Nima Gorji on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 7/22/24

In this dynamic Virtual Session, Darran Bruce reconnects with Ibiza-based DJ, producer, and label owner Nima Gorji to explore his multifaceted career and creative ventures. With over three decades in the electronic music scene, Nima shares updates on NG Trax, his label established in 2014, which has grown to encompass vinyl and digital releases, artist bookings, and curated events. He discusses his weekly NG Trax Radio Show on Pure Ibiza Radio, its global reach, and how it inspired the launch of NG Trax nights at Analogic, a boutique club in Ibiza Town.

 

Nima highlights his second event concept, Join, which recently hosted a collaborative showcase with his South American agency at Pacha Barcelona. His curation spans minimal, micro, and deep house, though he embraces multiple genres when the vibe calls for it. Beyond events, Nima emphasizes nurturing emerging talent, spotlighting upcoming Romanian artist Utip as a rising star.

 

The conversation covers the challenges of today’s industry—from the overemphasis on social media metrics in bookings to navigating the saturated digital release landscape—and Nima’s commitment to championing artistry over follower counts. He reflects on memorable moments, such as hearing his tracks unexpectedly at Amnesia, and shares production insights on balancing creativity with technical skill.

 

With stories of past hits like “Chemtrail,” upcoming EPs, and his thoughts on AI’s role in music production, Nima’s passion for authenticity and mentorship shines through. Whether behind the decks in an intimate club or headlining major festivals, his focus remains on connection, quality, and staying true to the music.

 

Host: Darran Bruce
Guest: Nima Gorji
Location: Virtual Studios, Seattle WA & Ibiza, Spain

Overview:
Darran Bruce speaks with Nima Gorji about his decades-long career, the evolution of NG Trax, Ibiza’s vibrant scene, and the balance between artistry and industry demands.

Topics Covered:

• NG Trax Label: Founded in 2014, specializing in vinyl and digital releases.
• Radio Residency: Weekly NG Trax Radio Show on Pure Ibiza Radio.
• NG Trax Nights: Live showcases at Analogic in Ibiza Town.
• Join Events: Collaborative showcases including Pacha Barcelona.
• Artist Development: Supporting emerging talents like Utip.
• Genre Focus: Minimal, micro, and deep house with openness to variety.
• Memorable Moments: Luciano playing “Chemtrail” at Amnesia.
• Production Philosophy: Balancing creativity with technical mastery.
• AI in Music: Useful for elements, but creativity remains essential.
• Industry Challenges: Overreliance on social media follower counts in bookings.
• Event Preferences: Favoring intimate club settings for audience connection.
• Upcoming Releases: EPs featuring artists like Camilo Gil and Christian Burkhardt.
• Ibiza Tips: Best restaurants and local highlights.

Call to Action:
Follow Nima Gorji on Instagram @nimagorji72 and subscribe to his YouTube Channel. Visit ng-trax.com for releases, events, and bookings.
Discover more episodes at thedjsessions.com

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions presents the virtual sessions. I’m your host Darran and right now I’m coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington and coming in from halfway around the world in that number one party place you all want to go to and if you haven’t been there, get there now. Ibiza, we have Nima Gorji coming in from Ibiza.

How you doing today?

[Nima Gorji]
Hey Darran, how are you?

[Darran]
Great.

[Nima Gorji]
How’s it going?

[Darran]
It’s going good. I’m super excited. We’re getting back ramped up to getting things going with the DJ Sessions again after kind of a little bit of a hiatus that I took last year.

I know that it’s been about, oh you know, almost two years since we last spoke. Almost two years and 11 months to the date because I believe the last time we spoke it was either you were having an event on August 23rd in 2022, which is my birthday. I remember that.

Or maybe it was on August 23rd, which is my birthday. Either way, it’s been a long, too long, too long.

[Nima Gorji]
Well, we tried, we tried it last time.

[Darran]
You know, there was just so much chaos going on in 2023. I had moved into a new place. I was getting ready to get situated.

That took me about till June of last year and then, you know, I wanted to book interviews. I just wasn’t feeling in the right headspace. That happens to people that are artists.

Yes, it even happens to virtual hosts as well as musicians and talent, you know. You get that writer’s block or that moment you’re just like, let me get everything situated. Did some clearing house.

Got some major things underway. I don’t notice if you notice I’ve lost a lot of weight. Yeah, but no, we’re getting ready to get things up and rolling here with the DJ Sessions again.

Super excited to have you on the show and I definitely want to make it out to Ibiza here soon. Yeah. Yeah, now it’s time to come here.

Exactly. No, it’s funny. I just was speaking with Martin Ayer last week and he invited me to come out to Rave the Planet in Berlin next month and it’s my 50th birthday next month and I was gonna go to New York and go party up there with a friend of mine because he’d never been and that didn’t, that fell through and Martin was like, well, why don’t you come over to Berlin and do Rave the Planet with us?

I’m like, okay, I’ve never been to Berlin before. This will be an experience.

[Nima Gorji]
Well, that’s about time to come there. I mean, you need to try Berlin. I mean, Berlin in Europe, you know, I mean, as you know, as the rumors go, it is the place to be for raving.

[Darran]
Well, he says there’s a hundred, four million people live there, a hundred and eight techno clubs. Yes. Like, whoa, we got maybe like 15 and we got two million people here.

So, I don’t know what I’m gonna get into over there. All I know is I’m gonna be on the top of their double-decker party bus, streaming DJs live, doing interviews in the middle of 250,000 people.

[Nima Gorji]
You will be very busy there if you come with your platform, definitely. You’re gonna be very busy, as much as Nibita.

[Darran]
Yeah, you know what I found out just recently, too, and this is a little off-topic, but we’ll get back into the interview in a second. Have you ever heard of the Enhow Hotel there?

[Nima Gorji]
No, no.

[Darran]
Apparently, it’s this whole, it’s this hotel, it’s totally like this architecturally awesome design hotel. I didn’t know what it was when I was booking it, but it has studios in the hotel that you can rent. It’s for musicians.

Oh, amazing. If you want a guitar brought up to your room, they’ll bring you a guitar up to your room. If you want to rent and book studio time, you can book studio time in these studios that overlook the river, which are right across the way from Riverside Studios.

Wow. I mean, it is, it is like, I’m like, whoa, totally blown away. But I got this hotel there when I’m gonna be visiting over there, so super excited for that.

I was thinking about making it an extended trip and maybe coming over to Spain.

[Nima Gorji]
Well, yeah, definitely. I mean, if you come to Berlin, it’s not so much, I mean, it’s like two and a half hours flight. I mean, then you’re in Ibiza, so there is a direct flight from Berlin.

[Darran]
Oh, gosh, don’t tap me, man. Don’t tap me.

[Nima Gorji]
I mean, you come that long, I mean, that’s far away from, definitely you have to, yeah, visit Ibiza as well.

[Darran]
We’ll talk, you know what, we got to talk off-camera, off-time about this, because maybe, that might be a little extended vacation I might put myself on and come down there and check things out. But let’s get back to the interview. We’ve got important things to talk about.

A little bit of time here. So, NG Trax. NG Trax, your label.

Yes. You know, you start, when did you start that? Was that?

[Nima Gorji]
Yeah, I started, it’s from 2014, actually. It’s like 10 years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I started in 2014. The releases started to come out from end of 2014, basically, until now. And I’ve been doing a lot of vinyl releases, I’ve been doing a lot more digital releases on NG Trax, and also involved it into some events as well.

