Tag: miami

Midnight Society is comprised of the New York based production team, Curtis Atchison and Erik Elias. Their sound is an exact fit to the name “Drum Nation”. The tribal sound in house music has been a favorite of ours over the years. Midnight Society’s productions truly represent the sound of the New York club scene, fashionable elite body movers and shakers. Enjoy!

MS: “Together, we have been a DJ/Producer team for nearly 10 years with over 20 years in DJ experience. In the studio, Erik and I have produced more than 80 different releases that stretch over 30 record labels across the globe. These records include appearances on nearly 150 original tracks & remixes currently on Beatport, several Billboard charting records and/or remixes, including a number one, two top fives and many other top 10 & 20 singles, plus numerous appearances on commercially released CD compilations mixed by DJs such as:

• Carl Cox (F.A.C.T. Australia II, DJ Face Off w/ DJ Simi – DJ Magazine Compilation UK)
• Peter Rauhofer (This Is Roxy Vol. 3)
• Tom Stephan (Warming Up, Firin’ Off – Ministry CD Compilation UK)
• DJ Escape (The Circuit Party Volume 8.)
• Jesse Garcia (Best of Stealth 2007)
• Chus & Ceballos, Joubin (Blended Sound 002)

We also own and operate our own record label called SoundGroove Records which represents close to 100 different national & international dance music acts (DJs, Producers, Remixers, Vocalists, etc). As DJs, we have played in various bars & clubs all over the world, including a number of high profile events in Montréal (Divers/Cite and Black & Blue), Brazil (New Year’s Eve – 2008 / Rio De Janeiro, Gay Pride – 2008 / Florianopolis) and Mexico City (Gay Pride). We currently hold a quarterly residency in Miami Beach for our own label sponsored event called Drum Nation, and have held weekly residencies in New York at G Lounge and Alibi. Our sound focuses primarily on House Music and can accommodate any style party or dance floor, from more deeper after-hour grooves, to big room anthem and everything in between.”

MS: Inspirations – We both get our initial inspirations from the same places and same eras of House music. We were both major fans of the old Twilo, Sound Factory & Factory Bar eras. You had Frankie Knuckles bringing you a lush and soulful sound that wasn’t afraid to get a little rough on the edges. Then you had Junior Vasquez working the futuristic Wild Pitch sound from DJ Pierre, old school Armand Van Helden tracks, as well as big room vocals with his definitive Sound Factory remixes. Then there was Danny Tenaglia with his seemingly magical way to blend classics and future sounds together. He could go from a beautiful deep house vocal to a club shaking techno groove and somehow have it make sense. Many of the big New York, Chicago & UK producers in the early to mid 90s helped us build a foundation or our own production styles.

We’re probably most known more for our tribal sound. I love percussion and basslines more than anything on a record, and Erik really gets into the grooves as well. But we also like to branch out into tech house, deep and progressive house as well. On a production level, Erik tends to go harder and dubby while I tend to get a little dreamy & proggy. In the end, we manage to fuse our ideas together for one final project that works.

Drum Nation – Miami (aka The Fetish Ball) at Twist (11-13-2009) by Midnight Society

Five favorite Releases / Remixes:
1. DJ Duke – Blow Your Whistle (The 2009 Remixes) – SoundGroove Records
This was one of my favorite records when I first started going out to clubs and was a big hit in New York when it first dropped. I managed to find DJ Duke through a network website, asked him about doing some remixes and he agreed. I wanted to make sure the single had its signature grooves, such as the recognizable bassline and vocal samples, and update it just enough to make it sound more modern. It’s almost impossible to improve on a classic like this, but I think we did a pretty good job. Junior Vasquez helped me get the buzz started by playing our mix at his birthday party at Pacha. Then, Tom Stephan really kicked it up with his A+ remix, as well as Manny Ward & Lorant who also took the track into deeper, darker territories.

2. In-Grid – Shock (Loop 128 Records)
This record almost didn’t make it to the public! This remix was originally done for a label in New York, but they dropped it. I gave this out to a few friends, including DJ Petzi from Portugal who just did a record with us on Magna Recordings and was starting his own label. He went through the process to get the licensing and released this mix as an exclusive along with one of our other unreleased singles. The original was more on the trance tip, but the vocal could literally go in so many different directions. We managed to take the vocal and really strip it down to a minimal, tribal groove with just enough synth to pick the track up when necessary.

3. Cybernatrikx – Dirty Pleasures (SFP)
This one goes back to my earliest days in producing when I was living in New Jersey. I think every producer needs to have at least one gratuitous moaning track, and this became ours. A slow, but steady beat & bassline full with a lot of pitched up (or down) spoken word samples from various films that we will not discuss right now. The studio sessions were as crazy and as silly as the record, which eventually lead us to the belief that every record could be that much better with a dirty girl in the background.

4. D-Lav, Shlavens & Craig Mitchell – Noises (SoundGroove / Bimotor DJ)
This needs to be said before I even go further about this song… Craig Mitchell is a genius! When he played me this record the first time, I literally begged him to remix it. Under his alias of Oliver Twisted, he does some of the most amazing spoken word stuff for house records and I was psyched when we were able to pick this one up for our label. Craig, along with his partners delivered a hot package of teched-out house mixes, and we went to town with a well deserved big room tribal version. The remix cast was a basic who’s who of some of the hottest underground talent at that time. Cytric, DJ Petzi, Evolved, Rick Corbo, Holosound… And we recently had new remixes done earlier this year from Edson Pride, DJ PirrA and Andy Notalez. Plus we have two bootleg versions that will never see the light of day. One was created by DJ Paulo that I still like to blend in with our own mix, and a version we will simply called the “Dancefloor Techno Bootleg”. Everyone who was at the WMC that year when we dropped it knows what we’re talking about. Just like the record says… You can’t stop the noises!

5. Brain Candy – Midnight Society presents The Tone Depth EP (Nervous Dog)
To limit myself to just 5 records is hard, because there’s so many others I leave out. I have so many stories I can tell with almost every record we ever did. We could easily talk about “Space Jam” with Alan T, which is one of our most successful records to date, or talk about “Party People” by Altar & Jeanie Tracy which got us our first number one single on Billboard. Dawn Tallman, Tracy Young & Ceevox, the list goes on and on. But I think this is the most important one to me because it’s my very first official song on wax. It also ties back to when I met Erik the first time since it was at his DJ competition where I met Kevin Williams of Nervous Records and gave him the demo. This was one of the first records I ever produced nearly 10 years ago; a straight up tribal banger of a tune, full of drum samples and peak hour energy, and your usual sci-fi sample slammed right in the middle. I created it right before a gig I had in Boston at the now defunct Axis in ‘99 just so I could have something of mine to play for the first time in a big room. I think every producer remembers the first time they get signed. When I got the call about this being picked up for print on Nervous Dog I was literally speechless. Then to see the record on print with the names on it.

And to top it off, it was the first time I ever heard Danny Tenaglia play one of our records. I think Erik and I were on the dance floor screaming at the top of our lungs for throughout the duration of the song… Or at least I was mentally. Alan T bounced by us with his megaphone grooving to it, and then to have Danny announce who did it after it was done! It’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live.