 Haris may not yet be a premier league international DJ or a transiently hip name, but his pedigree as a DJ and producer is first class. Hailing from Dubrovnik, Croatia, Haris’ sexy underground dance floor sound is a mixture of many different elements. From techy and stong to dubby and breaky, his fusion juxtaposes the organic with the synthetic, the musical with the electronic. Haris’ background and influences are less conventional than the average DJ. Inspired by his late father, Dedan, a well-known session musician, Haris attended music school, and learnt to play the violin, piano and guitar – instruments that still feature on his club EPs. He also picked up on the pioneering electronic sounds of Kraftwerk, Jean Michel Jarre and Mike Oldfield as a kid, inspiring him to make his first electronic tracks. In the early 90s, Haris left Dubrovnik for England to give his budding production skills a proper grounding. He was accepted into a good music school in London – but set his sights on engineering and playing with bands. This experience allowed him to learn about integrating chords, melodies and musical structures into electronic music. At the same time, Haris also discovered London’s underground party scene and was a regular face at Terry Francis’ Wiggle night and MR C’s The END club. Here, he hooked up with DJs like Francis, Dave Mothersole and Colin Dale and soon afterwards became chief engineer at Swag Records’ tech-house studio stronghold in Croydon. Haris’ interest and fascination in dance music - including the technical aspects of music production - grew with a passion and this relentless enthusiasm and dedication carried on with him co-producing and playing on many of the tracks released on Swag’s labels. Indeed, Haris’ musical background can be credited with having a huge influencing on this scene. It’s an aesthetic that Haris also adheres to in his DJing: His fluid, smoothly pieced together sets span deep house, underground breaks, clubby tech-house and techno funk have made him a sought after guest DJ at clubs and parties. While his music has taken him all over the world, he’s also a regular DJ fixture in Croatia’s burgeoning club and festival scene and at clubs all over the Balkans – and last summer, he DJed at the MTV Valkana festival in Croatia in front of thousands of people.
Haris’ across the board style has also secured him gigs at Fabric in London and has seen him tour the USA, Brazil and Japan. Over the coming months, he will touch down in an exhaustive list of exotic locations, including Japan, New Zealand and Australia, Brazil, Singapore, France, Germany, Turkey and Croatia – and, as the tech-house scene explodes in North America, he will play dates in Canada, New York, Chicago and Atlanta. While demand for Haris’ DJ skills is growing, his recorded output is also turning heads. He has released on a raft of clubby EPs on respected labels, including his Laus imprint as well as Oblong, Get Groovy, Swag Records, Funknose, Detour and Transfusion – and his tracks have appeared on mixes by Justin Robertson, Doc Martin, Cass, Chris Fortier and Sancho Panza. The producer’s crossover approach to underground house has also attracted the attention of the premier league as well as the underground DJs – and has already seduced DJs like Jon Digweed and Sasha, Danny Howells, Chris Fortier and James Zabiela as well as tech-house stalwarts like Mr C and Layo & Bushwacka. Having gained experience in the club milieu, Haris is set to spread his creative wings far and wide. He promises his forthcoming club EPs will be more vocal oriented and his willingness to branch out has also resulted in his latest experiment, namely setting up a live band.
Working with producer Sebastian Vronsky, percussionist Duncan White and singer Jimi Cubanos, the as yet unnamed band have been practicing hard and have a number of live appearances already scheduled for the near future. Given his background as a musician and his work with his band, Haris believes mixing electronic music with live material is the way forward for contemporary dance music. However, he hasn’t deserted his house roots. He’s already planning more EPs on Laus and various other labels, a mix CD and a ‘megamix’ of his best club releases to date as well as his debut artist album. Like his live project, it will feature musicians and vocalists and he is putting a lot of time into guaranteeing it sounds unlike anything else. As always with Haris, you’d expect nothing less.
Web info: www.lausrecords.com
My Space: www.myspace.com/hariscustovic
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