And this year, again, I started some NG Trax, as well, because I am doing a weekly show on Pure Ibiza Radio, here in Ibiza, and it’s one of the most, let’s say, famous, or no, I mean, it’s more like a wanted radio stations in Ibiza, and around the world, around the globe. And I started, like, one year ago, like a residency every week, like a NG Trax radio show. And this year, the summer came in, and some of my friends, they opened a kind of a mini club in Ibiza town, at the port, and it’s called Analogic.

And I said, guys, what do we just do? On Wednesdays, I have the radio show at 5 p.m., and then we can do a 10 p.m. after show, down your spot, and do a kind of showcase there. So, I started this weekly NG Trax night at Analogic, and it’s growing slowly.

It’s a new concept, of course, but I can see during the summer season, it’s growing bit by bit. Every week, there’s more and more people coming, and, you know, it’s another adventure for NG Trax.

[Darran]
I saw you had something on the 15th of July. What was that event? I’m trying to remember.

[Nima Gorji]
The 15th of July, because I have another event called Join. Join, yes, that’s what I’m talking about. I have another concept I started a couple of years ago, and I did it in Ibiza Underground Club, and it kind of took off there.

I had some really nice DJ guests there, and basically, this year, I couldn’t do that in Ibiza Underground Club, because of circumstances, and that’s why I do now NG Trax nights in this mini club there in town. But, yeah, the 15th, to finish that, I did Join together with my booking agency in South America, from Chile, called Fam Booking, and we did this kind of Join collaboration thing in Pacha in Barcelona. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that was awesome stuff out there.

[Darran]
Now, is it only other NG artists that get to appear on the radio show, or are you open to taking other artists?

[Nima Gorji]
Yes, absolutely. I have, actually, kind of every second week or something, I have a new guest on the show. Either they are sending me a podcast to stream it, or, I mean, to play it, and then I talk over it sometimes in the radio, or I have, this Wednesday, I have Camilo Gil coming from Chile.

He’s coming to an island, and I put him live with me on the radio, and after that, we do the night session at Analogic. So, yeah, I have guests from NG Trax, and besides that, Camilo Gil, like I mentioned this Wednesday, he’s also doing a remix now. He did a remix for my label for a new project from a guy from England called Gudge, G-U-D-J, Gudge, or Gudge, however you spell it, pronounce it, and he did a remix for that.

He did a remix for that EP, and it suits very well now, so he’s coming here to the island, and I put him on the radio, and I invite him also to our night. Nice, nice. Yeah, I always try to involve the whole family, the whole group of people who are releasing on the label.

I have this couple of platforms, like NG Trax, and then joint parties, it depends how we go along.

[Darran]
Yeah, no, I saw that. I was going to ask you about, I was at the website earlier, I saw all the artists that you have on the label, but then I saw you have a booking section as well, so you’re kind of a one-stop shop. You book artists, you sign artists, you distribute artists to your platforms, that’s awesome, that’s kind of a mantra, or I think that the DJ Sessions founding thing was, is everyone always thinks I’m a DJ, and I’m like, no, I’m an executive producer.

I work with DJs, and one of the things we want to get up to, and I think I may have spoke to you about this last time we talked, is having the DJ Sessions label, being able to manage bookings for the artists that are on our shows, throwing events, and getting out there, and we’re slowly starting to get back to that after everything that happened over the last couple years, and really moving the ball forward, so that’s really awesome, you know, that you have those mediums that you can get people out there.

If you could describe the music, the labels, now, if the label and the stations, the radio stations and your events, all have the same kind of genre of music, how would you describe that music in three words? What would you call it?

[Nima Gorji]
Well, I mean, you’re asking the whole radio station, the genre they have. Actually, in electronic music, we have so many different genres, and sub-genres, let’s say. Yeah, I mean, it goes from take house, to progressive house, to techno, to progressive techno, so all this, and it goes, in my area, it comes, when it comes to my show, I will probably present it more in the minimal house, minimal kind of era, you know, and area, so it’s more like the micro house, minimal house, minimal tech kind of thing, you know what I mean?

But, I mean, I would play even classic house music, if I have to, and that would go under the same kind of, you know, under the same vibe, you know, so.

[Darran]
Absolutely, no, when I said, when I bring on new resident DJs, they have to fill out their profile, and I send them to the Wikipedia page, that explains electronic music, and it lists all the genres, and then all the sub-genres, and I say, you can choose from this, but don’t choose every single one.

[Nima Gorji]
No, no, no, no, it’s just becoming, you know what, I still, when people ask me, what do you play? I mean, it’s like, well, first of all, it’s electronic music, but then it goes to house, and between house and techno, and deep electronic, I mean, just choose your own genre, if you want, whatever you want, you know, because it’s really difficult nowadays, I mean, to say what you play, because I kind of play everything. I like to play across all genres, in a way, but it’s the way we are playing, maybe, is different, that makes a difference.

The way we mix it together, the way it’s put together, everything, it kind of goes, maybe, under this kind of micro, minimal style.

[Darran]
What can we expect in the near future, coming from NG tracks, from the label? Do you have anything you can talk about, anything in the works, something being released here soon?

[Nima Gorji]
Well, I mean, not that much, actually, now, because now we are in the summer season, you know, and summer season, usually, we don’t really release so much, but actually, I’m working on the two EPs now, and like I mentioned, one of them is with Gotch and Camilo Gil remix, it’s coming out soon, in the beginning of August, and this one is, I’ve been working on for a while, and then the next one I’m working on is another guy, who lives in Berlin, he’s a native Romanian, but lives in Berlin, and his artist name is Utip, and he did a couple of tracks for us, and plus, I’m having Christian Bocart remix on it, he’s one of the German legends, producers, and DJs, and basically, yeah, this is coming in September, I hope everything is done by then, and then I’m working on something for myself, I mean, something I would like to do, since a long time I haven’t done any NG tracks release, actually, I mean, I do releases, I do monthly releases, actually, on Bandcamp, just by the name, by my name, and there is no label involved, I don’t involve my label, I just call it NG, like a sign in NG, so it’s like, I just want to have this direct from the artist, from me, to the audience, and I’m free to do whatever I want, because I don’t even, the reason I don’t involve even my own label, because it’s like my own label has a kind of a concept, in a way, and I just want to be free of that still, to just, you know what I mean.

[Darran]
I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s the difficult thing, when I’ve wrestled with just the idea of starting a label for the DJ sessions, is one, what genre are we going to do, two, is it going to be in-house submissions, or are we going to take external submissions, three, do I have time to listen to 300 submissions a day, you know, if we really open the door, you know, and what’s that flavor going to be, and what we’re really going to go out there and promote, and if we release as the DJ sessions, do we even put a name to it, or is it just the DJ sessions release this track, and maybe it’s a white label at first, or it’s something that’s not named at first, but we put it out there in rotation, and then we go, okay, this was produced by so-and-so, you know, and I don’t, I’ve never ran that part, I have some people that will help me out the back end, hopefully give me some good advice.

[Nima Gorji]
Somehow, you need some form of concept for your label, of course. Exactly. You cannot let, it’s difficult, just let it go wild, you know, let it go freestyle totally.

