Decoded would like to introduce a label hailing from Tel Aviv, Israel. A label which was founded in 2006 and run by one of the most respected producers and DJs in the underground music scene, Lonya.
Lonya is a talented musician, music producer and international DJ. With over 400 releases spread over a multitude of top draw labels such as Hernan Cattaneo’s Sudbeat, Selador, Darkroom Dubs, Parquet. The label was created by Lonya to put out music from all over the world, from different cultures by producers who try to push the boundaries of electronic dance music from techno to minimal to deep house.
Over the past 11 years, Asymmetric Recordings has featured artists such as Audio Junkies, Guy Mantzur, Wally Lopez, Lonya himself on no less than 45 tracks, Dmitry Molosh, Li-Polymer, Geist to name a handful.
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Hello Lonya, nice to meet you again after ADE. Asymmetric Recordings were part of the Timelapse night at Club NL alongside Sudbeat & Reworck, how did it go down?
Hey, thanks for inviting me for a talk, always a pleasure.
So ADE… Every year I say it was unbelievable, better than ever and this time no exception, all the expectations and wishes came true and more. Timelapse was very successful last year, that’s why we decided to make it again and work on the details more thoroughly this year. The concept behind it, is a 16 hour journey with artists from around the world, that release on our labels, creating one flow, while presenting their unique style. And even though we are a global community, when we succeed to successfully blend the grooves from Argentina to Sri Lanka (for whom it was the first ever participation on ADE), surrounded by music lovers, partners and colleagues from all over the world, dancing and connecting under one roof for so long, without really feeling the time passing – we are happy!
Did you come across any new talent during your trip to Amsterdam?
Yes, but not someone that I didn’t know before. But it’s maybe because I wasn’t searching. I heard lots of great sets and spoke with many good producers, but it was mostly catching up, speaking about life and future plans. To find someone new and unknown you need to dig deeper, I’m not sure ADE is the ideal place for it.
So Asymmetric Recordings are up to 130 releases now which is quite a number. What is the release schedule looking like for the next 6 months and any particular tracks which will be big that you are excited about?
So many things at work at the moment, lots of great projects and collaborations. Till the end of the year a remixes EP of my release Righteousness with some very powerful interpretations will be out, also Madloch’s EP has to be mentioned as it will have lots of supporters I think. Next year starts to look pretty full as well. We’ll probably start it with Roger Martinez EP which is now being remixed by Mariano Mellino, its not finished yet but sounds already outstanding and those that love this sound will not stay indifferent.
Your next release on the label is from a well known producer from Madeira called Li-Polymer who released a great EP called Physic on Sudbeat. Can you give us some info on this release and how the connection came about with Li-Polymer?
Li-Polymer’s Broken Machine is our next release. It is remixed by Marten Sundberg and John Cosani. Just before we met for the first time with Fabio last year on ADE, I’ve asked him to remix a track for us, as I always felt his sound and productions. He did an amazing job on that remix, after meeting in person we became friends and an obvious next step was to start working on an EP. Broken Machine came to my possession early this year, but it took us more than half a year to prepare this release, choosing the best remixes and working on the sound. The result speaks for itself, you’ll be our judge!
Since 2010 you also started a sister label, Asymmetric Dip, can you tell us why you set this sister label up? Most labels setup sister labels to put out a different style of music but Asymmetric Recordings was setup not to be genre defined, so can you give your reasons for this?
Asymmetric Dip is an experimental project and home to music without formulas. I would say that most of the releases are somewhere on the melodic Electronica spectrum, but this is such a wide area. The idea started when I began to receive lots of music that I couldn’t quite put on Asymmetric Recordings and be completely OK with it, I thought it deserves a dedicated place, where of course we’ll make the selection of whats in and what out according to our taste but the sound will be unique and special. For the last year Maydan became a label manager and now lots of innovative producers are asking to release there.
Could you discuss with us your thoughts on sales and streaming as a label. Are you happy that more people get to listen to the music now easily or do you think long term this model is not sustainable?
I try not to worry myself too much with the sales issue. Never mind what I’ll do it will still be not enough to put food on the table for the artists or myself. As long as we cover the costs of every release, DJs are playing and music lovers support and listen to our music – I’m happy. If we grow bigger every year and make a more interesting and relevant projects I’m satisfied and ready to put my time and efforts.
