have in Madrid. I was lucky enough to move from the city and buy a house in the mountains three years ago, creating my own music studio from cero , having animals and a garden , saved my mind this is  truth. I always wanted to live in nature surrounded by animals and music, and this is how I live!

In the confinement, at first it did shock me just like everyone else, but after the second week I started to build and paint different backgrounds for the streams, each week was a challenge and a new background, a new idea to develop … Those goals made me busy as well as the production! The truth almost didn’t even find out!

Do you feel the lockdown has slowed your progress as an artist, or do you find some positives in all this?

Personally it has opened all the chakras “haha” ,  Let’s say that it has focused me and made everything I had in mind could materialize it. I am a very positive person in general, and in extreme situations like the one we are living now, more. I work harder and better when I’m under pressure so it’s a very creative time for me.

Can you tell us a little bit about your new label Phase Insane?

Of course! My new label Phase Insane Records will be released, in Vinyl and Digital format. It’s a project that I’ve been thinking about for five years and I never saw the moment to make because I was always DJing or in the studio making music, and focused my energy on other things. I carry the label together with my best friend from Madrid and excellent artist Manu Cano. The first reference “Wolf Land”, is a collaboration of his and mine, with remixes by Flug and Ricardo Garduno. The covers will be minimized pictures of real works by my husband and painter, David Morago. It is a very delicate and carefully done project, where techno and art , will mix. The vinyl is available to pre-order now and the EP will also be available on Beatport and other digital DSPs in a few weeks.


What were your first introductions to electronic music?

My father was always playing old vinyls of psytrance and acid jazz from when he played in Goa, India in the 80’s and my mother, as a good northern Italian, showed me classical music and opera, so I grew up with a very varied musical culture hahah! At the age of 15 I was already playing with the vinyls at home and starting to DJ, and at 18 I released my first release “Underground Love” on vinyl , on the Ian Pooley´s label, with remixes by Jef K, Gwen Maze and Ian Pooley. The following years I continued immersed in production releasing another two vinyls and numerous digital EPs. I started very early and without realizing it, I have been in the music industry for more than ten years.

What were you planning to do before you realized that the world of music production and DJing was going to be your passion and work for life?

I really liked the world of medicine, I wanted to be like my father who traveled all over the world as a doctor without borders , for help people and see the world as well. But in the end I was focused on what my passion was, music.

What other hobbies or passions do you have that aren’t music related?

I love cooking, doing construction work at home (in fact , among the analog machines or something for my study like presents in my birthday or Christmas gifts ,, there are always some construction tool such as a concrete mixer or chainsaw !! hahah); Another of my passions is Surfing and Snowboarding.

What’s the one venue you hope to play in some day?

At the Boom Festival, Portugal. Everyone who knows it will understand why!

If you could share a studio session with any other artist in the world, who would you pick and why?

See if I’m totally honest, my creative process is based a lot on my loneliness. It doesn’t mean that I don’t admire artists and I like to share music or collaborate with them, which I love! But each one in his house hahaah My study is my temple.

If you could play b2b with anyone in the world, who would you choose? 

I love Loud.

What is the best thing you’ve eaten in the last year?

The truth is that I would not know what to choose between my last trip to Galicia where I ate a lot and very good seafood; And in Turkey the food is a spectacle!

Any final words for our WOTN readers?

STAY SAFE , MAKE A RAVE !

Indira Paganotto – Jungle EP is out now via OFF Recordings

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