It’s possible, but I mean, it’s…

[Darran]
Well, even if I said we want only house, tech house, progressive house tracks, we’re still going to get drum and bass submissions, we’re still going to get techno, we’re still going to get…

[Nima Gorji]
You know what, it can suit that, I mean, if I have a very nice, I have actually released a digital release on NG Trax that was not anything to do with house music or techno, it was actually breakbeats, and it was a very good, nice, deep breakbeat tracks that I really fell for, you know, and I thought, this suits NG Trax, this is kind of the frequency, the sound, it suits NG Trax. And it doesn’t matter what type of, let’s say, genre, but it has to, in the frequency, it has to suit the label, of course.

[Darran]
No, it’s funny you bring that up, but you are the boss, you are in charge, so you’re the Jeff Bezos, the Elon Musk, not that I’m trying to attribute you to those characters or those personalities.

[Nima Gorji]
Well, I wish I had their money.

[Darran]
I wish I had their… Exactly.

[Nima Gorji]
Unfortunately, in our world, we don’t make that kind of money at all.

[Darran]
No, unfortunately not.

[Nima Gorji]
It’s all about love of the music.

[Darran]
Exactly, you know, that’s kind of the driving force behind the DJ sessions as well, that we’re very independently financed, but we can move in a direction that I want to take it. I’m the last person on the totem pole, you know, and I get to say, let’s move this, let’s do this. I found, after working for Corporate America for a number of years, that being my own boss and running my own company is where I really fit in and doing what I do.

[Nima Gorji]
The freedom to be creative is very linked to intelligence, actually. Wow, sorry.

[Darran]
I think that’s a compliment. That’s a compliment. That’s a compliment.

Take it from me. If you could pick one of your productions as your most favorite one, which one would that be, and what’s the thought behind it being your most favorite production that you’ve ever done? It really resonates with you.

I know everyone says, my productions are like my babies, and they’re all my children, and I love every single one of them.

[Nima Gorji]
You know what, I have, yeah, of course, but I have kind of a very strange relationship with my productions, because not that I like them all, in a way, but there are, of course, very few favorite ones that resonate with me, because I can still actually take them and play them myself, because once you do something, once you produce the track, it’s really, I’m done with it. I’m like, I’ve just given it away, give it to the other one. It’s like, do whatever you want to do with it.

You know what I mean? It’s just like, I have difficulty to bring it up myself to presentation, but there is one or two, actually, I can still take it and play it, and it’s one of them, it’s called Chemtrail. I don’t know if you know it, and it was from my old label called Velv Recordings, and it’s a kind of a track from, when was it, 2000, maybe 14, 15, in that area.

Yeah, and I remember a few DJs like Radu from RPR, he started to play it suddenly in all kinds of festivals and places in Ibiza, and this track never really go out of my mind, in a way, because it has this special vibe into it, so it’s called Chemtrail. Another one was called Ghetto Krom, that was an old, old one from 2009 or 10, or something like that. That has also very much another, yeah, quality that I would, I still try to make another one, and I can’t, I can’t get around it, somehow.

[Darran]
I understand, sometimes that might be a difficult question for people to answer, especially if you’ve been doing this as long as you have. People have asked me over the years, what’s your favorite episode of the DJ sessions? And I’m like, well, I have 2,500 of them, and my first producer I ever worked for, he’s like, well, if you could pick one, which would be your most memorable?

I’m like, every single one of them is memorable. It’s a joy, it’s a pleasure. I’m doing what I love to do in every single episode.

I’ve never had a bad episode.

[Nima Gorji]
No, no, no. It’s super difficult to say what is your favorite. Again, it’s a question, some people are asking me, who’s your favorite DJ?

I say, oh my God, there is so many of them. Of course, I can mention, let’s say, maybe 10 of them. I cannot just say who, there is not one.

You cannot mention one only, you know what I mean? It’s very…

[Darran]
And something you mentioned too is that when you produce something, you get here and you don’t look back on it anymore. And that’s what I told my first producer that I worked with way back in the day. He’s like, don’t you ever go back and watch your old shows?

I’m like, no, I produced the shows, I did the shows, they’re in the can. I was there, I was live, I was in the mix too, and I don’t want to go back and watch it over and over. If I had to do that, I’d have to start at maybe episode one.

And even if I watch an hour a day, it’d take me 2,500 days to get through every episode. And our episodes are usually an hour long, so we’re talking years of content. I’m like, no, I don’t go backwards like that.

I’m producing this content for our viewers, it’s for our fans, for our friends, people out there that follow the show, and they can go back and watch the archives. Unless it’s like this really cool exclusive mix that’s done really well cinematography-wise that somebody puts together for me, I might go put that on in the background. Aunt Nima, if you ever film in a club.

But I’ve had people go and carry gear up to the top of a mountain top and do a multicam shoot for an exclusive set for us. I’ve had people rent boats out and put fire pyrotechnics on the boat and do exclusive mixes for us and stuff. Some of those, I’ll go back, because those are creative.

Not that I’m necessarily… Anyone else that submitted a creative mix isn’t creative. I’m just like, those are like, hey, check it out with this person.

That was really cool. Now, something that came across, and I don’t know why Facebook is popping this up on my thread recently, it’s kind of an interesting thing. Somebody took this website, and they’ve posted, and they take the different years from Ibiza, and they say, these were the top tracks for this time period in Ibiza.

So it’s like 2001 to 2002, and they’ll take the top track of the month that was playing. And I’m just like, oh my God, those are some of the classics that I just remember so much. These essential tracks were ones that if you were a DJ, you were playing this in the clubs, this has happened.

It leads me into my next question. What essential track, which is out right now, that nobody should miss out on and that you’re playing that’s in your mix right now, where you’re just like, this one’s going to be a banger, or it’s coming out? I don’t want you to get in trouble with anyone.

[Nima Gorji]
Nowadays, it’s very difficult, because it was a time, like you mentioned, it was easy to pinpoint the track of the year, the season track. I remember it was a time when it was so big to be in house music here. It was like a Kings of Tomorrow, it was stuff like that, just like that was a track of the year of Ibiza.

But these days are so many of them, it’s like I’m struggling my brain to find one of them. I would say what I’m playing a lot lately, like every time in a big party or something like that, I mean, it’s Delight from Christian Burkhardt, which is like, is it called Delight? I mean, I’m wondering now, what is it called?

It’s something called Delight or something. It’s a track of him that was legendary from 10 years ago or 15 years ago, and it was played by so many. And I’m bringing it back again, and he just released also his new classic albums, and it’s one of those tracks that has been remixed by Franco Cinelli and other people.

And I did a remix also for another track of him in this classic album. And this track is such a known track in Ibiza, actually, that I start to play again, and I hear also some other DJs start to play again. So every time we play, there is a vocal inside it.

So everybody’s singing with it, with the vocal. So they go off with it. But besides that, I don’t know.

I mean, there’s so many different tracks now.

[Darran]
I was in college a few years back, just redoing another business degree because I just love learning. And I was in a marketing class, and this is 2016-17. And my instructor at the time, this is a statistic that’s probably relevant that you could transfer into the music realm as well.

But he said, over a million videos are being released on YouTube every minute. So if you take that from a music submission standpoint, where you go back 24, 25 years ago, and it was a vinyl release that came out. I mean, digital was just making its way in.

But I don’t think there were any beat ports. I mean, you could download MP3s, but digital wasn’t there. It was vinyl.

So with a vinyl release, you had a limited pressing. And it was what was in your crates. So you’re right.

You could kind of pinpoint, hey, we released this in Germany. We released it in France. We released it in the UK.

And maybe they sent 25 copies over to the States to Amoeba in New York or something over in San Francisco. And you could say, where is this getting plays from? Where are people coming online and finding this?

