I had a chat with him about his DJ career and the record label he’s been working on.

Hey Alinep, how’s it going? 

Hey, nice to meet you!  me, my wife and my daughter have been well, music has kept me sane since covid started. we recovered from covid before flying here to the UK for a short escape.

Tell us about yourself. About your DJ career etc. and the clubs that you’ve been played to before.

I DJ, produce, manage labels day and night and also organise parties in Manila. Im a radio host for my Deepsomnia radio show every Monday on in progress radio in Amsterdam and digitally imported every 2nd Tuesdays of the month. I also have a new monthly show on DHRK Sonik radio in Switzerland coming up and a monthly show on Manila Community Radio called Manila Underground (a promotions brand I started in 2007).

I got into electronic music in the late 90s. I am proud to say that I am a clubber slash music enthusiast turned DJ since 2001 and I am still passionate about it

I’ve been into non-commercial electronic music since day 1 and became a disciple of the underground in the Philippines. I started playing in small bars and lounges then earned my club residency in warehouse 135 in 2007. during those times, I was able to play around the Philippines first before playing abroad. in 2011, I became one of the 3 first residents of  Time, Manila where I can share countless memories and shared decks alongside almost all of my favourite artists there. I love Time, sadly the club had to close down due to an illegal raid by the city government.

Share us stories about the clubs and festivals that you have played throughout your career.

Had a sweet memory in Kuala Lumpur when I played at Jiro. Jakarta was really crazy at Colesseum – Top Vibe! Bangkok was an ace night at  Wax club even on a Thursday night. Had a memorable one at Singapore’s own Zouk (I always dreamt of playing a one-day gig at Zouk – one on the bucket list!). Also, at White Room by the beautiful beach in Kota Kinabalu. Had a crazy 8 am session at this cool place called Broma at Ho Chi Minh City. DJ Land in Fukuoka was having good fun Djing alongside my wife Mica.

Besides playing for clubs in Asia, I played at the World DJ Festival in Korea and an 11-days festival; Epizode at Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam. That was a magical experience for me where I shared the stage with Josh Wink playing until sunrise in the Egg Stage. 

I had my debut in Europe in 2017 where I got invited to play at Golden Gate in Berlin. Got a chance to play for radio in Manchester and a shelter club in London. Got invitations for more gigs in Europe in 2018 but I wasn’t able to commit because me and wife were pregnant. I continue exploring playing at clubs in 2019 like  Panic Room in Paris and Tribeca Club in Manchester.

I got more opportunities in 2020 to play in other European cities like Frankfurt, Barcelona and Amsterdam but of course, all had cancel due to the pandemic.

You mentioned that you really love TIME. What’s your best experience and why it’s special to you? 

My best experience was hitting to Time when it was just being built. when it had no roof and we just dreamed of it opening soon (teary-eyed saying these). I miss my 8-12 hours marathon sets every new years day. I start my gig at 12 am-midnight until  at 11 in the morning then continue onto an afters 

I met a lot of my favourite there at Time like  Dubfire, Dennis Ferrer, Alan Oldham, the Global Underground boys – Dave Seaman, Danny Howells, Darren Emerson, Anil Chawla, Dale Anderson. Meeting the GU boys were definitely special as I’ve been collecting their CDs since back in the days…and yes Time is where I met my wife Mica who also deejayed in the club.

That’s why Time is super special to me.

 Share with us about Manila’s House and Techno scene.

Manila’s House and Techno is quite small and intimate also because the venues are limited. Since 2010, we only had Time, XXXX club, Topic,  Void club and Black Market where they play a proper  House and Techno in a good loud proper sound system. There were also previous venues like warehouse 135, Orange/Olive, Twilo that pushed underground music in the late 90s to mid-2000s. 

I am happy to see new players and promotional groups that promote underground electronic music and do the same passion like UNKNWN, Groove Manila, House Collab, Deep Groove Collective, Manila Community Radio, Elephant and more. Shoutouts to you all and a special shout out to Groove Nation’s Toti Dalmacion and Cyril Yarisantos who are also big inspirations to the Manila Clubbing scene.  They brought in Richie Hawtin, Josh Wink, Derrick May in the 90s in Manila and the list goes on.

So what’s it all about with Deepsomnia? Any latest release and future release coming up? 

Deepsomnia is a track that I produced in 2011 and was released in 2012 on Funkfield Recordings. It gets re-released in 2014 by Love International (a label run by Ray Soo in Kuala Lumpur) from there Deepsomnia played by Richie Hawtin in all of his gigs throughout 2014.  Since then, the track was getting more attention which then got into a radio show in 2015 and became the techno only record label played in Philipines radio in 2019

Early this year, Deepsomnia released its first VA which included tracks from techno icon Ken Ishii, Ecilo from Jakarta, Kuma from KL, Hadiid from Kuching, Skeef Menezes of Mumbai and myself…also followed a collab EP from Skeef Menezes called Auralic and the latest will be from Carara – a techno artist from Germany signed on Naked.Lunch and Elektrax to name a few. He is top! 

The label’s visual emblem is actually a scan of my brain, taken during an MRI he had when he suffered from nocturnal epilepsy,  Showing the world what’s going on deep in my brain, really. 

What’s your next plan for 2021 onwards? 

My plan is to be healthy mentally and physically as much as possible for my family and make music as much as I can and push everything at my best. Learning new techniques for production also is my top list. I want to do more collaborations with artists with that share the same visions. With all of these, I believe through the actions I hope will inspire more artist in South East Asia to have a good mindset to keep going. We can see for example like my good friend Ecilo who just signed to in Jeff Mill’s label, Axis and I’m so proud of that.