DJ Sanches: Deep House versus Pub Culture

Sergey Sanches is one of Moscow’s best-known DJs, with almost fifteen years of experience now under his belt. With deserved pride, he often advertises the fact that he has played not only in most clubs of Moscow and St Petersburg, but also in approximately 70 towns and cities around Russia. To this impressive tally we can add multiple appearances in neighboring nations – and a long list of sets played in several Western European countries. These Western shows include bookings in Belgium, Bulgaria, England, Germany, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, and… perhaps most prestigiously, the island of Ibiza. In the public memory, at least in Moscow, his long-standing relationship with the Propaganda night club is perhaps uppermost.

This degree of selfless commitment to the domestic dance scene makes sainthood a distinct possibility.

He attributes his long-term success not only to divine assistance, but also to the kind of public persona sketched in PR materials: “Sergey is always welcome at the most popular music and dance festivals – each attended by thousands of guests – but he also values the intimate atmosphere and direct interaction that’s possible with smaller crowds in clubs or at private parties. Each event requires a very personal, sympathetic approach, which is why Sergey always chooses his material with the utmost care.” Big hands make the selection process much easier.

“He has some major awards to his name, both from [now defunct] Ptiuch magazine [in 1997-98] and as GM’s Man of the Year [in 2004], too. He has released countless mixes and compilations, each of them being a unique and captivating creation. Sanches’ style can be described as an intelligent, discerning blend of the brightest house tunes with elements of deep- and tech-house. Nowadays, Sergey’s followers crowd into the Solyanka club each month for his parties…” These commitments to a given institution for long periods of time have recently taken a very contemporary step forward, with his role as a resident DJ for a fashionable online radio station.

This move was met with general appreciation.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Sanches and his creative work – especially when first encountered – is his last name, which – surprisingly enough – is not a pseudonym. His father moved from Spain to Russia at a young age in order to avoid military conflict during WWII. Together with his Russian wife, Sanches Snr. would later make sure that his son learned how to play the piano at an equally early age. Although never a fan of the endless lessons, that same child now credits them with his lifelong respect for music. His mother was also a big fan of disco, which inspired a love for dance music over other genres.

As for the technical side of DJ-ing, that skill-set came to him during his time on pirate radio. Slowly he worked his way up from school discotheques to regional dance halls, using bootleg recordings in order to stay one step ahead of the (less fashionable) competition…which at times can be rather cutthroat.

One the subject of the early, theoretical choice between performing on stage in a band or spinning records, Sanches has often said that he enjoys the relative anonymity of being behind large stacks of equipment. “I’ve always preferred being some kind of ‘grey cardinal,’ the kind of person that nobody sees, yet still controls what’s going on – and oversees the general mood on the dancefloor, too. When I was a kid, I made a kind of radio for my mother. I dragged some wires into the kitchen, while I sat in another room and read out all the family news – all the things that had happened when she was at work. I didn’t stay in the middle of the kitchen with a microphone, but was elsewhere – in that other room, where nobody could see me. Even now I don’t really like performing on stages or in clubs where the DJ is lit up from all sides and bathed in bright lights, like a singer…”

There is, of course, a limit to this dimly-lit modesty.

By keeping a figure or personality in the dark, so to speak, by divorcing the music from a given individual, Sanches feels that it’s much easier to avoid the dangers of stereotyping. Any musician, by way of example, is always known for his or her past work, and that establishes a set of future expectations that, more often than not, will reduce the likelihood or originality or surprise: “If there’s no name on a record, people are much more likely to relate to that recording without bias.”

In the same spirit of spontaneity and direct emotional experience, Sanches does not practice his sets beforehand. Once an evening has begun, he gains a general impression of the overall atmosphere and then goes digging for the records that’ll match the mood. His long-standing residencies at the listed venues have allowed him to experiment a lot more with these types of games. With regard to the gigs at Proapganda, for example, Sanches has admitted that after a few years of residency, there were no longer any unfamiliar faces in the crowd. Everybody knew him and vice versa: the performances were for friends, more than for clients. The pressure was off and level of tolerance high.

That degree of freedom, however, requires that the DJ be left in peace, and Sanches sometimes complains that Russian clubs have nowadays descended to the level of a rather vulgar “pub culture,” according to which people interrupt him with (dopey!) requests, insist on grabbing the microphone, and try constantly to arrange silly competitions with party-goers for a bottle of champagne. Each of them requires the music to stop – and then any sense of continuity is lost.

Trying to reduce such rudeness, he is also in favor of a certain degree of face control, not so much because of any inherent snobbery, but because the same pub culture also finds expression in gender-specific ways. Sanches feels that Russian men too often make no effort to dress for the occasion, and it saddens him to see young women in clubs who have gone to great (and expensive) effort, only to be surrounded by male figures “in red nylon track suits.” This same disrespect, he has complained on several occasions, also lies at the root of why Russia has relatively few female DJs.

As if prejudice wasn’t enough, attitudes towards the person playing music – be they male or female – can sometimes turn dangerous, “both in the physical and moral sense of the word.” Drunken men have no qualms about lobbing a few bottles or choice phrases in his general direction.

When that violence does occur – and Sanches maintains that such upsets are “inevitable,” he has a simple solution: “I simply turn off the music and leave the premises.” As above.

Nonetheless, with the aforementioned fifteen years of experience, he has clearly not been driven from the profession as a whole and is even known to remark that “I actually find difficulties rather appealing.”

The energy to keep going, come what may, comes thanks to a very Russian source: black, sweet tea. “I know how to mix both music and tea! I adore the stuff; I must drink two or three litres a day! Getting it all ready is a real creative process. I happily combine various types and sometimes add some spices, too. I prefer drinking it at home, since the main thing in any ‘tea ceremony’ is an atmosphere of comfort and solitude. As the Chinese say, you first have to get in the right mood for the tea. You have to be at one with infinity… and only then may you take the first sip.”

Philosophy and meditation may offer some protection from crude, rude pub culture, but the need for today’s DJs to practice self-defence is evident.

Somewhere in that baggage is a Charlie’s Angels DVD.

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