That’s where it would come in from. But nowadays, you’re right. To track something like that, it goes beat port, and it’s…

[Nima Gorji]
You can keep track on them. I mean, the board says it itself, you know, because it’s like so much coming out on digital. And like you say, I mean, before we could handle it.

It was a certain amount of release on vinyl every year. And we could keep track on them, you know, and say, OK, these are the best ones. These are the track of the year.

Now, I mean, you just nailed it with the YouTube thing. I mean, as much as track’s coming, it’s submitted to any distribution, digital distributions every day. It’s unbelievable.

But there are some labels working very good, and there are some digital labels working very good on it. And, you know, it depends how you work on them. I’m not even talking about my own label because I’m still struggling.

I’m alone about it. So it’s like really difficult to handle everything together. But there are some labels, like recently I released an EP on Soleiman Records in Montreal, in Canada.

And this label has an amazing way of working. I mean, I have to say, because they just take… They have a strategy about everything.

They just go step by step to different medias and then submit it to different medias. The media taking them and promoting them because they find it interesting. And this release is called Let’s Talk.

Let’s Talk EP with Franco Cinelli remix on it. Amazing remix he did for me. And but the label has been working so well.

And it’s like every week since one and a half, two months now, I have like a new reviews, new kind of, you know what I mean? It’s like it’s keeping it alive. And this is a digital release.

So it depends on the label. You know, the labels are if you work on each release really specifically, give the time it takes and give it away to all kind of magazines and reviews and blah, blah, blah. And it just works, you know, and it just keeps the hype up and gives it another form of hype.

And similar to what we had on vinyl, similar on the vinyl releases somehow.

[Darran]
Yeah. Where is the weirdest moment you’ve ever heard one of your own tracks play?

[Nima Gorji]
Where is the, I mean, what’s the strangest moment?

[Darran]
Like if you’re like, what, where’s the weirdest moment you’ve ever had? Like you’ve heard one of your tracks playing. You didn’t expect to hear it play, but not weird.

[Nima Gorji]
I mean, something very exciting actually moments. I mean, somehow I, I was, I was a few times in amnesia and on the floor hanging out there. And then suddenly I hear Luciano or some of the guys just playing my tracks, you know, suddenly just pumping up out the spot of my old tracks.

And I was like, I know this track. I know, I know it from somewhere. I’ve heard it.

It’s like, it’s like, and then it’s like, and then look at, look at Luciano. He’s like, he’s just pointing, you know? And I was like, Oh my God.

Yeah. It’s like, yeah, you know, I, I, I had this moment a few times. I mean, a few times, many times.

[Darran]
I was just doing an immersive world experience earlier this morning with a company out of Germany. And one of the cool things they had in the, in the, in the, I guess you don’t call it virtual reality because virtual reality is, is met with the headsets immersive experiences when you can go online and do kind of a 3d world experience on your browser or on a mobile device, which I got schooled this morning on very, very, very nicely. But we have a VR nightclub.

We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but one of the cool things they had in this VR nightclub is that you could pull up a virtual phone and you had different things you could do on the phone, but on the phone you could actually tap a button and it would tell you the track that was playing from the DJ, like Shazam. And then you can click a button and buy that track on beat port in this virtual environment, or I’m sorry, in this inner immersive experience environment. It was like, I go, so is that like Shazam for a, for an immersive experience?

And I can be like, yeah, that’s exact. Wow. That’s exactly what it’s like.

[Nima Gorji]
But it’d be cool. Is it kind of in the metaverse or I mean, is inside the metaverse or is it? It won’t be inside of this.

[Darran]
So I guess there’s two camps when it comes to online or experiences in 3d environments. You have web three where you have these immersive, interactive experiences, and then you have the meta or the standalone or the headset experience, you know, and our club is in VR chat. It’s pretty cool.

We’re going to start doing a lot more stuff there, but you have to have a headset in order to get in there. Well, not true. You can go VR chat.

You can do on a PC and go through our world in a 2d environment. So that’s kind of cool, but it doesn’t work on the Mac. Unfortunately, they haven’t made a Mac version yet, which I wish they would, because then people wouldn’t need a headset to go into our clubs.

And they can be, this interview is going into our VR nightclub right now on our big screen TV. Somebody went in, went into Oculus, went into VR chat or is on a PC. They can watch this episode right now on a big huge screen TV in our main dance room chat.

I’ll give you a tour for it sometime. Maybe we’ll have to do something, do something better. But yeah, I mean, it was just really cool.

People could, people can just, it just, when you were talking about having that experience of being in the club and the DJs pointing at you saying, this is your track, you know, having that experience, you see people in videos all the time, they’re using their phone to try to shazam the tracks or other, it’s kind of a hidden thing that DJs will be like, what are they playing? And they’ll try to shazam it. And DJs will go, ah, you’re not going to find this.

It’s not released yet. But if you can give a production tip or insight to new producers out there, top number one thing to look out for a suggestion for new producers out there, what would that be?

[Nima Gorji]
Well, to learn a lot about the, about the engineering, about techniques, about actually about mixing, about the mastering, about the, I’m still learning, you know what I mean? I’m not, I’m not trying to be a, give any masterclass here because I’m still myself searching so much on YouTube and, and, and things to, to learn things and to learn so much techniques, you know, because it’s so much, so much new things out there, so much new plugins, so much new machines, analog, digital. I mean, it’s basically, let’s get in to learn a bit of technique besides the music itself, because of course I’m always very quick to, to want to do music, want to produce some piece of music or, or a track.

But then I realized, oh, I just, I’m lacking something else. I mean, to, to produce that, what I want. And that’s exactly engineering and techniques and how to make things sound good, how to make a kick drum sound fat, how to make a bass comes, come out a bit more, you know, I mean, this is something that we all, I think as producers should, should be learning, should be putting unless you have so much money that you just pay an engineer and you just go to his studio and sit down and drink your champagne and then tell him what you want. Yeah.

[Darran]
I’m totally glad you brought up that part of the production process because the big buzz thing now is, and this has been for a couple of years now though, is AI and AI entering into the market and producers, new producers, or even current producers using AI to maybe generate even the underlying fundamentals of a track and say, okay, I got at least a start here with this. And then I’m going to add onto that or just producing a full AI generated track. You know, what is your take on AI and how do you see that changing the landscape of everything?

[Nima Gorji]
I’ve been watching it. I’ve been watching it. I have some friends, they are creating some, some AI tracks and everything, all kinds of things.

I mean, from disco to rock and roll to, you know that, I mean, however you want it, you can have it. Still, I believe we are in this, I mean, it’s not everybody can do it still. You know what I mean?

It’s not just because you know AI, you can create a piece of music. I think you still, I believe you still have to have some knowledge of music, some knowledge of creating a melody or knowing a type of melody or knowing a type of music to create that. Even on AI, even you go in and write something and then it comes out as a music creation.

So, I mean, I think we can do a lot of creative things with AI. I believe because if I, for example, suddenly need a piece of vocal in my track, I’m doing already production in my little studio and I’m just missing one kind of element that I could quickly bring it out and use it. Still, I have to be creative about it.

You know what I mean? I cannot just like, it’s not a magic just in the air. So, I would use it.

Yeah, definitely. Why not? Because this is something that we can, I need the piece of melody, you know, and I just like, you know what I mean?

And you can create that with AI. Why not? I mean, this is something revolutionary.

