Óscar Mulero: "I don't think I'll ever retire"

[Inkriql]

The fault of everything is Robert Smith: at age 11, Oscar Mulero listened to an album by The Cure and decided that his life would be dedicated to music. But instead of joining a couple of friends in a garage to hit the bass and guitar, the Madrid bought some dishes. Today, at 48, with three decades of career behind him, he is one of the most respected techno DJs in the world, for his virtuous technique. It also produces, composes and mixes for other artists, and puts its head in other flours away from electronics. Recognize that it is hard to slow down. "The vocation engages. It is the trap, or rather, the [CENSORED] problem. They are the shackles that one puts on with pleasure. And it is very good, but now I look back and think: 'What have I done in 30 years, apart from this?'

We have stayed in a local downtown. Mulero rarely poses for the medium photographer, but today he is in a good mood. While the flash illuminates his face intermittently, like the strobe lights of Tresor (the legendary Berlin club whose cabin is already his second home), he responds to himself: “Like anyone who is involved in a thing to the limit, I have sacrificed things . In my case, time to have relationships. Society is set up in such a way that free time, in which one can relate, is limited to the weekend. And that's just when the DJs are traveling, that is: curing. ”

He is aware that some day indeterminate, in the past, he took a path that definitely took him from the homely photo of a woman, children and a minivan parked at the door. “It is a life hardly combinable. After all this time and in the position I am in, I can now allow myself to schedule some months off, but in my first 15 years as a DJ, I don't remember having vacation days like the rest of the people. ” He caught inertia, and now he doesn't know when to stop: “Now, when I don't have a bolus, I get into the studio to record. Because I don't feel tired of this, on the contrary, every day I motivate myself more, and I get into new projects all the time, to rest a bit of techno, producing records for other people, audiovisual projects ... It's a skein that is it is rolling and you never see the end ”.

Fibrous, with a well po[CENSORED]ted head and only slightly cana, its age does not appear at all. He admits that he has slowed down a little, although his rhythmic standards are very different from those of the rest of humanity. ”The body is already sending me signals. Before I could throw a year without stopping a single day. Now, I need a weekend of the week at least a month. ”

He admits that other life options have been left on the road. And in the musical? “I am quite satisfied. When I started on this, my dream was to go around the world by clicking, with my suitcase of records. Now that I have fulfilled it, what attracts me are audiovisual projects, with a more artistic and less danceable aspect. Besides, I've always liked other sounds more guitar players, such as afterpunk. My base is really in Joy Division, New Order and The Cure. Those bands of the eighties are my root. And I've already produced two albums that go in that direction. ” His latest album, Perfect peace, is a clear sample. Browse many styles, away from techno. "I wanted to do something that was not what someone can normally expect from Mulero."

In the short distances, it is much closer and more pleasant than it appears its aggressive stamp to the plates. And his profession has not gone to his head in these 30 years. It does not bother him that some say that a dj is not a musician, but rather a musical selector. “Because they are right: what he does is choose music, and what differentiates him is the technique. And especially when I started, there was no internet or Spotify, so I was also a broadcaster, a discoverer: because it was I who was going to buy records outside, and many people in my sessions listened to music for the first time. Today part of the charm has been lost. They used to queue at the door of Madrid Rock when Killing Joke released a new album. Today that does not exist anymore. That is why we DJs have lost value. ”

He does not say it in a defeatist tone. On the contrary: it gives the impression that another three decades would be thrown doing the same. Or almost. “When the body prevents me from traveling, I will mix and produce for other musicians. I love to mold sounds. So I guess I'll never retire, that doesn't go with me. ”