Alex Fish of Holosound

CITRIC Recordings, North2South, friskyRadio

2007.08.16 ::: Words by Gregor Davidson

Holosound came together on the beaches of Miami in March of 2003. Since that time, Alex Fish and Noah Becker have been working hard to build Holosound into an entity synonymous with high energy live sets as well as groundbreaking production. With several releases under their belt and an increasingly diverse resume of venues they’ve played worldwide; things are just starting to get exciting for these two young men.

Both Alex and Noah have been DJing since the late 90’s but only began formally pursuing it as a career in October of 2004 when Alex relocated to New York City from Los Angeles. Prior to that time Noah had been spending the majority of his time working with several prolific music producers in and around the NY and learning the ins and outs of digital audio production. Alex had been working in the film industry and DJing along the west coast.

Within the first two weeks of arriving on the east coast, Alex and Noah began throwing their “CITRIC” parties in various venues around the city. Nearly three years later, the events are going off better than ever, and CITRIC has become synonymous with Holosound.

Holosound’s recipe for a consistent, exciting and refreshing party in NYC: Alex and Noah, their friend and partner Derek Godwin and an ever changing roster of fellow DJs from both inside and outside the US. Fueled by a stable of die-hard fans and their open door policy to students, tourists, and beautiful women, CITRIC has found its own niche in the often crowded nightlife scene in New York.

Holosound’s live sets are quickly gaining notoriety for their subversive sexual undertones coupled with only the freshest and newest beats around. In a world where electronic music DJs often succumb to simply playing different carbon copies of a particular genre, HOLOSOUND look at their sound as something that is living, constantly growing and changing with the times.

Looking to the future, their goal is simply to expand Holosound’s reach worldwide by touching as many people as possible through their DJ sets, CITRIC events and original productions and remixes. Confident their interpretation of dance music will speak for itself Holosound works tirelessly to play in as many places around the globe as possible and spread a happy and fun-loving vibe to a world that clearly could use it.

Nocturnal: How's the summer been? Summer in NYC must be pretty crazy?
Alex: The summer has been great for us, lots of new opportunities to play the big rooms at some of the bigger clubs in the city including Pacha and the newly opened Rebel. It’s also been great for travel, since we’ve had the opportunity to play Helsinki, Finland, and Talinn, Estonia. The down side to the New York summer is that we lose a lot of people to weekend travel, Hamptons etc.

Nocturnal: Being an up and coming duo, you must have some challenges that single artists don't encounter. How has being a two-man show helped and hindered your progress as DJs and producers?
Alex: It was certainly the most difficult in the beginning as we struggled to settle into a sound we both could pour our hearts into. The fact that we’re both a bit twisted certainly helped us zero in on the dirty, sexy/electro house sound we’ve come to represent-“ILLectro” if you will ;-) More than anything we’ve learned to communicate by telephone or in person when discussing serious matters, as emails and IMs even between close friends and business partners often lend themselves to misunderstandings and conflict more so than not. It’s helped us by having two people capable of going out and talking to people, promoters, fans and other artists instead of one-so that we rarely miss a chance for Holosound to say hello to a respected artist or music contact when they roll through the city-which in this town seems to be just about every weekend. The only real drawback we face these days now that we’ve worked out most of the kinks, is the two airline ticket dilemma, we’re one act and though we pour so much more energy into our shows, at the end of the day, some promoters just look at the name on the bill and only want to shell out for one person’s ticket.

Nocturnal: You're well known throughout the Progressive scene as being relentless self promoters. How do you find the time to put yourself out there so much?
Alex: Well as touched upon in the last question, two heads are definitely better than one! Also, I think a vital part of what drives us is how difficult it was for both of us growing up through our teen years in California and Massachusetts and throughout college in the states being irrationally drawn to this music in the face of what seemed like overwhelming odds that we’d never be able to create a viable living from a music that was so un-commercial here. Hip Hop and Rap dominated the majority of the music our friends were listening to and before we teamed up and we had to fight hard simply to get someone to throw on a Sasha and Digweed CD at a party! Beyond simply the states, it all comes from that drive to open people’s eyes up to the endless love and hope that dance music embodies.

Nocturnal: You recently opened for DJ Demi and he actually asked me this question when he travelled here to Toronto later that weekend, "Where does 'Holosound' come from?
Alex: One night in like 1995, I was watching a documentary on the Beatles in which John Lennon said the name for his band came to him in a dream. The following morning he woke up with the name “Holobound” in his head. I’d used it for various endeavors in film and music along the way but when Noah invited me out to NYC we both figured replacing the “b” with an “s” was a great idea. I think it instantly says “electronic music” and we’re working tirelessly to make it synonymous with exciting, forward-thinking dance music.