[Darran]
Well, even just from an experimental standpoint, I mean, do some people call it cheating? The one word I heard over the last few years going to ADE and talking with people about this was that it doesn’t have soul. And what you’d be missing would be the soul that an artist could put into that.

But as it gets smarter and it learns, I guess, those are the terms, smarter and learn. We’re not talking about Cyberdyne systems here and T-1000 is going to pop up and start DJing on the table, you know.

[Nima Gorji]
I believe it would get there. It would get there. I mean, come on.

I mean, look at what’s happening. It’s like the world is evolving, changing. It’s such a fast pace.

So, no, it would come. It would come. The feelings, the emotions, I mean, it’s already happening.

I don’t know, actually, but I’ve heard some of the music. I mean, you can’t tell at all if it’s a human being is singing or is a, I mean, it’s like, so, you know.

[Darran]
And that’s going to be interesting to see how that all plays out. I work with a company kind of closely right now called Vibe AI, I believe, and what they’ll do, it’s not generating music, but if I say I want a set list in Nima Gordy’s style and they’ll go out there and they’ll scan Beatport and put together a whole track list for me using AI to pull it all in and it’ll be all styles based upon what they think would do. And now I just got to be the DJ and mix those tracks together.

Do they put them in the right order? Do they tell the story the right way? I don’t know all the fundamentals behind that, but at least it’s going to give me those tracks.

I can listen to all those tracks and go, okay, great. Now I got a set that’s going to be based on this style of music at this tempo and this genre and boom, my set selection is done for me now. I don’t have to go out there and look up 50, 80, 100.

I had a producer once in the beginning of our series, this is like 2010, he goes, I spend two to three hours a day looking for new music. And I’m like, and you’re not listening to the whole track. You’re listening to maybe the first 10 minutes, maybe the waveforms and you’re like, what’s this drop?

[Nima Gorji]
Yeah, you just listen to the first seconds and then you go in the middle and then you go to the end. But I mean, it’s like, yeah, I mean, if you can have something comes in, somebody like assistant comes in and selects some bunch of tracks for you and just laid in front of you and this is the 50 tracks you should listen to. And out of that, you can find maybe 10 or 20 of them that you as a human being personally likely.

[Darran]
Well, and that was something that was an internal joke back in the day when, because I always, like I was saying early in the show, I never wanted to be a DJ. All my friends were DJs. All my nightclub promoters that I knew were DJs.

I wanted to be an executive producer. I’m a video guy. I like technology, all that side.

Let me handle that side of the fence. You handle the music production and DJ side of the fence. But the joke was like, if I ever DJed, I would have somebody go out and pick out tracks for me, put them in the order they’re supposed to be in.

And I would come up and I would play that set. And that would be my set. And I would do it in an online live streaming world.

So I wouldn’t have to necessarily read the crowd per se. It’s like I’m in a nightclub trying to drive people to go maybe buy drinks or worry about the aesthetics of the club and all that going on. Because it was just an online set.

[Nima Gorji]
That would make it very, let’s say, it’s like as if you’re a producer, but you’re not a producer because you use a ghost producer.

[Darran]
It was a ghost DJ is what we’re going to call it.

[Nima Gorji]
Basically, it’s a ghost DJing. I would not say that’s not a DJing. That would be just like you’re just playing a selection of music.

It could be a radio.

[Darran]
Which led to me kind of making a fake DJ profile on my website. My DJ name is TheDJ…Sessions. And if you go, it’s like, I’m not a DJ. I just play one on live streams.

I enjoy pressing play of other people pressing play to play their music. And I take credit for their sets that they play. It’s just like a whole facade.

It’s like a joke.

[Nima Gorji]
It is a joke. I mean, sorry to say, but there is a lot of things happening now in the DJ world that I don’t consider DJing. You know what I mean?

So it’s many, many, many new DJs came in with no background. Maybe they have the looks or they have some other guy behind that, like you say, selecting things for them. Even they go on the stage and playing without any cables in the CDJs or in the mixer.

I’ve seen that also. Which is like, what? Is it a DJ playback now?

It was like before we had singers playback, just like singing with a microphone with no cable in it in the 80s and 90s, I remember.

[Darran]
Yeah, I won’t go down that route because I don’t want to alienate anyone from never coming on my show.

[Nima Gorji]
Anyway, I mean, I don’t want to go to, yeah, this is the electronic music politics. We don’t want to go there. Yeah.

[Darran]
If you could take one upcoming producer that really, really you could say, I want to put this producer in the spotlight. If you could choose one, because I know you’ve got a bunch on your label. I don’t want you to get in any trouble here.

But if you could take one producer that you think deserves to be in the spotlight right now, who would that be?

[Nima Gorji]
Oh, that’s so many of them again. Why do people have to always ask to choose one? Because there’s so many good producers out there.

Like I mentioned, one of my favorite producers, because he’s working really hard and working really, really well in the studio, it’s Christian Boccart. Another one I like as a producer is Luciano himself. I think he’s an excellent producer.

He’s an amazing producer. He has so much talent, this guy. I’m still looking up to him.

For example, I mean, Franco Cinelli from Argentina. He’s an amazing producer. So I cannot really tell you one producer only.

I mean, my favorite, Ricardo Villalobos, is one of the most iconic producers I see, because he does things so different than anyone else. So yeah, here you go. I mentioned a few of them.

Choose one.

[Darran]
Yeah. Now, if you could take one non-famous person and put them in the spotlight, other than your friends or family, like somebody who’s really important to you, but non-famous, and put them in the spotlight, who means a lot to you, who would that be? And why would you put that person in the spotlight?

[Nima Gorji]
Well, non-famous ones, I have to mention who I’m working with, actually, now. Actually, what I’m working with is one of the guys from Romania. I told you he’s coming out with an EP on the NG tracks.

I hear his talent. His name is Utip, and he is unknown right now. But he has so much talent, and I hear all his music he’s sending me.

It’s like I’m hearing the production. I’m very impressed about it. That’s why I’m also releasing him.

I’m so we can kind of push this talent up in the scene, and people can hear other music of him. He has other releases on other labels, of course. That’s how I got into his thing.

[Darran]
You know, one of the things that I see a lot of, and this happens in our local market here, not trying to talk bad about it or anything, but the word that comes to mind is legacy. And a lot of older people that have been in the industry for a while hold on to that thing, and they don’t make way for the younger artists, and they don’t nurture the younger artists in a way. And there’s a lot of people, I feel, that kind of flounder to the right.

But now we have YouTube. We have YouTube videos. We have places you can go for more research rather than going to maybe the bookstore and grabbing a book saying how to start a record label or your local library.

You can kind of find out that information much more faster, obviously, online. But it’s nurturing the next generation, I think, is a key point that people need to do. I need to be doing that in my industry.

I don’t want to… I mean, I turn 50 next month. By the time I turn 60, I should have a team of people working underneath me doing what I’m doing and mentoring and coaching them to be the next generation of electronic music reporters, influencers, things of that nature.

So it’s good that you’re still working with those younger people and getting them out there.

[Nima Gorji]
Yes, that’s important. Yeah, of course, it’s important. I mean, somehow I’m happy to have so many different people on the label I’ve been working with.

And before they came on the label, they were probably not… Nobody heard about them or they’re very upcoming artists. And after that, after they came on the label, they suddenly picked up their career and then they come to other labels and so on.

And now they are actually more famous than me, some of them. I can tell you that. So, yeah, but that makes me happy in a way.

