Victin composes the clubber symphony on “Piston”: Uniting his passion for electronic music and his erudite training, the music and party producer is expressing himself: “I’m kinda loud, it’s cunty”
Text and interview by Pedro Paulo Furlan.
Photography by Ivi Maiga Bugrimenko
3 PM, São Paulo. Coming back from a trip to Paraguay, Victin - stage name for the brazilian party and music producer Victor Almeida - logs into our call, ready to talk about “Piston”, his first personal project. Composed of three tracks, the EP walks the line between the DJ’s favorite rhythms, telling his story through “Dubbixa”, “Sintonia das Clubbers” and “Pintawn.
“‘Piston’ was born out of a strong will to put out the whole expression of my musicality.”
Known for his standing inside the underground scene, being a resident DJ at Mamba Negra and creator of Bicuda, one of the biggest undergrounds spaces out of the capital of São Paulo, Victin already has a long musical legacy. But, “Piston” was the first time that that story was told through his own beats.
Living in Campinas, the artist has been in love with electronic music since his teenage years - feeding a dream of mixing this sound with his erudite training. After studying for eight years at a conservatory and learning a ton of instruments, that part of Victin’s life is clearly one of the main players in “Piston”.
Photography by Ivi Maiga Bugrimenko
The name “Piston” itself is a reference to the piece in any wind instrument that you press to make a sound. The project communicates the double meaning of the word, also representing the dance floor - “pista” in Portuguese.
“I really wanted to reference the trumpet, it’s unique sound, high-pitched, shrill - I think that speaks to me too, I’m kinda loud, it’s cunty”, says Victin about one of his main inspirations to the sound present in the EP.
The producer tells me that, through the years with his dedication to parties and the underground scene, he kinda stopped playing a lot of the instruments he learned - but, the trumpet always stayed. “I think it’s an instrument that really speaks to me, I’m in love with it”, he says.
Victin planned to create a project that told all of his story, but, leaving out the space for more sides of him on future tracks. Starting the production in march, the DJ looked for the balance between the “chic-er side” of the wind instruments and the “natural groove of the latin body”, with it’s memorable percussion - “really creating different layers”.
Photography by Ivi Maiga Bugrimenko
“Dubbixa” -> “Sintonia das Clubbers” -> “Pintawn”
Diving deeper into “Piston”, Victin explains that the EP is like a journey with a techno soundtrack. With moments of high BPM’s and danceable tracks, the project also works with more introspective layers - that work by representing the varying emotions inserted into “Piston”.
“[The tracks] end up being a continuation of each other. I wanted the feeling of a mountain: now, I’m climbing up, sacrificing myself; now, I’m gonna enjoy the come down; now, I’m gonna climb again, then I’ll go down”.
Starting with “Dubbixa”, the artist points out that he wanted to start the project with a “chiller” track, allowing the listener to get used to his sound, just to evolve on top of it in the next songs. That’s exactly the case for “Sinfonia das Clubbers”, that follows.
The main track for the EP, Victin tells me that “Sinfonia das Clubbers” was the first one to be produced, with the help of his friend and frequent collaborator, Fortunato. With a more euphoric vibe, Victin projected the symphony to talk about “these disruptive bodies, this more latin aura”, holding onto the “ton of uniqueness that you don’t find anywhere besides Latin America”.
Inserting the trumpet into all three songs off “Piston”, Victin completes the project with “Pintawn”, pulling inspiration and samples from “My Power”, the Beyoncé track. At the last second, the artist pulls from all his references, mixing up elements from techno, screams, trumpet sounds - the multiple layers that enchant him so.
Besides the EP, Victin also set out to create a music video foi “Sinfonia das Clubbers”, recorded by Desacato and edited by Viatrix. With lots of scenes in Sala São Paulo, a venue created for orchestras and grand symphonies, the video ties up the whole concept of “Piston”.
"The video was created while we did the photo shoot. Because of the trumpet and all the orchestral references on the EP, from which the name comes from, we decided to record at Sala São Paulo, so there are a lot of images from there - it was actually really cool because the space expresses this symphony that plays all throughout this release”.
Photography by Ivi Maiga Bugrimenko
“It’s a rush, it’s fun, but you really gotta love it”
“Piston” was born after a really hard time in Victin’s life. With two hardships with his party, Bicuda, the producer tells me that he only washable to focus all his efforts on the EP because “I was suffering with this huge grief, which was the problems with my party, all in this city where I work, in which I’ve been dedicating all my efforts”.
“I think that, as I suffered with the grief, if I was already being reborn, I wanted to be reborn in another way, step into this place that I should’ve stepped into a long time ago, you know?”.
Last year, the festival celebrating Bicuda’s 5th year was reported and had to be shut down before the final hour, with police interference. And, this year, Bicuda was involved in a political battle after free event with a Katy da Voz e as Abusadas concert.
“We really are in a resistance movement, this is our place and it’s always a lot of fighting for it, there’s walls on top of walls”, tells Victin about the party.
Even with all that, “Piston” was the way for Victin to release all his negative energy, investing all his creativity into the project that became the first step towards his music producer career. And now, the artist has more and more passion for the musical production side of things, but also for the party planning.
“It’s a rush, it’s fun, but you really have to love it, it’s a lot of work and little recognition, but, I think that also helps us to mature, to go through all these processes with our heads held high and saying ‘You can’t hold us down’”.
Completely immersed in this new career moment, Victin already has a ton of projects in the making, including a collab with the funk singer Naninha and a release with the label Mamba Rec, in September.
“‘Piston’ really woke up the need to create in me”, he concludes.