Name: Alejandro Barba aka Dellarge
Nationality: Mexican
Occupation: Producer, composer, sound artist
Current release: Dellarge's INRI (INDUSTRIA NACIONAL DEL RUIDO INFINITO) is out December 1st 2023 via Modern Obscure Music.
Recommendations: Book: The Art Of Noise (futurist Manifesto, 1913) by Luigi Russolo; Music: The Threshold HouseBoys Choir

If you enjoyed this Dellarge interview and would like to keep up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

Most of the time the music I listen to makes me go back to a primary state of consciousness. Total freedom!

Percussions are the source of rhythm that make my body feel free. When I listen to African music for example. But also more complex music with no beat makes my brain move to a parallel world, almost like dreams.

So no matter if I have my eyes closed or not, the journey begins as soon as the first noise, note or beat kicks in.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to listening to and creating music?

Innovation! I love electronic music as it is, a very intuitive, simple but complex music that makes me be really free. Not attached to a classical system.

The idea of creating music with different objects, sampling noises. Not only a piano, violin or guitar. And to be able to use the technology for the main purpose of creating a piece of sound that’s in you – this is what dragged me into the world of music.

I do appreciate classical music, but it’s not who I am.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience?

Listening to my Dad’s records and going to some street parties in my town in Mexico when I was a kid were my first encounter with music.

I’m self-taught, never been to a music school, so everything I’ve learned is through experience.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

When I was that age, I was listening to a lot of electronic music, rap and hardcore.

It was very relieving and I could create my own world, because it was very different from what I used to listen to at my parents‘ house. This music helped me to dig deeper and explore all kinds of genres I like now. Made my mind go wild.

How would you describe your own relationship with your instrument, tools or equipment?

It is very intuitive. Basically, I turn all the machines on and start tweaking the knobs until something I like appears.

It could be an EBM/Industrial track or an ambient/futuristic one, depending on my mood.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I have a very raw impulse towards music. For instance, a decade ago I used to have a little music studio which I shared with some friends. I could only use it at certain hours, so I decided to go there after clubbing between 3am-8am and I would only make clubby tracks, very strident hard tunes.

But then a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to have my own studio at a very beautiful location, with an amazing view at a lake, where I could spend as many hours as I wanted. So I started making some ambient music, as well as a horror soundtrack and space disco.

Inspiration is always there, I don’t remember my dreams anymore, so the muse that I have is what I live everyday, what I read, the people that are around me.

It’s very subjective. The view to the lake in my studio during the day was beautiful and bucolic. But at night, it was a door to the underworld.

Are you acting out parts of your personality in your music which you couldn't or wouldn't in your daily life? If so, which are these? What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music?

Totally! I think I’m another person when I create music. The whole point of me making music is to free myself by expressing what is in my guts.

All art expressions and artists that I admire have been explorers and extremists. And have gone beyond the system that we all live in.

If music is a language, what can we communicate with it? How do you deal with misunderstandings?

Music is a language, and it can be very frustrating at times but also quite liberating when you manage to find someone, even one person, that understands you (your music).

Misunderstandings are necessary to establish that everybody is unique and has its own perception. You just have to deal with it, be true to yourself.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness and how do you still draw surprises from tools, approaches and musical forms you may be very familiar with?  

Every time I get another machine, a new software or instrument, I’m like a kid with a new toy.

Electronic music is evolving every day as technology is changing. All the new gadgets you can get are very refreshing and fun. But I think it is what you can do with them, when you get to know them well, like a new member of your family, that actually makes it a surprise and that makes you still enjoy the process.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? How far would you describe them as “musical”?

I firmly believe that all noises can be an art of expression and therefore music. I personally sample different sounds from  things that I like such as a machine in a factory, birds, wind, the noises of the streets of Mexico City, even toys.

And I think these sounds are unique, because the sound of a machine that Russolo recorded at an Italian factory a century ago won’t be the same sound I recorded here in a factory in Mexico.

Noises can be a beautiful melody!

There seems to be an increasing trend to capture music in algorithms, and data. But already at the time of Plato, arithmetic, geometry, and music were considered closely connected. How do you see that connection yourself? What aspects of music do you feel can be captured through numbers, and which can not?

Numbers are in everything! But there are some things that can not be quantified. I could not describe what certain songs make me feel. Much less to put a number to that emotion.

But the process of making music through machines, instruments, software, etc … is definitely connected with many branches of mathematics.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

Music is my passion and I dedicate many hours to it. So it has definitely become a lifestyle for me. The way I dress, the books I read, the places I attend, the cities I visit, etc.. Everything is related to the music that I like and that I make.

We for sure could learn from music when you really dig deep and realise how music was conceived. On how some artists have gone beyond and dedicated their entire lives to music and to their expression of themselves. There is much to learn and it can be very helpful.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

For me silence is very important. I live in Mexico City, which is a very hectic and noisy city. Like any other city of this size there are very few moments of calm.When I go to the countryside and listen to the sound of birds and horses instead of ambulances and traffic, that makes me relax and be able to contemplate nature.

I do need smog and noises in order to be creative and push myself to the limit. But silence, even in music is very important.

“Don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it” (Mark Hollis of Talk Talk)

[Read our Tim Friese-Green of Talk Talk interview]

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I really think that everybody is able to sing, perform or create music if they are willing to. Music is part of ourselves. Even birds make incredible melodies.

But music is an artistic expression so I would never put it as a “mundane” thing. Music can be simple or very complex but it can never be compared to everyday tasks.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I’d love to see robots making music. Making something we’ve never heard before. Not only through algorithms and their flawless ability to operate an instrument, but with their full capacity of being something that humans will never be.

[Read our Leonardo Barbadoro interview about Working with a Robot Orchestra]
[Read our Gamut Inc interview about Robotics and the Music Machine Tradition]

But I like our human robots though. I love Kraftwerk, so no rush ... :)