Techno in Dublin: Introducing Cian Hand

As Babylon Radio prepares for their upcoming event, a Techno Sunday night at Dashi bar, Cian Hand sat down with Babylon to tell us about himself, his work, and what we can expect to see for his first time playing at an Irish nightclub. One of Ireland’s up and coming Techno DJs, Cian, who goes by the stage name Chand, will be one of three DJs performing at the event.

“How are you feeling about Sunday?” I ask, as a shy smile makes its way onto his face. “Feeling really good!” he responds, having just come from a recording session in preparation for the event, “It’ll be our first proper gig in Dublin. [While] we’re really excited to play for any crowd, obviously, but when you get to play it in your home city… that’s always so much fun” he says, noting that he considers it “a privilege” to be playing his first gig at a nightclub like Dashi. “We like the vibe. We agree with a lot of their values. They are all about making things accessible [and] inclusivity…[its a] cool spot that shares some values with us”.

Chand’s musical journey has a long history behind it, having moved from genre to genre and being exposed to an array of different types of music from a young age, “everybody starts off listening to what their parents listen to which for me would have been a lot more Rock and Indie music, even some irish traditional  music… and that slowly developed into a bit of Hip Hop and R&B and eventually to electronic music” explaining that his choice to enter into the genre of electronic music was especially influenced by his friends “[my friends] are big music heads and would listen to alot of it, and I get a lot of inspiration from the as well… to be able to take their impression on me and put it back out and play music for them is what really got me into it”.

This passion only continued to grow more and more, eventually turning Chand onto the aspiration of contributing further to the genre “you know you do get to be creative… I was listening to so much electronic music. It was like, why wouldn’t I try and get involved in some way and be able to have, even if it’s a minor effect to be able to have my own effect on it, you know?”

In talking about his creative process, he chuckles as he says “never EDM” but also noting that he likes to experiment across the board of sounds “I definitely started off on a lighter house and electronic IDM…then it starts to progress, the more you get into it, the more you see.”

He goes on to list a few artists from whom he draws inspiration “initially getting into electronic music,  the artists I would have listened to most would have been Bonobo, Aphex Twin, some Burial… and I got more into, I guess the slightly heavier stuff… like Overmono” adding that the Irish electronic music scene is only continuing to grow rapidly “You’ve got some great Irish Djs as well like Tommy Hul and Bicep. The Irish music scene is really coming up at the moment… I guess it might may have always been a step or 2 behind mainland Europe, but we’ve caught up so quickly”

Chand’s first ever gig was in Malmö, Sweden, stating that he played that night for the sole purpose of bringing people together and sharing the music, “[people] are crying out for something different…We just want to play the music we like” he continues on to describe the experience of playing for the first time “It was a great experience for our first gig… on a Tuesday night in Sweden, it was 330 people which was the most the club that ever had on a weeknight”.

He blushes as I ask him how it felt to play a club for the first time “you don’t see yourself in it maybe as much as you should… I wanted to get my mix right for the first couple of songs. Once I could get through that I’d look up a bit more and start having some fun… [at one point] I look up and have a look around and see, people are enjoying it. Then, after that it’s a lot of fun.”

He goes on to add how much he is looking forward to bringing that energy with him to Baylon Radio’s event “the thing that I’d like to to bring forward to Dashi, and for the rest of the Babylon events is our party is for everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are… everybody is welcome. We just want everyone to have a good time.”

Be sure to catch Chand playing on “Tech Sunday”, February 19th, alongside other magnificent DJs at Dashi cocktail bar, organised by Babylon Radio.

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