Orphic, the London based duo made up of Phonica’s Kieran Jandu & Babak Faraji join us for the latest Friends & Family Mix. These new talents have been bubbling up in the East London Underground. They recently joined us for a banging in-store for the launch of their Shelter EP on E2-E8 Records, which explores the depths of techno. A four tracker which moves through deep, dubbed-out moments to big-room offerings and vibrant, sophisticated electronics, rounded off with a remix from Bunker and Clone affiliate Marco Shuttle. Their Friends & Family mix gives us a glimpse into their musical influences and gives a look into their record bags. We sat down with the Orphic duo and had a brief chat about the mix, their approach to DJing and their plans for 2023.
Can you tell us a bit about how you usually approach recording a mix or a set?
There isn’t too much prep behind what we play! We’ve lived together over different era’s of our lives and are more than used to playing together, so we usually load up a bunch of records in a stack and digis on a USB and go for it… seeing what works with what.. creating a sort of brief structure and just going with the flow, the same way we do in a club / festival setting! Always the most fun and experimental rather than structuring something track by track.
What’s your preferred method for finding new music—do you still enjoy digging around in dusty crates, or do you prefer to buy online?
Digging is always going to be a huge part of the way that we find music – but with the current way that vinyl is moving and the prices some tracks are now only available digitally, so Bandcamp has become more important in the way that we source some of the music we like to play, a nice hybrid of analogue and digital.
Your debut release on E2-E8 just dropped and we had quite the celebration in the store for it! Can you tell us a little bit about the release? How the label came across your music?
The in-store was really special, still blown away by getting the chance to do an in-store after years of attending and watching other artists perform. The whole Orphic project was actually formed during the lockdown of 2019 and when we lived together we actually moved the studio from Kieran’s room into Babak’s room and made his into the Orphic HQ. With nothing much to do we devoted those precious furlough weeks of lockdown to finding how we produced best together.. and the rest is kind of history. The EP was made and a good friend Luca picked it up and somehow got Marco Shuttle on the remix!We’ve got some really exciting releases planned, first of all we’re launching ‘Orphic Records’ and already have some superb tracks finished for that and some amazing artists lined up to collaborate and remix the tracks. Our schedule for club shows and festivals is also starting to fill up nicely so we are just looking to further share with you the musical ideas that are constantly churning around in our heads!!
What do you have up your sleeve for 2023?
We’ve got some really exciting releases planned, first of all we’re launching ‘Orphic Records’ and already have some superb tracks finished for that and some amazing artists lined up to collaborate and remix the tracks. Our schedule for club shows and festivals is also starting to fill up nicely so we are just looking to further share with you the musical ideas that are constantly churning around in our heads!!
