Adriatique at Hatshepsut temple, in Luxor, Egypt for Cercle

It's so weird to have you here guys after four years later. Even I think the same day approximately or... Yeah, I thought the same. It's the same time range. It's four years. Exactly four years. Exactly four years ago. What differences did you see approaching your set four years ago and now? Because now I imagine the pressure was something else. What changed in your mind and in the way you approach this set? I mean, you always kind of evolve or change a bit your style maybe. Or at least we are c

onstantly reinventing and try to develop ourselves. So I'm not sure if we had like a particular, let's say, approach to it to make it different because it's a different venue. Actually not because when I made the playlist, like when we made the playlist together, I was thinking the way we... It was a good way to do it, like changing between the styles, like going more melodic, then more like more bumping, you know. And we tried to do the same like today. I think this is how we play also in our r

egular DJ sets, that we try to make a trip, you know, through different... - Combine a bit different styles. We get easily bored if we just... Yeah, I can't. If it's just the same bassline, the whole track is like... Yeah, definitely. And now that you played twice for us, what defines a good track for a Cercle set for you? A track you as a DJ or life performer, whatever your craft is, really love and like because you need to translate it. And I think some people might... Can play something for t

he audience, but we really need to feel it. No matter the style or the genre, it's about like, I guess, transporting that energy or the love for that particular track. And there was a question online asking like, someone realized that you're playing more vocals than before. Is it... And the question was, is it a coincidence or... Or it was your idea of playing more tracks with vocals throughout the years? Yeah, I mean, honestly, to verify that we have to go back to listen old sets. But I think I

know pretty... I'm pretty sure there was a time years, years ago where we played even more vocals than we played, let's say today. So I guess, again, what he said before, it's a constant or the only constant is change. So sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but I don't think it's... I like vocals. Yeah, me too. So you have your answer, Jan Likens. And speaking about good vocals, the beautiful track you made for this show in collaboration with Eynka, the beautiful remix, like how do you se

lect the people you're working with? I'm speaking like singers. What's your creative process? You first do the track and then you add the vocal or you work straight from the beginning with the vocal? If we talk particularly about this track, if I'm not mistaken, this was re-sung. It's a UK track from probably the 90s. Was it the 90s? I'm not sure. 90s probably, but it was re-sung by someone who did it with Eynka and we really loved it. So we approached them and basically made a collaboration pro

ject out of it. And I mean, the people we work with in general, everything comes pretty naturally, I think. People we meet or you kind of meet online or there is a coincidence at the event. We don't really have a strategy or a particular, let's say, audition process or something. Not at all. That's great. Yeah, it's natural. And for a lot of artists, when you're kind of in the top of your career, I cannot say if you're in the top of your career or not, but it's very difficult to keep evolving, t

o keep creating, to keep testing new things. How do you handle that yourself? And how do you stay connected to your audience and try to incorporate their feedback? Or do you try at all that? As again, this comes back to what he said in the beginning, to the DJ set, all of our career is a little bit based on that: not worrying too much and just doing. And then also every now and then there comes a certain change of style or there's a particular moment where he plays something or does something wh

ere you think, oh my God, this is like something new or this is so fresh. Because you get a little bit bored or stuck with yourself in your creativity. But we were lucky that in a couple of times in our actually quite long career already, that this particular moment happens and then you feel or have this new kind of refreshed motivation and engagement with the people. And we have also very, very good fans. We love them. Yeah, they follow us since a long time and they keep on doing this and also

are always curious what we do next and they stay with us. So I guess we're lucky with it. And I can imagine that being a duo is also great to ping pong your ideas and always keep - It makes it also more easy. So it's not the only pressure on you when you are one person. Yeah, I think you're not alone with the bad and the good moments. Of course. I mean, it has to fit. So if you have completely different ideas, it's going to be a mess. - That was my other question. - You have to speak the same la

nguage musically. So otherwise, yeah. - I can imagine that after 15 years of meeting each other, now you really understand each other. But how do you handle when you don't agree on something? You have to. Yeah, like I'm trying to think of moments where or like, let's say, decisions or opinions we had, which— Let's put it this way. That never was a major decision creatively or in terms of business decisions that were so far out that there was a big discussion. So I think in the important decisio

ns of our career, we always were on the same page. - It's beautiful. And I have other questions from the audience. But before that, I wanted to speak a bit more about X, which is your new project. So you're producers, DJs, but also now you organize your own events, which are X. Can you tell us a bit more about this concept? Yeah, basically, we just had the first event. So we just we just started. Yes. Yeah. And we wanted to start this journey, basically—particularly like that. We wanted to start

it in Zürich because it's our home. And we thought it's a good thing, you know, to see all the operation and what's happening. Yeah. It all started when we had when we had our 10 years anniversary tour. Yeah. And then COVID happened. So back then, we actually wanted to continue and then it basically put us on hold with it. And yeah, now we are glad to put it back on track. Yeah. So X is a symbol for a lot of things in mathematics, geography, science, physics. But you say that X marks the spot w

here two paths cross. - Exactly. - Can you reflect on a specific instance where two paths crossed in a meaningful or transformative way to you? Yeah, in general, the duality always is a major thing in our lives. If we talk about the major incidents is when our paths cross. Our paths crossed in a dark, dusty club in Germany, we introduced ourselves with the same name. And this was this particular moment. And so this dualism, duality X, which marks the spot where two paths cross, which don't has t

