Times & Tunes with Alma Negra

📷 Star Of Persia

Alma Negra is a multi-man mega collaboration between Dersu and Diego Figueira, Dario Rohrbach, and Mario Robles. Inspired and by their diverse backgrounds, myriad of musical tastes, and passion for percussion, the Basel-based group has been turning up the tempo on 2018 with the launch of their own label, a live set debut, and a forthcoming release on Detroit Swindle’s Heist Recordings. Learn more about the group as we talk, chat and discuss a little bit of everything in anticipation of their new Conversation EP.


Hello and welcome back to Bolting Bits! It looks like you `ve been busy since your Mixed By interview way back in 2016. How are you doing? How has your Summer been?
Hello! The pleasure is on our side. Thanks we are all well. We had a busy Year so far, as we started our own Label Alma Negra Records early this year. We started with the Idea to show different Rhythms that are not yet well known in Europe. We want to do 12 Ep s in that series that shows a specific Rhythm ore is dedicated to the music of a Country. So we started with a Brasil influenced Ep .

After we had the chance to do some Reworks of Maloya music , that comes from the Reunion Island. The 3rd one is a Rework with Music from Erytrea. We are very Happy that we could get all those licences . Thats a whole lot of Work :) .Last but not least our Friend James Stewart made his first Ep on our Label and the result is awsome. All recorded Instruments and collaborations with singers check it out

Also we made an Ep at Marcel Vogel’s Label Lumberjacks in Hell . that Ep are mostly live sessions we did in the Studio and showed for the first time the live approach we also have. So as you see we are very busy hahahaha. We had quiet a lot of Gigs in the beginning of the summer and now we are looking forward to the Club season.

Let’s dig into the new EP! I know you like to approach the music making process with various techniques ranging from sampling to recording your own percussion,
how did this EP come together? Was there anything different about the process compared to previous releases?

Every release is different. We work in different ways always. We record a lot of percussion and we record different musicians as well .Also sometimes we use Sampling as a technique.



Any choice pieces of studio gear you couldn’t live without? Any recent additions that can be heard on the EP?

We always try new synths and stuff but We can t live without our percussions. Mainly Congas and Djembes. We added perc on the main track Conversation.

You’ve recently made the crossover to live performance, has that influenced the way you make music in the studio? Has it changed how you feel about DJing?
We clearly separate Djing and the Live project.We love to Dj and this is a big passion. But in therms of production and Studio work for sure the Live thing is getting more influence wich is very cool. It all melts together and thats anyway what we want to do.

This is your second EP on Heist Recordings, what’s it like being part of the Heist family and working with Maarten and Lars?
The Heist label works absolutely professional all over. We are very happy to be part of that family that is a real family. Maarten and Lars are friends who share the same passion in music awesome guys . They have a deep knowledge … not only in dance music. As Dj s for sure they are one of the Big guys around.

Lastly, tell us something we don’t know about Alma Negra!
A lot of people are still confused who Alma Negra is . hahahaa So here you get it .
Alma Negra is a Dj/producer duo made out of the Twins Dersu and Diego Figueira ,In the Live project /Studio / Label /AR we work together with Mario Robles.

alma negra press shot

📷 Star Of Persia


Interview by Adam J.W