That makes me happy and it makes me also proud. And this is how… I mean, I would say my job is, of course, to sort out myself first, but I mean, also to give to the other new talents, younger ones to come up and to be present in the scene.

And yeah, this is something we should all work towards.

[Darran]
If somebody was interested in joining NG Trax, can you give our viewers or insights or listeners insight to what’s the vetting process like for that? Is there an official online vetting process? Do you put that out there when somebody contacts you?

If you meet these parameters, we will consider you or is it, get over here, buddy.

[Nima Gorji]
Yeah, exactly. No, but usually if I meet somebody personally, I mean, they talk about their music and they want to send me something. Of course, I’m always willing to give my contacts and send me music and I listen to it and I give you my feedback.

But I don’t sit down and listen to random email sending me as a demo. This I don’t do because I’ve been doing it for a while, but suddenly I found myself, like we talked about before, I mean, you sit down and listen to so many things that is not really in our street. I prefer to know, if I know, like I find some music somewhere on Bandcamp or something and I really love the production, I can go on myself and ask the guy, do you have any other releases or are you interested to do some release on NG Trax?

I mean, that way I do it, or they approach me on Instagram. It’s like, can I send you a demo? Can I please send you some music to listen to?

Of course, I would do it. I mean, I would listen to it. But the random mails that come into my emails, those are the ones I try to like, okay, maybe I, by hazard, just push on one of them to listen to.

But yeah, it’s not so often I listen.

[Darran]
Understandable there. Going towards more events and shows and things you put on, do you prefer large-scale festivals or would you rather DJ at more intimate club venues?

[Nima Gorji]
I mean, it depends. I mean, I like more intimate clubs, of course. It’s more friendlier, everything.

I mean, but I find myself many times on a bigger stage that I’m quite comfortable. I like it. I like to be for a bigger crowd and I have the music also and I know how to play it.

So it’s like, I wouldn’t mind, but mostly I would say I would like to have the intimate, smaller clubs to have a party. You know what I mean? To have a kind of a, you know, it’s difficult to have a party in a big crowd, let’s say 2,000 people in a big stage.

You can just see some hands flying in the air or something like that, but it’s like you cannot really feel them, you know what I mean? But it is fun to play big parties. It is fun to play big stages when you know how to for two hours just bang it on and then make people, at least you hear them scream.

No, you know, go ahead. But yeah, my favorite, you asked me, it would be the more smaller intimate clubs.

[Darran]
No, I’ve seen a lot of tech writers, spoken to a lot of people in the past and there are DJs or producers, DJs that like to feel their music and like to be where they can touch the audience. They can see the audience, they can see it. And they’ll say, I don’t play venues that are over 500 people, you know?

[Nima Gorji]
No, I mean, I wouldn’t mind to play them, but they’re right. I mean, in a way, I like when the DJ booth is on the floor, same height as the people dancing on the floor. I don’t really particularly like when the DJ booth is on the stage somewhere and you’re like, you have this up distance to the people down there.

It’s like, it already bothers me a little bit. So I’m that kind of, you know.

[Darran]
Yeah, I know. I was talking with Dr. Fresh a little bit last year. I’m familiar with Dr. Fresh and he had done his tour where he put the DJ booth in the middle of the dance floor and then everyone could be around him in the dance floor. Just having that immersive experience, rather than being up on the stage, you know, you want to be in the crowd like, what’s up? What’s up? What’s up?

You know, Dr. Fresh and his energy is just a really favorite, favorite performer, favorite artist of mine. And, you know, being able to see the audience and touch and be around them and what’s going on.

[Nima Gorji]
It’s nice to have this, nice to have this contact with the people, of course, you know, in a smaller, smaller venues. That’s why usually when I come somewhere, when I’m like, it’s a small venue, maybe 300 capacity venue, but they still manage to put a stage on and then put a DJ booth on the stage. It’s like, oh my God, you should have told me.

It’s like, let me do the soundcheck. Maybe I could have told you, just please put it down on the floor. There’s no need to put a stage on somewhere, you know, because I’m a tall person.

I’m 195 meter, which is like, I don’t know how much, yeah, six foot something. And I’m quite tall. So, you know, I don’t need a stage.

I’m half a stage myself.

[Darran]
If you could change one thing that bothers you in the electronic music scene, what would that be? How would you go about it?

[Nima Gorji]
Well, the things that bothers me can be mostly actually on the promoter’s side. I think the promoters are, after all, being a little bit too much into social media, into looking at the followers, how many followers the DJs have. And that results basically on a series of newcomers that has, apparently, they were very good on Instagram and they were very good on building their Instagram pages.

And they have a lot of followers suddenly. And the promoters literally go and take those ones and put them on big stages and showcase them. And I don’t understand that.

And that can actually break my balls a little bit. I was like, why? Why do you do that?

I mean, I saw recently somebody posted and I reposted it myself. It’s like the guy is calling a record label and he sent his music and he sent this very talented guy. And the record label literally saying through the microphone, you could hear, sorry, your music is amazing.

It’s great. We can hear your talent. But we look at your followers and we don’t accept anyone below 50,000 followers on Instagram.

I was like, what is that about? I mean, really? Suddenly, you are just going about only your followers on Instagram, I mean, on social media, which is outrageous for me.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

[Darran]
That is one of the biggest things that I’ve heard out there is that, yeah, it’s people getting bookings. And I have to tell my artists all the time, too. It’s like my resident DJs or even DJs I talk to, it’s like, look, everyone is looking at your socials now.

If you’re not engaged in social media, if you’re not online doing that, you could have the best track in the world. And unless you got a bunch of money to promote it and get it in the hands of the right people to play it, they aren’t even looking at Beatport top tens anymore. They’re not looking at how many times it’s been downloaded or played.

They’re looking at what’s your social media going to be like, because if I’m going to book you, you can push a button saying I’m playing here and that should draw audience. That’s what people are going to look at.

[Nima Gorji]
That’s such a shame. That’s such a shame because you just downgrade totally the whole talent and creativity and someone who’s been who’s passionate about his work or her work. It’s just like it doesn’t make sense.

It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, somebody who’s good at doing social media doesn’t mean he’s an artist. Where is the art?

You understand?

[Darran]
I agree with you 100 percent. I agree with you 100 percent.

[Nima Gorji]
This is one of the big problems we have in the scene now, in the music scene. And this goes down to the, I think, I have to blame all the record labels for the production side and for the event side. I mean, it’s the promoters.

The promoters are literally not enough engaged in to search for the right artist and go with the right artist and with the talents and bring them out and to play and showcase them.

[Darran]
And that’s the fundamental. Yeah, that was the fundamental core of the DJ sessions was to take artists that couldn’t get booked in the clubs locally, get them on the show, put them out on a live stream, put a podcast out there and then submit that. So the world could download that podcast and they’d have an online profile, bio, its own radio show.

You’re familiar with that process. But this would also couple them with bringing artists that came to town into the studio and having them do exclusive mixes. And they could open up for those artists on our show where they would never get that opportunity in a million years playing the politics of the local nightlife scene.

Um, you know, so that was really, um, you know, a key focal point and still is one of our key, key mission statements is to work with unnamed. You don’t have to have 10. You don’t even have to.

Well, OK, you do have to have an Instagram account. You’d have to have a Twitter. You have to be marketable in that sense of you have to have something out there so we can build your profile so you can start gaining followers.

But we don’t put that threshold that said we’re not going to work with you because you’re nobody. Somebody comes to me, I said, well, if you don’t have those, we’ll still bring on board, but you have to go get those and set those up so we can put them on our site. Because who wants, you know, if you don’t have something that people can follow you on, well, you’re a bedroom DJ.

