Studio Talk: GummiHz chats about some of his work

Since 2006 Alexander Tsotsos aka GummiHzhas been steadily working on his mixture of House and Techno through imprints like Mobilee records, Treibstoff and Earthrumental. With several years of classic guitar training and a couple of teenage garage bands, he was introduced to DJing which instantly became his passion. His "Sapfo" EP only recently came out on his brand new Claap imprint. Time for some studio talk with Alexander about some of his productions:

GummiHz & Nikola Gala "Sapfo" [Claap]

I must say that Nikola is one of the very few people I managed to work with in the studio as usually I prefer sending an idea back and forth so people can work on it on their own time. This one though was done so seamlessly. Nikola was visiting me in May for a week. So we thought of working on some tracks together. We had the main groove running practically within an hour or so. And I was very surprised how easily it was for us to work together. Then we had to do a bit of research so that we could find the right theme to develop over it. It was then when we decided to use something, which reflects our cultural inheritance as we are both Greek. So we looked for a few themes coming from poems written during the byzantine years. That’s around 1400 ac. We heard it and we know on that instant that it was what we wanted for the track. I am so happy we managed to use the Greek language creatively so it can work in a set even if you don’t speak the language. Nice one Nikola!





GummiHz feat. Emena "Love Call" [Mobilee]
Love call was my first attempt to sing on top of a groove and actually considering it for releasing. I enjoy a lot singing at home but never really went for a vocal of mine. It was kind of funny that at the time of production I was in quiet an upset psychological state so all of the lyrics came out in one take! Then I had to listen to the track over and over to take down the lyrics! So basically the whole vocal is pure instinct. After I played it to a few friends of mine, they were all encouraging me to keep the vocal as it really made an impression. So I decided to do so and name the singer “emena” which in Greek means myself. So if you do the maths its like GummiHz feat. Emena = GummiHz feat. Myself!!


GummiHz "High On Percussion" [Earthrumental]
This record came out in 2009. It is the outcome of some sessions I had with Bayogar. An african percussionist I met through good friend Argy. I remember Bayogar taking a whole percussive orchestra out of his trunk. I was shocked. A cup of coffee and a good discussion later Bayogar was really high on percussion. After a few hours recording and a lot of editing, High on percussion was produced. I sent it to Franck at Earthrumental and he loved it and asked me to make a couple of drum tools for the record also. Easy thing when you have the whole track ready. Having a huge love for tribal tracks, I am very proud for this record as it is was my first tribal record. And I must say I love rhythmic tracks. They are always useful for sets. I just prefer that the drums are, or sound, real rather than placed bongo hits on a grid!!