Aitor Ronda

If all biographies of live artists become outdated very soon, Aitor Ronda’s more so. Because in spite of having been active for more than a decade, there is no week in which he doesn’t produce news, whether it’s a tour, a release of his labels Drakos or Upfront, being included in DJ or digital store charts… Aitor Ronda is probably a workaholic, or maybe he’s just a music addict, and he’s lucky enough to have made music his job…

Aitor Ronda spends the most part of his waking hours working on his two young labels. He meant Upfront to be a window to show the Spanish electronic scene in the world’s arena and it has already published tracks of local artists in every possible techno substyle: Óscar Mulero, Leandro Gámez, Paco Osuna, Darkrow, Javi Lago, Dave Cave, Pablo Akaros... In Drakos Recordings, on the other hand, Aitor publishes exclusively his own music and offers his own vision of underground techno. The remixes, though, come from domestic and foreign artists with whom he shares his vision. These two labels have a heavy pace of releases, so the last one is never the last one for a long time. So check his websites for this kind of information; we better stick here to the past…

Aitor Ronda touched a turntable for the first time when he was 16 and he knew then what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. After two years learning the art and playing in Barcelona, he decided to move to Dublin. There he met Richie O’Shea and became a part of Rosman Music Promotions, a collective which produced techno events all around Dublin. After a year, Aitor went back to Barcelona and gave birth to Les Golfes Group (‘golfes’ means loft; that’s because Aitor begun playing records at a loft). During his years at the front of this enterprise, he organized more than a hundred techno events in differents venues. For a year he also co-run the Cube Club with Paco Osuna. Ronda has had the opportunity to play records in many clubs and festivals throughout Europe, Sónar being one of the most important of them, and has played alongside almost every relevant techno artist.

He begun producing at the age of 23. With Mark Williams, the boss of Real Vinyl, he created Kryptonite, of which Ben Sims did two remixes and which was included in mix-CDs such as Rock the discotheque vol. 2 by Valentino Kanzyani, or Biosphere vol. 7 by Boriqua Tribez. Another of his most successful tracks is Bolaian Buyakas. It was published in Real Sessions, was remixed by Mark Williams and Paul Mac, and played by renowned DJs liked Umek, Marko Nastik, Ben Sims and Valentino Kanzyani.

Either creating tracks or spinning records, Aitor Ronda has always had a weakness for a groovie, fresh and hard-hitting techno. But he can play anytime and anywhere. In his record case you can find pieces of exerimental minimal and of the hardest techno. But if there is something that defines him it is his amazing sense of rhythm, the energy of his shows and the ability to connect with the crowd. Aitor doesn’t consider himself a musician: “I’m a 100% DJ, even in the studio. I don’t make music, I just try to do good tools for DJs”.

In 2007 this exchange rate to move significantly as he sppend evry day more and more time in the studio producing, not long before the idea of direct shuffle. He thought it might be interesting moving in that direction and give another perspective to his career. Providing his own sound, unique and non-transferable would be the best way to resum his hard work in the last years . In 2008 after many hours of studio and with over 50 records released, the result was a two hours Live remixing on live loops, themes, voices, samples and other tools that he has created himself. All mixed using effects and other tricks with the help of his MAC and a midi controller. In 2009 Raul Mezcolanza and Aitor Ronda decided to offer a Live versus, in which this two groovie artists remix on live their own tracks, loops, samples and botlegs with incredible results.

At a certain time in his life, Aitor Ronda looked quite like the main character in The Big Lebowski, and so his friends started to call him Lebows. Now Aitor retaken this name for his sets in which hew combines minimal, a few melodies here and there, broken beats, electro … A softer him, but very danceable, like everything he does.

In march 0f 2010 Upfront Records by editing an special album called 180º will make a very big music style move. The idea came to centralize all his work under the name of Aitor Ronda and abandon his Lebows aka. Drakos will keep betting on his sound: Hardgroove with influences funkys and disco. But Upfront will be given another diferent direction y will become the label which Aitor will be delighting us from then on with his softer side in a very Technohouse and even House line. The current scene is summed up in that Aitor Ronda consecrates in the style and sound that represents it in the last few years, dividing his work into two labels, one hard and one soft.