o be necessarily that humans cross, like, it's just it's a crossing point for two things that come together, which were unknown to each other in the first place, and then they grow to something. And this is basically this, this idea where it comes from. So it's a very open symbol, as you said, for so many things. And that's exactly what it represents. - That's amazing. We brought - He made some points, kind of. Yeah. Thank you! We're so glad that you met each other, actually. We're really lookin

g forward to seeing more of X. Let's speak about AI. Are you into AI at all? - I mean, you, I mean... - You more? - Well, I don't know, In everything he is the more technical guy. But in terms of probably these fancy things, like I'm super, you know. Of course, it's super interesting, you know, like, we didn't have that much contact yet. But there are some very, very interesting things out there also in terms of music and creativity, obviously. Have you ever tried for any of your shows to work w

ith AI yet? Well, mostly on the first act, there were some AI visuals. So technically, yes. And this is a very interesting topic to explore. I mean, AI rendered content was that basically. Oh, okay. - Based on the track that you were playing Yeah, based on the information feeded. Yeah. - That's amazing. And do you see, can we speak about the limitation of AI for you creatively? Because you are speaking about more AI, like, as a tool to enhance creativity. But do you think that in creating and pe

rforming music, do you see any limitation on it and how it may shape the future of the industry? Well, I'm not so aware of which state we are, but I personally think— - I'm a big sci-fi guy, for example, I love sci-fi movies and read about stuff, which is not yet real, maybe. So I think there probably are no limitations at all. And that's a very interesting, but also a very scary thought, I think. But it will definitely shape. And I think if you close your eyes on it, you could be left behind be

cause these things are going to get more and more important and to get more involved in all of creativity and all of business, I think. Definitely. And now AI creating their—robots creating their own music. I don't know if you saw the Taylor Swift song, which has been created by AI with the voice of Taylor Swift, actually. I saw not this particular one, but I saw other stuff, which again is like soup. It's crazy, but also very scary. - Exactly. I think you—it's exactly this. I'm not there yet a

t 100%, to be honest. I like the real stuff. Okay, I see. - Okay, I see. If you were us, so called, which artist would you invite to play in which location? You need ideas or? Yes, please help me! No, I want your point of view. Ah it's interesting. It's hard to choose one because, you know... - Story of our life! I don't know. Very hard. I think we can do a statement for that because. Yeah, I don't want to pick one or the other because— Sorry the Swiss are very diplomatic! The Cercle shows they

got very rare and like, you know, like it's to choose one for that now is a hard decision. No? I mean, of course, I would choose some some newcomer, a new rising artist, which does great. Yeah. You can take some time to think about it and maybe answer later. Don't worry. I'll send you a text. - Okay, cool. And we'll put it in the comments so that you guys know online. We have a few questions from our Patreon users. This one is deep. Do you believe your music defines you or do you define your mus

ic? Again... - He has an answer to everything. - I see that! He's like an AI basically. Well, again, this comes back to the the X thing also where we talked about this where X marks a sport with two paths cross. I think it's a two way street, right? And I think if the one or the other is too, has too— owns too much of the balance, it could it could get out of balance. So I think it's a little bit in between. And if you look like on the beginning and the end of your career, it's for sure, it's a

different thing. In the beginning, it was all about this just I want to do it. And then you do it and then becomes actually your whole existence. And the importance of the responsibility of that weight gets so much higher. So this probably changes in your life a couple of times. But I think it has to be somewhere in the middle that you don't let it take over you something. I see. What emerging - I see. What emerging incorporate—sorry, what emerging sounds do you incorporate in your new music? A

nd is there any trends that you would like to see fade away? This is the last question from a Patreon user. Well, he goes into modular now. So it's not a day to day stuff. So definitely new emerging sounds. What was the last part of the question, sorry? Is there any trends that you would like to see fade away? Vocals? No, no, no, I mean, like... We don't think in trends. So no, because, like, inclusive. Great. Thank you Great, thank you so much, guys. It was a great honor to have you back on Cer

cle. Thank you guys again for hosting us. - And to have the opportunity also to interview you for the second time. And we would also like to thank the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt for allowing us to do this concert here— first electronic music concert here. It's a big, big milestone. So I really wanted to thank them for their trust and also our partners, which are Kord plus Vodafone, and I also wanted to thank all the team, hundreds of people working for this show, working really

hard for the last months. So thank you to everyone of you. And we have, you know, as our little tradition, which is the Mystery Box. And the Mystery Box is coming. So I'll let you discover your gift. Yeah, you can open the box. Sorry. Yeah. So it's actually a little instrument that we bought in Aswan during our trip going here to Luxor. It's called a Rabab... I think, I hope I pronounce it well. I tried to learn how to play it so that I can show you. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not live because... Please

not live, but I will try to show you and it would be, I think, such a great thing if you if you managed to maybe sometime incorporate some of this sound to one of your tracks. - We set the time and then I show you what we've done with that. Amazing. Well, thank you very much guys. Thank you. Thank you guys. And see you next time for maybe the third round. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much. Thank you.