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Either via the reconstituted robo-funk of Maceo Plex or the uncompromising techno of Maetrik, Miami maverick Eric Estornel is a dancefloor force to be reckoned with. In his refusal to succumb to mediocrity, he continues to separate himself from the pack, as he sets his sights on carving out his own vision of the future — in the process dictating it... Words: ADAM SAVILLE Pics: BETH CROCKATT
he hyper-charged world we live in today is suffering from a kind of lunatic drive towards hugeness. Artists, businessmen, architects, all strive to pump their immediate spheres of influence with the most enormous forms they can
muster. The bid to transcend our limitations in the pursuit of maximisation is a natural human instinct, a necessary building block of our evolution, but as we set out to increase our reign over the world, it continues to get busier, feels crowded and increasingly overwhelming. In a sense, it lessens our capabilities. Ironically, they get smaller. Music is no different. Just look at dubstep today. Out of the bassbin-rippling frequencies of the UK sound has come the sensory-frying US equivalent, the quest for the most face-melting, mind-mangling bassline imaginable.
One city embodies the thirst for the gigantic perhaps more than any other, Miami, birthplace of Maceo Plex. The buildings, food, fashion and attitudes, all larger than life; something that really comes to a head during Winter Music Conference, when the dance music world comes together for a hectic week of industry endurance. During this time, the city’s infatuation with the outlandish is jacked to the max. The influx of bros and bikinis; the Hummers blasting Avicii 24/7 and Deadmau5’s travel coach circling Collins Ave to incite excitement — subtlety is not the word; everything has to be humungous. Of course, that’s not the whole story. There is a duality to Miami; with the conference, comes innovation. If we didn’t have engagements like it,
the likes of Jamie Jones and Lee Foss may never have crossed paths, started the East London/LA- associated Hot Creations and slapped that iconic palm tree logo on the label. Would that sun-kissed dancefloor-ready groove, combining elements of ’80s electrofunk, ’90s r&b and ’70s disco, that rose from the embers of minimal, ever have been spawned had they not mingled with the likes of Wolf + Lamb at Electric Pickle, and listened beyond their immediate surroundings?
Always, there exists a need for refinery to keep things in perspective. But what’s next? An integral part of the continuum is always that bright spark that, feeling tired by the here and now, nudges the whole thing forward an inch. This is where Maceo fits in. Emerging from the shadows of the overblown icons around him, shrugging off that drive to expand to unsustainable levels, he represents that other side of Miami, that duality, pushing things forward. And there’s a duality to Maceo Plex himself, too. Even the “Plex” in his moniker – a Latin word meaning to have multiple parts within a single unit – is a self-aware nod to it.
TECHNO ROOTS/FUNK FUTURE Born in the late ‘70s, known to his kindergarten
teacher as Eric Estornel, and brought up on a childhood diet of B-boying, electro and Miami bass, he can still recall catching Phil Collins’s cameo on TV sitcom Miami Vice. Now based in Valencia, Spain after playing there in 2003, today, he also has a penchant for techno. The circuit-board neurosis behind the robotnik rhythms of Maetrik since 2001, his allegiance to the likes of Sven Väth’s Cocoon and Drumcode’s
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