On June 16, 17, 18 and 19, 2009, an international conference on The Future of Independent Music as well as a Metrocentral Music Fair will take place in San Salvador, capital city of El Salvador, Central America. Discos Konfort will represent Mexico, along with representatives from Paya Music (Costa Rica), Costa Norte (Honduras), UoProductions (Guatemala), Stonetree Records (Belize), Moka Discos (Nicaragua), and Contraxeña (Panamá). There will be round table discussions on topics such as copyright, media promotion, databasing and others. On Friday the 19th, DRXL from Discos Konfort will join Javier Olmedo from Spain to talk about emerging markets in Mexico and Spain. On the weekend, live free music will play on Parqueo Centro Comercial Metrocentro.

On June 1st, Discos Konfort is releasing the ultimate compilation in Latin American cutting edge electronic music: the three-volume-set KLA (Konfot Latin America). Bringing together the talent of more than two dozen artists from Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Uruguay, Discos Konfort presents three CDs from the cutting edge of electronica. Each CD is carefully selected and sequenced to have its own personality. Disc one is a long journey from the soothing atmospherics of Fernando Lagreca to MHV’s distorted beats; while disc 02 showcases a vast canvas of melodic tunes, from the jazzy laid-back “Bit Waltzing” by Gélido to the soothing glitches of Farmacia’s “¿Qué se le va a hacer?’. Progressive Chill-Out Music, maybe? Finally, CD3 adds vocals to the mood-enhancing electronics, showcasing a new way of understanidng the idea of a ’song’.


Every friday in June, Discos Konfort presents live electronic music at La Torre de los Vientos, the sixth station from La Ruta de la Amistad, the series of sculptures constructed on the southern region of Periferico for the 1968 Olympic Games. This monumental sculpture by Gonzalo Fonseca, from Uruguay will serve as stage for weekly performances by Abduct (June 26), HZ & Kaoxx (june 5), MHV & Protter (June 12) and a very rare live performance by Zofa and the N-Band (June 19). The events are free and open to the public every friday of June from 6pm onwards.

This month celebrates the 25th Anniversary of seminal radio station Rock 101, and even though this might seem like a completely unrelated event to Discos Konfort and its fans, let us not forget that Vincent Velasco, one half of Konfort band Hermetic Sound, was one of the men behind the microphone of Extasis 101, the first house (mostly, acid-house, although they also played a lot of techno) specialty show on Mexico City airwaves. We’ve come a long way, baby!

Finally, after years building an international following on the electro scene, releasing tracks on labels such as Bungalow (Germany) and Escalator (Japan), plus being featured on the Emergente, Máximas Texturas and ¿Cuál es tu Rock? series, julio de la Garza, aka Ghaiais releasing his debut album Wireworks this June on Discos Konfort, distributed by Noize Kontrol Distribution. The album features some of his previous singles, like Bring it Up!, Beat? and Milk, plus half a dozen new techno anthems ready to light dancefloors across the globe on fire. Finding the right balance between electro and techno, futursim and nostalgia, lowbrow and highbrow, Ghaia knows how to make your head bob, your feet bounce and your whole body move to the beat. From he sampled stabs of At Home to the hard banging synthlines of Uno, Ghaia has brought with him a funky arsenal and by the end of Wireworks, you too will surender.

If you have not heard Ghaia’s music already, you can download the track “Beat?” for free right here, thanks to our friends in Discoteca, and check here below the video for Bring it Up!.

New Pesina Siller EP on No Copy Protection
The Discos Konfort family is proud to welcome Guadalajara’s electronic artist Pesina Siller, one of geekcore’s core founders, into its fold. His debut release on our label is the Okno Okno Okno EP on No Copy Protection. A dazzling affair, halfway between intelligent breaks and minimal electronic dance music. Download it now for free right here.

New Emmerichk Track on Inpar 10th Release
Chilenean sister netlabel Impar is celebrating its fifth anniversary
with a three-volume compilation (and tenth release) aptyl titled “10“. The second volume features Emmerichk’s track “Seven“, and you can download it right now for free right here.

Mogwai Hört features The Incognito Traveller
The Incognito Traveller is currently hard at work on his sophomore release after the enormous success of his self-titled debut EP. In the meanwhile, german netlabel Mogwai Hört has included two tracks from that EP on two of its four compilations with the best netreleases under a creative commons license. Volume 01 is dedicated to Trip Hop and features “Petra 1:00am“, while volume 04 is simply called “melodic” and features “Chaleur“.

Sr. Mandril in Vive Latino
Jazzy Funksters Sr. Mandril are taking their vibrant show on the road for the spring, visiting several parts of the country and including a spot at LatinAmerica’s foremost rock festival Vive Latino, where they will play this Sunday May 17th at 11:00 am, sharing the bill with artists like Gogol Bordello, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Zoé and the Nortec Collective.