Nocturnal: You're known for using some unique terms; i.e. the name of your label and party in NYC, 'CITRIC' and the description of your sound 'ILLectro.' What's the story behind these titles?
Alex: Noah and I, as I mentioned before, are a bit twisted and we were searching hard to find a unique name for our party that wasn’t played out and that surreptitiously implied partying and good times. I like to think I’m a great person to come up with a good name for something but all the credit on this one has to go to Noah-he called me up and just said “CITRIC” and (due in large part to the fact I instinctively heard “acid” in my head immediately after he said this) I agreed. As it turned out, that was what he was driving at all along. As with CITRIC, Noah and I are always looking for ways to brand Holosound and elevate it above simply some people playing records (well CDs in our case) and “ILLectro” was one of the “subway epiphanies” I had on the way to work while hammering a live set we’d just played at The Egg in London the week before. It just seemed like a nice way to personalize our sound which is really an amalgamation of House, Tech House, Progressive House, Electro and even, if the vibe is right (and only for a moment!) breaks and minimal.

Nocturnal: Tell us what's up with all your projects: the CITRIC parties, CITRIC Recordings, North2South on friskyRadio and whatever else upcoming from Holosound?
Alex: Hmmmm, well let’s begin with CITRIC. We’re very happy in our current home at CITRIC@Vault which is a gorgeous and intimate venue below one of NYC’s bigger clubs, element. It has a great sound-system and the space is very unique and unlike any other club we’ve ever played or partied at. The only drawback here is the mixer in the booth but we’re working on it and it only affects the awesome stable of DJs we have lined up for this fall including Kered and Kiraly from CT, Stephen Porter, Mark Santangelo and Kris B.
CITRIC recordings is the logical progression in branding our parties and creating a label that represents “ILLectro.” Initially it’s going to be an outlet for a bunch of stuff we’ve finished but have been too busy to shop to other labels while we DJ, remix other artists, travel for gigs and continue to build CITRIC here at home. We have so many talented friends and colleagues that are blowing up right now that it would be foolish to not take advantage of those relationships and start putting out some great remixes along with our original work. Look to early 2008 to see us break some lesser known but remarkably talented artists whose hunger and passion to be involved with what we’re doing is truly inspiring.
Lastly, our show on Friskyradio.com North2South, has been another great outlet for us to spread the Holosounds worldwide. In addition to having more leeway to show our more eclectic side with our own exclusive mixes, we’ve hosted some great exclusive sets from people we look up to in the business such as Desyn Masielo, Paul Woolford, James Talk, Kris B and several others. Faisal at FriskyRadio has done some truly unbelievable things with his station averaging over 1k listeners at any given point and we look forward to sticking with them and potentially expanding our show frequency which now is once a month-airing on the 3rd Monday of every month at 12pm EST. With two North2South’s a month imagine the possibilities!
Other than that we’re working to expand our exposure to the FM and Satellite airwaves in the coming months and just explore any and all opportunities to spread our sound and meet new, fun and most of all these days, POSITIVE people.

Nocturnal: Hottest DJ right now?
Alex: I would say hottest “act” DJ wise would be SOS. Desyn held the favorite DJ title for us for quite a while and Demi and Omid are both forces to be reckoned with but in a manner not dissimilar to Voltron-these guys are at their strongest when united under the common goal of defeating evil-I mean setting the dancefloor on fire.

Nocturnal: Hottest Producer?
Alex: Any monkey could say Prydz/Pryda/Cirez D but I’m going to say it anyway because this man is ridiculously talented and the fact that he makes bombs with only a few sounds and tons of automation is beyond impressive and a testament to how much he understand the process. We’re also really digging Slytek and Deadmau5. I just heard an interesting Kissy Sell Out remix that was interesting.

Nocturnal: The clubs you dream of spinning at?
Alex: The Mod Club in Toronto ;-) But also Warung in Brasil, Pacha-Ibiza, Womb in Tokyo, and Cavo Paradiso in Mykonos.

Nocturnal: Most inspiring people?
Alex: Most inspiring people is always a tough one... anyone who hasn’t given up home on this world would rank highly on my list. It’s too easy to say “everything’s fucked” those people suck. Our most inspiring people are those with the balls and energy to show us the way back towards the light.

Nocturnal: Your choice for next president of the United States?
Alex: I would say Obama hands down if it looked as though he could realistically get elected-unfortunately some parts of America still see things in black and white and I feel as though that could be a hindrance to his run. His ideas are filled with optimism and hope and I believe that’s due in large part to the fact that he hasn’t been soiled by several years in Washington. Then I’d take Al Gore were he to decide to run late in the game-we really have no bigger problem ahead of us than climate change. I can’t reach Noah for comment now as he’s slammed working as head of marketing for Ultra Records but I can tell you he’d take anything NOT republican...

Nocturnal: Favorite Quote?
Alex: Winston Churchill.... "Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam".

::: Related Links

::: www.holosoundnyc.com

::: www.myspace.com/holosound

::: www.exposedmusic.com

::: www.bringthebeats.com

::: Mod Club Club Listings