If that’s all you want to be is a bedroom DJ. That’s great. That’s great because they want to entertain others.

[Nima Gorji]
Yeah, but they have to have it. I mean, yeah, that’s true. I mean, that’s fine.

But they have a dream. Also, some of the most of them have that dream to come out, to play somewhere, to release on some good label. And I mean, luckily we are.

I’m not one of those guys. So I’m like one of those guys who goes to to the one that has lowest followers on Instagram because I’m listening to his music. I’m not listening.

I’m not watching his Instagram page. I’m just like I’m more interested in his music. And that’s why I have to listen.

Or if I have to book somebody to one of my events, I mean, it’s like I don’t I don’t really look at that. But but we are talking about proper, let’s say, big events, famous events and those type of things that that we should we should all have kind of they should have they should have look at the new talents and the upcoming talents or the older talents that are still going on, like some of us. You know what I mean?

Like why why not? We have so much to say. We have so much to give, actually, in the way that these Instagram DJs, I call them, don’t have.

I mean, where is your background? Where is your where’s your backbone?

[Darran]
Well, I do see that. And I’m not going to try to call you old school or label it in that way, shape or form. But you’re right.

What you said is key point. A lot of these, you know, seasoned artists are like, I don’t do social media. I’m not on it.

I don’t have time for that. I don’t focus on that. And they’re being looked over.

It’s like, oh, you say you’re so great. How come you don’t have a million followers on Facebook or a million followers on Instagram that, you know, if you’re so great, I can get this hot talent. They got 100000 people.

Well, how do you know those weren’t bought accounts? You know, how do you know those weren’t fake accounts and they’re buying fake engagements and doing all that?

[Nima Gorji]
I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been OK. I mean, you might know better because I’ve been watching some of the some of the pages, I mean, some of the profiles.

And within, let’s say, one year from, let’s say, example, within one year of before was the person had 10000, 15000. And within one year is 150000. I’m like, I’m struggling since years to do this because mine is so organic.

I don’t touch it. I just like just posting whatever I’m doing. And that’s it.

I don’t give it to anyone to work on it or. But I mean, in one year, in 12 months from 15 to 150, I don’t know if that can be that can be organic. I don’t know.

[Darran]
Let’s say, do you remember the movie The Princess Bride? Did you ever see that movie?

[Nima Gorji]
No.

[Darran]
OK, there’s it’s a book that was made in a movie, but maybe some of my viewers will relate to this. I’m going to say this statement here. I know the secrets of the fire swamp.

I know the secrets of when you relate that there was some dangers of the fire swamp in order to get through it because it was a treacherous place. And knowing the secrets of the fire swamp, you could live there and sustain life there, know how to get through it. That’s the same with the social media world there.

I know the tips and tricks. I’ve been accused of those tips and tricks. I’ve had people tell me, you know, there’s no way you could go from here to here and have this many.

And like, look, I know what happened. I can do the same thing to your channel without you knowing. And there’s no way you could stop it from happening.

You know, let’s say a fan. I’m just going to give some point. You have an Instagram handle and a fan instead of donating you.

Twenty dollars wants to go out there and they want to pay twenty dollars to bought your account and add 3,000 followers or 5,000 followers. They can do that and you can’t stop them from doing that. And the only way you could delete, you’d see all those accounts come in.

You’d have to go back and unfollow all those accounts. But how do you know if they’re real accounts or fake accounts and you want to start deleting followers? And somebody could do that and just say, hey, I don’t want to pay a five dollar subscription for your Twitch feed, which you’re only going to get two dollars and fifty cents from if you’re an affiliate with Twitch.

No hate on your Twitch. Your compensation model’s great. Don’t worry about that.

But I’m not going to give you five dollars a month. I’ll pay five dollars a month and I’ll boost your live viewers or I’ll boost your Instagram or I’ll boost your ex account or I’ll boost your Facebook. And I feel good that I’m helping support you by making your numbers inflated.

And there’s no way you can control any of that. There are some kind of ways you might be able to control, but they’re really you can’t. And and like you said, how do you know they got 10,000 to 150?

You’re right. They played a big festival and they’re in front of 25,000 people and all the people are sitting there watching or 30,000 people and they go and they start falling on their mobile device right there. Well, then how do you know they didn’t just pick up 10,000 people from that show?

Or my thought is always the new one is people wear shirts. I got this Mackey logo on the front of me. If DJs wore their QR code on the front of their shirts or their logo behind stage was a QR code instead of their logo, people know what to do with a QR code now.

And it takes them right to their website, follow, follow or their link tree or whatever it is. And they can go or go to their merch store and buy merch or if they have a live mix and they’re playing the tracks, they can go buy those live mixes right through them, through their label or whatever. There’s a lot you can do with technology nowadays.

But you’re right. How do you know what’s fake and what’s real out there?

[Nima Gorji]
I’ve been approached like almost regularly every day, two or three times a day from Instagram, let’s say. I don’t know how to call them. They always offer me all kind of…

I can give you 5,000 new followers. I can give you 3,000 new followers. So basically, and I’m just like always deleting them because I’m like, okay, you want a job, basically.

You want me to hire you. I have to pay something to you and you want to inflate my numbers on my Instagram because you’re offering me that. And it’s like, yeah, I mean, why not if you want to just have some random followers?

But I mean, are they following you because of who you are? Are they following you because of the art you do? I don’t know.

[Darran]
Well, the biggest key factor, I’ll give some insight to anyone out there. Just go ahead. I mean, I know how our followers come in because we promote everything on our website.

People can come in and they can like a post, but they’re probably logged into Instagram on the background. So they could like a post, but maybe they don’t want to go in and comment on it. So we get tons of likes, but we get low engagement because we send people to our website.

We don’t sell people go to our Instagram. We don’t tell people go to these other platforms, go to Facebook, go to Twitter because it’s like putting a video on YouTube. When our video ends on YouTube, nine more videos pop up to other shows they think that viewer is going to watch.

When they click on that video, it takes them away from our page and they’re now on somebody else’s content. And I’m like, wait a second, we host everything on our show. So we say go to the DJsessions.com and that way everyone’s stuck watching on our site, not being bombarded by everything on the other platforms out there. So we get that retention there. But yeah, we could talk about that all day long. I’m going to wrap it up here really quick with you.

A couple of last final questions here. When you’re not entertaining others, what do you do to entertain yourself?

[Nima Gorji]
Oh yeah. Well, that’s a good question. I mean, I do several things.

I mean, I like to have a walk in the nature usually because we are in such a beautiful island. Going out, just like hanging out the whole day and going to some nice places to eat. Otherwise, yeah, I mean, I go out a lot sometimes in the summertime, nighttimes.

I like to go and see friends playing, going to different shows, you know, different. And then I like to, I like a lot when I’m staying home, I’m watching a lot of documentary stuff. I’m watching a lot of things that I’m interested in.

I mean, I’m reading a lot of politics stuff and following with the world, basically.

[Darran]
Yeah. We had some interesting stuff just come up here recently in our, in the States side stuff. Won’t get into too much of the politics and everything going on.

[Nima Gorji]
I know, I know pretty much a lot about that. So I’m quite, it’s kind of a hobby for me. Sometimes my wife, she’s telling me you should have been a journalist because you’re just following with every single kind of, you know, on my ex account, you know, I’m like, I can, I can use a lot of time to, to read about things.

