Nine Songs: Roger Sanchez

“I actually sat down and gave it quite a bit of thought from the perspective of when I was coming up, starting out as a dancer, before I became a DJ, and how that informed my choices as a DJ,” says Sanchez from across the table of a busy café in central London. “What the sound was at that point in time, and how these tracks really helped form the foundation of where my own sound evolved from.”

A Grammy winning DJ and producer, Sanchez grew up in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s, a time when music was evolving across genres, hip hop was breaking out, and the club scene was blowing up. Not only do his, quite frankly, incredible choices tell that formative story, his passion and deep knowledge of music is evident across the thirteen tracks of Spectrum.

Working with a diverse range of collaborators across the record, every track has a big hitting hook and the feel of honed, instantaneous groove. It may be Sanchez’s first record in twenty years, but he has not been taking time out. Alongside running two labels - Stealth Records and UNDR THE RDR - he’s been playing around the world, remixing and collaborating with other artists, and even hosting his Release Yourself podcast.

If it wasn’t for the pandemic, this new album may never have been started. “In a way, Covid gave me my point of no more procrastinating. I'm constantly on tour. I learned to produce out of a backpack, but the constant touring doesn't always give me the breadth of space to really germinate the ideas,” he says.

“The UK opened up first for touring, so I wound up getting a flat here in Shoreditch, and I would be spending summers in the UK. I'd be connecting with artists here and soaking in that London vibe and the UK vibe, so that really has informed a lot of the energy and sound of some of the tracks in the album.”

Across the album, Sanchez brings together an impressive roster of artists new and loved, from the big hitting “Grinnin’” with Fedde Le Grand to the soaring emotion of “Dark Days” with UK act Leo Wood. “She’s an amazing writer,” he says. “She's a vivid painter of a picture verbally. That really, really, really worked well. We both understand hooks. She's really incisive, but one thing that I loved is she was willing to try to find the not easiest, but the cleverest way of saying something in the most concise way, so that it connects and is impactful. For me, it's like writing with someone like Fiona Apple. So that level of simplicity but depth is what I was really going for.”

One album highlight is the bouncy angular groove of “I Don’t Wanna Know” with Melanie C. “I think that's probably one of the biggest curve balls on the album, because I don't think people would have put it together,” he smiles.

“I was talking to my management team about who I wanted to work with on the album. He was the one who said, ‘What do you think about Spice Girls?’ I'm like, ‘collectively they’re brilliant, but the most underrated one is Mel C, as far as I'm concerned. She's got so much dynamic and a powerful voice.’ My concept was I wanted to do an underground track with Mel C on it, which is like, what?! I love that ‘what’ moment. That's not what you expect to hear.”

Contrasting Spectrum with Sanchez’s Nine Songs selections, it’s clear his origins are very much in selecting for the dancefloor - pulling out the hooks and beats that will connect and keep people up. “I try to make it something very evident in the fact that I came from the underground and my roots are always going to be there, but I open myself up to collaborating with different people because of what they bring - their energy and their perspective - to any project that I'm working on,” he says.

“This particular album was probably my most collaborative album, and I just was like, I'm going to open myself and co-write and try different things with different people. I DJ almost every weekend. I'm hearing and playing new sounds and seeing what connects on my dance floors, that really helped me bring my sound to the present while maintaining the root of it.”