PublicRec, an internet-based archive of the Ultra-red organization, asked the question “What’s the sound of war on the poor ” to several people, including worldwide audio artists, and published a two-volume compilation with their 1-minute replies. Volume two features Hector Zarate’s own answer. Listen now!

A few weeks ago, we – along with other 338 netlabels – took part in a Max Planck Institute research on netlabels. Well, finally the first results of the study have been published. If you want to learn more abou it, read the article in Phlow Magazie or visit Patryk Galuszka’s blog. Results of the research are published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, so feel free to redistribute it.

Discos Konfort - MHV - City Landscape from discoskonfort on Vimeo.
Video Clip produced by Miguel González (ZOFA) & José Rendón (FLUX), the music is the fusion of “Higgs boson” and “Finalmente” by MHV.

Discos Konfort - Hz - Sweet Porno Video Clip from discoskonfort on Vimeo.
HZ performing “Sweet Porno” live at DATA Release Party.

See more videos on Discos Konfort’s Vimeo page.

After the spellbinding 777 EP on No Copy Protection, MHV has released his follow up ep 888 on his own. Download it for a limited time here.

Also, check out the lates video from Wakal, Pacas, and check out his brand new website.

PACAS from wakal on Vimeo.

Konfort wraps up the year 2008 with an early christams gift for all music lovers out there: the 22nd release on our free netlabel No Copy Protection: Izkierda by Mexican beatmaker DRXL. Mixing and matching samples from his huge record collection, DRXL produces sound tapestries that veer between abstract instrumetnal hip-hop and experimental dubstep. On the openning track, “¿Qué hora es?” [What time is it?] DRXL is accompanied by master turntabilist DJ Spawn from Mexican hip hop band Magisterio.

Legendary Mexican DJ and music journalist G@bo tron has released an unique CD Mix of eclectic Mexican electronic music called Tech Mex: Movimientos, featuring among other tracks, “Empty” by Emmerichk (from the 2007 No Copy Protections release Asteroid), “Las Navecitas” by Rubinskee (from the 2006 Oh-Blu-Ashe), “Permanencia Voluntaria” by Rosco (from their 2005 Discos Konfort/Impala self-titled release) and other pieces by Mendoza, Panóptica, Murcof, Fax, Latinsizer, Shock Bukara, Plug, Transistor, Manrico Montero, Paravoice, Dosantos, Tonolot, DJ Galaxy, Biötek, Tobi Temple and Reitman. The record has been released on Groove Records/Fluor and is available in any major records store in the country.

In other news, David Jiménez aka Polifonía Visual has been collaborating on the video series Our World 2.0 to raise awareness for climate change, food safety and peak oil. Listen to his music in the following six minutes program on electric cars:

The electric sunflower from UNUChannel on Vimeo.

in celebration of their first anniversary, Etel Magazine’s fifth issue features an interview of mexican housemaster Rubinskee.

Etel Magazine callss Rubinskee’s music “highly recommended”, “adictive” and “varied in its stock of tempos and musical forms.” In the interview, you will find out about Rubinskee’s musical evolution, influences, future projects and thoughts on such topics as the current independent electronic scene in Mexico, being a part of Discos Konfort, and starting your own electronic music project.

Las weekend, Rubinskee performed as part of the Raveolution festival at Pasagüero, in downtown México City. We have uploaded a couple of pictures to our flickr page, so check them out.

No Copy Protection’s twenty first release is a subtle and melodious affair, Hector Zarate’s sophomore release under the HZ moniker

At first, the title might make you think about high speed chases (by foot or motorized), intelligence agencies, guns and “fancy karate gimmicks” in a city full of compact cars and sinusoidal police sirens. That’s great! I love the idea. But underneath this thrilling approach, this release is also about a particular sensation when traveling, about how theatrical our daily lives can be.

I came to notice, particularly under “business and pleasure” trips, that life becomes short spans of new identities in which each new city invites you into new habits and routines, new people, new loves and a set of ephemeral things that will somehow vanish on the next train or plane.
Traveling or not, it seems we were all spies with ephemeral identities.

So, after my last beloved release one year ago, An Upcoming Summer, I’m glad share this shinny and brand-new EP entitled Living Undercover.Uop!” Héctor Zarate (HZ)

Hector also has collaborated with two interactive contemporary art pieces in exhibition at Centro Cultural de España, in downtown México City as part of the Medialab Prado program. Stop by and check them out.

http://medialab -prado.es/article/exposicion_interactivos_mexico08_

If you are looking for physical copies of our releases, they are no available through Mix-Up, Noize Kontrol and Discoteca. If you are not in Mexico, be sure tp check out their online catalogs

As a matter of fact, if you go now to the discoteca website, you can still download a track from Ghaia’s Wire Works album!