Nicola Cruz

4 snips

Jun 3, 2025

Nicola Cruz, an Ecuadorian producer and DJ, is reshaping South American electronic music with his transcendental sounds. In this conversation, he shares his unique approach to DJing, focusing on connecting with individual audience members rather than the crowd as a whole. He discusses his field recording adventures, capturing sounds from glaciers and underwater environments, and how these influences shape his music. Cruz emphasizes the importance of creative freedom, unlearning traditional norms, and the interplay between sound and nature in his innovative work.

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ADVICE

Focus on One Anchor Listener

Focus on one or two individuals in the crowd to guide your DJ set rather than scanning the entire audience.
This intimate connection helps create a deeper, more responsive musical experience that evolves naturally over time.

ADVICE

Pace Yourself During Tours

Pace yourself when performing, especially during hectic festival seasons to avoid burnout.
Limit your shows to enjoy each performance fully and maintain your creative energy.

INSIGHT

Sincerity Grows with Experience

Experimental sound approaches have remained constant throughout Nicola Cruz's career, enhanced by experience and cultural understanding.
Sincerity and honesty in music composition grow more crucial as one matures artistically.

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Talking with Nicola Cruz feels a bit like tuning into a different frequency—the producer and DJ has spent the last decade helping redefine perceptions of South American electronic music through a series of transcendental releases and live appearances. Based in Ecuador, Cruz doesn’t give many interviews, so I was super happy to have this rare conversation

He talks about his approach to DJing, where instead of scanning a crowd, he locks into the energy of one or two people and lets that guide the set. It’s a more intimate, slower way of connecting, sometimes taking hours, and sometimes never quite happening at all. But when it works, it shapes everything.

We also get into his field recording work—using geophones to capture the movement inside glaciers, recording whale sounds deep underwater. These aren’t just sonic experiments; for Cruz, they’re a way of exploring how we relate to the parts of the world we can’t usually hear. His new album Kinesia lives in this space—somewhere between the physical and the imagined.

At the heart of it all is a deep belief in creative freedom. Though he’s formally trained, Cruz talks about the importance of unlearning, of breaking structures down in order to build something new.

If you’re interested in where electronic music, listening, and inner exploration overlap, this one’s worth your time.

Listen to Nicola Cruz’s music: Spotify | Bandcamp

Listen to Kinesia: Spotify | Bandcamp

Follow Nicola Cruz on Instagram: @nicola_cruz

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Thanks also to this episode’s sponsor, Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.

And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC Sounds app.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.