Introducing Black Swan Music – a new label from Elisa Do Brasil & Saji Tari 

Listen to the premiere of FTL – Small Blue World right here

Say bonjour to Black Swan Music, a brand new jungle imprint from French drum & bass jungle pioneer Elisa Do Brasil and long-time creative soul mate and DJ Eliana Sanne-Villegas AKA Saji Tari

Already responsible for some of the French capital’s most consistent and eclectic drum & bass events at the forefront of the Forever D&B movement, recently the pair have taken things back to their roots.  

“After 10 years promoting Forever D&B we decided to start a new party – Tides – in a smaller venue and launch our label – Black Swan – which is dedicated to jungle,” explains Elisa who is one of France’s most integral and influential DJs, pushing hardcore, drum & bass and jungle since the country’s thriving free party movement in the mid 90s.

She recently launched Vahana Records in 2022 alongside Parisian peer Bobby. While Vahana sits at the forefront of contemporary drum & bass and paints from a much techier palette, sister label Black Swan flips the perspective and digs deep into the roots of the genre. “It’s a sound that looks like us both; round, warm, melodic with a touch of darkness. The sound of mixed cultures and origins.” 

 

 

The spicy fusion continues on their launch EP – A Dream Called Life, courtesy of FTL. Like Brazilian Elisa and Colombian Eliana, FTL – real name Felipe – is based in Paris and also hails from South America. Chile to be precise. 

Rising up on the likes of 3AM Eternal, and a handsome collection on his Bandcamp, FTL delivers his most accomplished release to date.

Embodying the Black Swan spirit and setting the scene with full spectrum view, he takes us on a breakbeat odyssey from the soul-exfoliating atmospheric jungle hurricane of A Dream Called Life to the relentless head-bending hardcore stompage of Small Blue World. We copped the premiere:

 

Read on to find out more about Black Swan, FTL and what comes next… 

Tell us everything about Black Swan! 

Elisa: Black Swan is Vahana Records’ sister label. Since the beginning, Bobby and I decided to be a label to produce emerging artists knowing we had a totally opposite view and tastes in terms of music. 

As a DJ and label owner I want to play the music we release and the more it goes, the more my sets are dedicated to jungle. Eliana and I have been working together for 10 years now and we like to travel, dance, dig deep in music, promote parties and to push and give a voice to the sound we like. A sound that is not enough represented in France. Together we shaped our tastes and visions. 

We were just waiting to be settled enough in life, to find the right artists to start our new project. The yoga philosophy says “when the student is ready the teacher arrives”, we can say that when the label is ready, the artists arrive. Or when the artists are ready the label arrives. The time is now, we know what we want, like, want to play and share. 

Eliana: We’ve reached a point where working together on a common vision was simply natural, and where our lives have stabilised enough for us to be confident in the fact artists could rely on us both. We stand for uncompromising, ferocious yet dreamy jungle… A sound inscribed within the hardcore continuum that carries our creative universes – full of symbolism and hope, but at times dark and stormy. 

So here we are with our little Black Swan, Vahana being represented by a white swan. We are ready to push our sound here in France, wherever the waters take us. 

Yeah I’m feeling that! FTL has the launch release. Tell us how you linked with him! 

Eliana: I’ve been living in London on-and-off since 2018. In 2022 I moved into a flat share with a French guy. We spoke about music and when he asked what I listened to, I threw in some Coco Bryce, Sully, Dead Man’s Chest, expecting him to have absolutely no clue about them. Turns out his good friend from school back in Paris was also hammering him with those names and produced some sick jungle. He passed me the tunes and I was mind-blown. 

A few months later FTL came to London to attend his very first Rupture. We connected, I sent him to Forever DNB to meet Elisa, and that’s how it started really. FTL had already released tunes on 3AM Eternal and on his own imprint so we felt that we could really build something together. Elisa is a sick DJ, I’m a decent manager, and FTL is a sick producer. We’re also all South American and there has always been a thing between Elisa and I and the South American bass music scene… We used to call it the Mafia Latina! Anyways, all of that just made too much sense to ignore the fact that this was the right moment and the right artist. 

Elisa: When Eliana left me some of his tracks on my computer, I was working on a new selection and I fell in love with his music. We called him to say we wanted to release them, give him a space for his creativity.

How was it from your perspective FTL?

FTL: It’s really exciting. I wasn’t expecting a jungle label from Elisa Do Brasil so I was happy when they asked me and she was happy about the tracks!

Wicked. Tell us about your own route into jungle…

FTL: I was playing guitar and piano. I was very focused on the instrumentalist side of things and got into electronic music later than a lot of people might. I was around 23-24 years old and started digging all sorts of styles but there was a sound that I kept coming back to. It was Future Engineers – The Silence. That track blew my mind. It was unlike anything I’d ever listened to before. It was so rich in terms of rhythmics and patterns and deep bass. From that I kept digging and digging and discovered the new wave of artists doing it that way. Like Tim Reaper, Sully, Pete Cannon, Dwarde. 


How about production?

FTL: I got into Ableton in 2017 and tried different kinds of stuff. I was learning by doing and just experimenting. Then in 2018 I met a guy called DJ Mudak 2000. He heard one of my tracks and wanted to collaborate. We made lots of different tracks. I learnt a lot from him. We are complementary in a sense. I think I contributed a lot to the creation part and he had a lot of knowledge technically so it would sound good.

Small Blue World definitely sounds good! Tell us about the track we’ve premiered! 

FTL: I was very inspired by hardcore, especially on Tim Reaper and Dwarde’s label Globex Corp. I like the blend of modern and old styles. When I was doing Small Blue World I was thinking about those tracks, the dark aspect and the vocals and stuff. I wanted to know where the vocals came from. I found them on a jungle sample pack and I wanted to know where they came from – they come from a movie Dark City which is a perfect mood for the track.

Is history an important source of reference or inspiration for you in general?

FTL: Yes I would say I am very curious about where things come from. I like to search about the origins of things and in jungle music there’s such a strong history about it that it’s very important to know about. Of course while I can be obsessed about certain aspects of history, other times I’m just having fun! 

Always. Balance! What else are you passionate about?

FTL: Besides music I work as an environmental engineer and I’m passionate about climate change and the environmental impact of humanity. I don’t know if my tracks talk about it in some way but I do feel that music can have an impact in terms of mobilisation and make people realise the problems that surround us. I think sometimes we forget how tiny we are in this universe. We have just one planet, let’s try and preserve it. It would be great, no? 

 

Amen. Eliana, this is a topic close to Black Swan’s heart, right?

Eliana: Of course. It should be for everyone. But yes, we do have a big project to develop this year. We won’t talk about that today, though. We expect this project to be very uniting for jungle artists and enthusiasts… And give a lot of meaning to the work I started 10 years ago with Elisa.

Elisa: It’s a beautiful project for a cause bigger than ourselves. Plus a lot of subs and amens breaks on the way. Keep the jungle Massive. 

Haha. Intriguing. What can we expect next? 

Eliana: Expect good music and always more love and smiles. 

Elisa: We have a few releases to come from a French artist from north of France, Jaka. 

Eliana: And many other friends to invite on this adventure with us… And, well, a lot of jungle! 

FTL – A Dream Called Life is out March 7 

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