Regarding new and up and coming producers, at what stage would you consider signing a track from someone you hadn’t heard a lot about. Are you of the view that you would want an artist to already have some presence and track record in place or would you purely let the music make your mind up if they are good enough or not?
I would sign any track that fits my vision for the label’s sound, regardless how known or unknown the artist is and I let the music to speak for itself . I do my best to reply to every artist even when I’ve never heard about him/her and the demo is good but not for us. But actually with the unknown producers its more work to do in order to expose it and make people listen, that’s why I think many times, labels don’t pick the newcomers.
In the future has the labels considered creating a platform to manage and nurture young or up and coming talent?
This is one of the goals we are following even today, but really to start a management or a booking agency for new and upcoming talent would be such an important step. It depends on so many things if we’ll be able to do it professionally in the future. Hard to say now …
Do you have any new plans for next year? For example, would you consider putting on label nights in different parts of the world?
This is something we are working on now, we did it in 2017 but not on a large scale, if the conditions will allow we’ll try to bring our sound to different parts of the world in 2018 and involve as many artists as possible.
So your mix features tracks which will be released on both of your labels in the near future. Could you talk us through the mix, where you did it and what was the thinking behind the curation?
Asymmetric ADE Sampler is a release that took me few months to prepare, choosing the tracks and working on everything to sound exactly as I wanted was lots of hard work. The concept was to create something different this time, it had to be spacy and more abstract than usual, less dance floor oriented but still bringing some extra groovy touch and energy. And as the tracks speak for themselves, my true contribution is this mix. Enjoy the ride.
Decoded Radio hosted by Ian Dillon presents Asymmetric Recordings with Lonya.
Tracks:
Ian Dillon
Decoded Hot Picks Chart Countdown
#4 FAIDE – Devil In My Clothes feat. Ali K (Original Mix) [Dino Audio]
#3 D-Nox & Beckers – Kimberland (Original Mix) [Plattenbank]
#2 Chicola – Yoav (Original Mix) [Lost & Found]
#1 Frank Sonic & L-Ex – Sunrise (Weekend Heroes Remix) [Beat Boutique ]
Mini Mix
01. Oliver Schories – Fakir (Jan Oberlaender Remix) [Soso]
02. Wally Lopez – Sphera (Neil Flynn – Ohm Remix) SELADOR]
03. Alfa State – Symphony of Courage (Original Mix) [Sudbeat Music]
04. Zacharias Tiempo – Knock (Petar Dundov Remix) [Dear Deer]
05. Rancido – Levels (Sahar Z Remix) [Click Records]
Lonya
01. Golan Zocher – Bat Yam (Original Mix)
02. Cedren & Manu-l – After (Original Mix)
03. Geist – O (Original Mix)
04. Spike Galarraga – White Smoke (Original Mix)
05. Maydan – Dune (Original Mix)
06. Just Hear – Menace To Society (Original Mix)
07. Boom Merchant – Orbit (Original Mix)
08. Eli Amsalevski – Playing With My Thoughts (Original Mix)
Listen Via:
01/11: Nube Music: 4pm-6pm ART (GMT-3) www.nube-music.com
02/11: Casafonda: 10pm-12am GMT www.casafondaradio.com
02/11: Radio Bondi FM: 1pm AEDT (GMT+11) www.bondifm.com.au
02/11: Krafted Radio: 10pm-12am GMT www.krafted.co.uk/radio
04/11: Midnight Express FM: 10pm-12am CST (GMT-6) www.midnightexpressfm.com
05/11: Tempo Radio (Red Stream): 10pm-12am CST (GMT-6) www.tempo-radio.com
06/11: Mio Radio: 3pm-5pm UTC (GMT+2) www.mioradio.net
07/11: Studio Lux FM: 11pm-1am CEST (GMT+1) www.studioluxfm.com
09/11: Casafonda: 10pm-12am GMT www.casafondaradio.com
09/11: Radio Bondi FM: 1pm AEDT (GMT+11) www.bondifm.com.au
09/11: Krafted Radio: 10pm-12am GMT www.krafted.co.uk/radio
10/11: Danceradio.ca: 6am-8pm EDT (GMT-4) www.danceradio.ca
11/11: STROM:KRAFT radio (Electronic Channel): 11pm-1am CET (GMT+1) www.stromkraftradio.fm
11/11: Deep London: TBA www.deeplondon.org
On rotation: Inside My House Radio www.insidemyhouseradio.com