[Darran]
Absolutely. You know, tons of stuff. How, how many clubs are there in Ibiza?

[Nima Gorji]
I mean, this, I mean, the main clubs, let’s say there’s around around eight, 10 clubs. There are some main clubs, like a big clubs. Everybody knows about them.

Smaller clubs, there is not so much, there is maybe three or four.

[Darran]
Okay.

[Nima Gorji]
Oh yeah. We are, we are talking about in general, maybe we are talking about 20 clubs, but then just like full of beach clubs, you know, all the small beach, we call them tringitos and all stuff like that. So it’s, it’s, it’s many venues, but club, club we are talking about it’s maybe eight to 10 and four, five smaller clubs.

Gotcha. So yeah.

[Darran]
I don’t want to get you in trouble with any of the locals there, but what would you say the best restaurant is in Ibiza and what makes them so great?

[Nima Gorji]
Oh, the best, best ones actually. Okay. I tell you, can I tell you numerous ones?

I mean, like a, like a few ones.

[Darran]
I’m a foodie. So if I come there, I want to hit all these places up.

[Nima Gorji]
So there is, there is a good one near my house because I am in Sakhaleta, which is the area, which is quite, quite well known for its nature and, and the walking path and the sea and everything. And, and Sakhaleta restaurant, which is like five minutes from my place, is the most famous iconic restaurant, like a fish restaurant since 1988. So it’s been there since ever, and it’s open all year long and is open every day.

And it’s called Sakhaleta restaurant. It’s a, it’s beautiful restaurant, beautiful spots. You have only the, the sea and the restaurant, and that’s it.

There is no house or anything nearby. And then there is another one. I, one of my favorite ones I go often to, it’s a Argentinian restaurant.

It’s called the Social Point. Social Point is literally Argentinian asado, is grilled. And you have the best meat and you have the best cuisine there.

I mean, it’s like incredible terrace, beautiful place. And it’s quite a nice prices. You know, it’s like a humanly possible because there are a lot of expensive restaurants on this Island.

You know, you just like literally cannot walk in there.

[Darran]
I don’t know if I can change my flight plan. I’m coming over to Germany, Berlin, as I mentioned earlier in the show, pre-show for Rave the Planet. But you know, maybe I can look into changing my ticket.

Maybe I’ll have to come over and stop by and spend some time for my birthday in Ibiza. That’s on my bucket list too. Or I’ll just plan another trip and come out there and spend a whole weekend or come in on a Thursday and work and have a Friday night experience and hopefully a live for Saturday night experience.

[Nima Gorji]
Yeah. But let me know anytime you want to come over. I mean, I can show you around a little bit here.

[Darran]
Yeah, that would be great. You know, I definitely, we can talk after the show about, I would love to do that. It’s kind of our mission statement is to get out more on the ground.

You know, we started that process in 2022 of traveling over to ADE and being on the ground there. Awesome experience, but we definitely want to get out to more cities, more towns and be on the ground. I can do all these virtual interviews all day long.

I want to be on the ground. I want to experience the culture and the food. I want the food.

[Nima Gorji]
Yeah, exactly. But we can do it from here as well. You know what I mean?

[Darran]
Absolutely. We could set up something where we’re doing a live stream. Absolutely.

Very small footprint. We could talk about that after the show. One last question.

A couple of last questions though. If Hollywood were to make a movie about your life, who would you pick as the main actor?

[Nima Gorji]
I would make, there’s a main actor. What’s his name? Jeff Blumenthal?

Jeff Goldblum? Goldblum. Yeah.

Jeff Goldblum. Why Jeff Goldblum? I don’t know because he’s tall.

[Darran]
No, he’s actually one of my favorite actors.

[Nima Gorji]
He’s a very good actor. I like him. I like his style, actually.

[Darran]
Yeah. About 25 years ago, I was sitting around. It’s funny you bring him up.

I was sitting around a room and people were bringing up their favorite actors, late night, after party type thing. They come around and they go, Darran, who’s your favorite actor? I just said, Jeff Goldblum.

They looked at me all weird like, why would you choose Jeff Goldblum? He’s so amazing. How he does his nuances and he can come off as a character.

I just love what he does. Everyone was choosing their top people. I’m like, no, Jeff Goldblum.

[Nima Gorji]
It’s too many top people. I don’t know. Somehow, I resonate myself into my look maybe more because I’m tall and I’m gray hair.

He would suit my character, I think.

[Darran]
Awesome. Well, Nima, is there anything else you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know about before we let you go?

[Nima Gorji]
Well, go on ng-tracks.com and you can follow all the releases there. I try to also focus on my website, ng-tracks.com. It’s easy.

We are doing all our events there, everything there from the label events, ng-tracks bookings, and collaborations, for example, with fan bookings of Chile, which I’m working with also, and everything that is basically concerning my events and my bookings and also the other artists. We have this booking agency called ng-tracks bookings. ng-tracks.com, definitely something everybody should go into.

[Darran]
Best place for people to find out more information about you online, where is that at?

[Nima Gorji]
So, as I said, on Instagram, go on Instagram page, basically NimaGorji72, right there on the screen. There, you can see the link tree with all the information there, and then from there, you can also see ng-tracks Instagram. You can see it, join Instagram, you can see everything.

[Darran]
Awesome. NimaGorji72 on Instagram and the link tree is there. Check them out, find out more information about everything they got going on with ng-tracks, radio shows.

If you want to party in Ibiza, if you want to go eat in Ibiza, place to go. Go watch the episode, go get the names of those places. We’re going to talk about that off camera here a little bit later and we’ll invite you, we’ll have you back on the show, Nima, again in the future.

We always like to stay in contact with the artists that come on the show because I know you’re always up to something new, something going on with all the artists you represent. It’s happening.

[Nima Gorji]
It’ll be cool. One more thing, one more thing. Let me mention one more thing.

Don’t forget the YouTube channel, please, because I’m struggling to get subscribers on YouTube channel. Please go on to YouTube, NimaGorji, subscribe. There is full of music, there are full of sets there from all my radio shows and also my new tracks and everything.

So, NimaGorji YouTube channel, please subscribe.

[Darran]
Awesome, NimaGorji YouTube channel. All right. So, the YouTube channel.

Awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for coming on the show today or evening, I think, over there.

[Nima Gorji]
Thank you for inviting. Yes, it’s getting darker. So, thank you for inviting.

It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

[Darran]
Awesome. Definitely a pleasure to have you on again. It’s been too long.

Have a wonderful evening.

[Nima Gorji]
Okay. Bye. I hope next time you come to Ibiza, we do it from here directly.

[Darran]
You know what? We’re going to talk after that, after the show. Stay on camera with me.

We’ll talk about that. But on that note, don’t forget to go to our website, thedjsessions.com, where you can find all our social media links. Check out our past episodes, over 2,500 episodes, exclusive live interviews, exclusive mixes, over 600 news stories populated to our website that come in from all over the globe, keeping you in touch with what’s happening in the electronic music world.

All of that and more, our virtual reality nightclub, our new app is going to be, our revamped app is going to be re-released, and all that and more at thedjsessions.com. Oh, and get some cool merch. I know I’m repping Mackie because they’re one of our sponsors, but there’s some cool merch on our site as well at thedjsessions.com.

I’m your host, Darran, coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington, and that’s Nima and Georgie coming in from Ibiza, Spain, for the DJ Sessions. And remember, on the DJ Sessions, the music never stops.