By Keith Walsh
I met Juan Leandro José Perez on a Moog synthesizer appreciation group on Facebook, after I heard some music he posted under the moniker ChulyDDK. It’s hypnotic electronica, featuring pulsing basses, analog drum sounds and hints of Kraftwerk.
Turns out Juan is a former professional soccer player in his native Spain, where he played the sport in the position of forward for nearly 15 years on several teams, including Albacete, Badajoz, Ciudad Murcia, and Cervillente. In 2011 he retired and started creating music, inspired by his musical heroes, including Stephan Bodzin.
Juan describes his style. “I like to do melodic techno or progressive techno. Truth is I that I adapt well to all kinds of musical genres but I love electronic.” ChulyDDK’s music features a good beat, attractive synth swells and pads, and pulsating arpeggios. The vocals come from a disc of files that he got at a local bookstore, and he altered them for his purposes.
The tunes are ideal for a chill club setting, or for ambient music at public commercial spaces. I asked him if he’s playing live around Spain. “I’ve only played live with Vinyl in the Alicante area. Now I am teaching myself to do live for an hour with Abelton Live and the Moog Sub37.”
Through ChulyDDK’s music, I learned about Beatport.com, which looks to be a very useful site for electronic music creators, including DJs. Visitors can sample the tunes of ChulyDDK and many others there. For his sounds, Juan uses a Moog Sub37 and the spectacular Roland TR-8s, which he describes as having “a bestial sound quality.” The Moog Sub37 “is the bomb.” I wouldn’t disagree.
Juan studied music for a couple years in high school, and named his post-soccer musical project after a beloved pet. “ChulyDDK was a Chihuahua puppy that was killed when I was playing soccer in the Canary Islands, he was run over by a truck, and that little thorn of sadness remained in my heart, of my wife and I.”
From tragedy great things often come. As for ChulyDDK, he has distributed his music on Beatport.com as well as on various compilation CDs. Labels that he has been featured on include Natura Viva, Insolito Records, CultureBeats Records, and VGRecordings. I look forward to hearing more of his electronica tunes in the future. Thanks Juan!
https://www.beatport.com/artist/chulyddk/614048
https://www.facebook.com/ChulyDDK/
finis
