16 Nov 2024
With over 20 years of experience as a DJ and producer, Leonid Lipelis has cemented his status as a legend in the Russian dance scene and a globe-trotting connoisseur of underground vinyl. Now, he is ready to take Dubai by storm at Crowd Test Festival, hosted by The Sandy Times on November 16. Dive into our conversation to discover his insights on creating the perfect party and his musical journey from Moscow to South America and beyond.
Your tickets await here
— Leonid, hey! Tell us a little about yourself and your journey.
— Sure. I have been a DJ for the last 20 years. I write, mix and produce music, play in bands, release tracks, and tour pretty much non stop. So I have been involved in almost every aspect of music in these past two decades. How did I get into it? My older brother went to the only DJ school in the 90s in Penza, the town where I was born and raised. He wouldn’t take me to his gigs back then though, which made me incredibly jealous. Later on, I got older, and the “joke” of me wanting to be involved just kinda remained. So in my high school, I met a guy who played at all the school events, and he got me onboard and taught me a few things. My brother also explained the basic principles before that, so all in all I had a solid foundation and just took it from there. Rest is history.
— How has the DJ profession changed in your view over the past 20 years? And what has changed for you personally, maybe in your relationship with music?
— Pretty much everything has changed — from how music is distributed to the social role of a DJ. Without social media back then, clubs were genuinely places where people met, found like-minded souls. “Something" was happening that felt almost sacred. Now, it is a much more extroverted, image-focused activity with social media involved and everyone filming everything. Music distribution used to be almost entirely on vinyl in the early 2000s. In my town people would either get records hand-to-hand, buy tapes or download MP3s, often pirated. Now, anything can be found, downloaded, and shared in mere seconds. Back then, downloading a 6 MB audio file took almost an hour, and you would wait that long just to find out if a song was even worth it. It might feel like the value has decreased because everything is so accessible but, on the other hand, there is a lot of great music that is easier to find these days so you can go much deeper. So I think it is just different, not better or worse.
— Right, and if we are talking about how everything is accessible, how do you approach music selection today? How do you navigate all that content?
— You know, recently, I have asked myself that exact question, and that is how I started coming back to buying records again. Music is so plentiful now that it almost doesn’t make sense to look at the same places as everyone else. I have also noticed that I just enjoy the process of going to a physical record store. First, because you can choose a section and go through each record there, which makes it a finite task (unlike on the internet, which is sort of bottomless). Second, sometimes you have an impression that you have heard everything, and then you just enter the “dollar bin” section, and suddenly start to find some lost gems. And finally, buying vinyl online is just too costly these days, because the shipping just went wild lately, so I haven’t bought any records online for more than four years now.
— So you choose records in-store and sometimes from the “one-dollar” bin?
— Yes, the dollar bin is my safe bet against disappointment! If you end up not liking a record, you have only spent a dollar, and you can always just throw it out or make a vase out of it, doesn’t really matter. My process usually is to first pick out anything that sounds at least half decent, then narrow it down further and further to what really stands out for me. Sometimes, even records that sounded just "okay" at the store end up being fantastic (the opposite happens quite often too, though). I recently had a vinyl all night gig in Croatia where, technically, if you are DJing with a USB, you need to have paperwork proving that all the tracks on your USB are legally obtained. Almost no one actually does or checks this, but with vinyl, it is sort of straightforward. If you own a physical copy, you can do what you want.
— What are your plans for an upcoming set at Crowd Test?
— Since I play with Kito Jempere, who likes to improvise, I am not gonna try to plan too much. Playing with someone else makes it sometimes impossible; you bring everything you have and adapt to the vibe. If it would be a specific event with a clear music theme, maybe I would prepare specifically for that. But hey, it is called Crowd Test for a reason, right?
— You have been doing this for over 20 years, always working with new music. How do you avoid burnout?
— You can’t always avoid it — you will get tired sometimes. You start to feel you have heard it all, that it is all the same. But then, one amazing party with great people dancing and engaging brings back all the magic. As cliché as it sounds, music is a language, and DJing is a way of connecting with people. The venue and the crowd give meaning to what we do and keep us energised. You can play the same record thousands of times, but it will hit differently when the vibe is right.
— Do you think it is possible to predict if a party will be good?
— No, not really. Can you predict a good day or even your own mood? I don’t think so. I mean, how could I know what mood 300 people will be in tomorrow, or how the bartenders will feel when they arrive? Throwing a good party is mostly about trying to get rid of possible distractions — work on good lighting, great sound, a comfortable DJ setup. The fewer obstacles, the better are the chances to have something special. But ultimately, it comes down to whether people are in the right mindset and everything aligns. Sometimes, it is just pure luck.
— What about Dubai? Do you have any thoughts on the music scene there?
— My experience with the Dubai music scene is quite limited. I played there once for New Year's and didn’t really get it. But after that I met Hani J and his community that is made up of more local people who are genuinely involved in music and it turned out they have a great enthusiastic crew. Hani is originally from Abu Dhabi but spent much of his life in Canada before returning, so I think he has got both an “Eastern” and “Western” perspective on things here, which is great. So there is a local culture, but it is not so easy to find on the surface. Dubai is not the place where you can walk around and just randomly stumble upon an interesting venue. In Dubai, everything is on the fifth floor of some hotel, and if you don’t know where exactly to go, you will miss it all.
— By the way, about the community. In your opinion, how important is it, and how connected do you feel the music community is right now? For me, music feels like a really friendly, open field.
— It depends on the place and context. After the pandemic, some communities either fell apart or realigned in new ways. I feel like part of my European community dissolved or transformed, becoming harder to pin down. For me, it is now more about specific people, places, and venues that I have personally connected with. But in places like Latin America, it seems like the opposite happened. For example, before the pandemic, Brazilian DJs often only travelled within the country or they went to Europe. During pandemic, with travels being more difficult, they have started focusing a bit more on their own regional scene. Now Chilean DJs go to Brazil, Brazilian DJs visit other countries in Latin America etc.; the scene seems to have become much more interconnected. I have seen something similar in Southeast Asia, too, where the regional communities have grown tighter. Overall, I would say the music community is pretty friendly and open anywhere you go, when you meet the right people.
— Since we are talking about travel and global trends, you have been to a lot of places and seen a lot. What would you recommend as a travel destination, maybe both for the music scene and in general?
— For something a bit out of the ordinary, I would highly recommend Latin America, but it is not for the faint of heart — you have to be cautious because of the high crime rates in some places and take certain precautions. But generally it seems like Latin America has a really vibrant scene right now, with lots going on, but also Asia really developed a super strong scene in the last few years, you should check it out!
— What have you been listening to lately? Do you have guilty pleasures?
— Mostly it was the recent tracks I am working on myself or those cheap records I buy. Over the last few years, something that was once considered a guilty pleasure has just become normal — no need to feel bad about any of it. Which could be great in that it allows people with a unique taste to explore and express themselves, but it is also a bit of a double-edged sword as it normalised things that I would personally consider tasteless.
— How do you define “bad taste” and how would you suggest developing good taste?
— It is all subjective. What I think is interesting today might have seemed plain to me years ago and the other way around. Music is beautiful because it is infinite; each phase is as valid as any other.
— What if someone comes to you and says, “I want to get better at understanding music — where should I start?”
— Nothing replaces personal exposure, I guess. Some people I met have sort of a natural instinct for finding outstanding music, but for most of us, it is just about listening a lot and discovering what resonates with you. Once you find that, it will naturally lead to more. It is like a web — each artist or label you discover leads you to another and so on. So just pick your starting point and enjoy the journey!
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