Tiago & Shcuro pres. Scam Dust – The ‘Shine A Light On’ Mix

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Music

When two generations of Lisbon’s underground collide, the result is visceral, raw, and uncompromising.

Scam Dust is Tiago and Shcuro – two artists channelling decades of experience into something that sounds like Detroit techno filtered through Sheffield’s industrial grit with a distinctly Lisbon sensibility.

Tiago, Lux Frágil resident and ‘DJ’s DJ’, returns from a seven-year hiatus from music. Shcuro, Paraíso co-founder of the excellent and scene documenter, breaks free from solo frustration. Living in neighbouring beach towns outside the capital – Parede and Carcavelos – they’ve made Gastric Pulse: saturated acid, industrial-tinged techno, and sonic dirt of the highest order. This is music built for systems, big systems. Music designed to make you move and break shit. Pure punk in electronic form. The title’s a joke about acid music taken literally (see also: “Enzyme Breaks,” “Pepsin Drive”), but the music isn’t playing.

Felt right to ask em for a mix right?

This mix captures their first session together – Bileebob, Conrad Schnitzler via Marcel Dettmann, Plastikman, Jamal Moss. Techno at the margins where things get uncomfortable.
Coffee grains and Pepper X.

Good, let’s go…

You’re both in Lisbon. How did you end up here, and how long before you knew you’d found your people?

Shcuro: I was born in Lisbon and lived here most of my life (except for a few years when I lived in Barcelona and six months in Germany). Tiago moved here many years ago.

Where and how did Scam Dust actually begin? Was it intentional or did it just sort of happen?

Tiago: Scam Dust started out of necessity. Like music in a musician’s life? I was working on some music and immediately thought of Shcuro to help me speak through it.

S: I’m really glad you did. It’s been so much fun working together!

Gastric Pulse is a very visceral title – almost uncomfortable. Where did that phrase come from, and did the music match the title or vice versa?

The music is very visceral yes, and being “acid” we thought, as a joke, to give it a literal sense on the titles.

When you’re in the studio together, who typically brings the idea and who derails it into something weirder?

T: We both agreed on the master plan at the same time I guess.

The EP sits somewhere between club functionality and something more unsettling. Are you testing these tracks out, or are they purely studio experiments?

The bass lines were made with a drum machine, everything here is rhythm, it’s made to make you move and break shit 100%. It’s totally Punk on that sense.

Do you even want them played in clubs, or would that miss the point?

T: Hell yes. They are meant to be heard and danced on a system with other people more than yourself.

S: Keeping it to ourselves would be missing the point.

There’s a rawness to your production – not lo-fi exactly, but unapologetic. Is that resistance to polish a conscious choice, or just how the sound wants to exist?

T: It all comes natural, with minimal choices made. I guess it’s a mirror of our frustration.

Tiago, your background is in sound design and film. Shcuro, you’ve got your solo work. How does Scam Dust differ from what you each do alone?

T: I come from music. Started a band at 10, first live show at 13, first professional DJ gig at 17. I worked as a sound engineer for theatre and film (maybe for 2 years), but I didn’t know much about it; it was a DIY, on-the-spot testing and learning, like djing or playing instruments. I also did other jobs. I stopped making and listening to music for 7 years in a row, and came back to it recently, so Scam Dust comes right on time.

S: Was getting frustrated with the music I was making, so when Tiago asked me and sent some stuff, I got really excited about it. I think the music shows a combination of our styles.

Talk us through this mix – where were your heads at when you made it?

T: Heads on the style, comfortably thinking of you, and very thankfully playing our part.

S: It was the first time we played together, so the starting point was the music we made, and we just went with the flow.

Where should someone be when they listen to this? And what should they definitely not be doing?

T: Anywhere with speakers, NOT listening through EarPods and some sort of direct in your ear shit. Give music air to grow.

S: Somewhere you can play it LOUD.

If this mix were a meal, what would we be eating?

T: Coffee grains.

S: Pepper X.

What animal would this mix be – predator or prey?

T: Definitely Human!

S: 100% agree

What’s the first record that made you feel something you couldn’t quite explain?

T: Sepultura “Arise” on tape, when it came out, after smoking stupidly strong weed.

S: Wu-Tang Clan “Enter The 36 Chambers” on my walkman. Listened to that tape everyday for a year walking to school, and never got tired of it.

First record you bought with your own money versus the last one – what does that say about you?

T: “Some product carry on” Sex Pistols / “Japanese Rhythms” Takeshi Kouzuki. Not much..

S: Jeff Mills “Steampit” / Los Hermanos “Quetzal”. That I love Detroit techno?

What record do you own that you love but have absolutely no idea what to do with?

T: I don’t know how to respond to this one.

S: Same.

Is there a specific track or record that exists as a north star for what Scam Dust is trying to do? Or is that too limiting a way to think about it?

T: Not music per se but ways of dancing it, like starting a pit on the dance floor. Slam, pogo…

S: Starting a riot.

What’s something you’ve been listening to recently that has nothing to do with dance music but is bleeding into your work anyway?

T: Trains, Traffic…

S: Loads of construction work.

The Paraíso release situates you within a specific Lisbon lineage. Do you feel part of a scene, or are you more comfortable on the fringes?

S: Somewhere in between.

Does being “part of something” even interest you?

Part of Lisbon and our small towns where we live, yes.

Lisbon’s changed massively over the last decade – gentrification, tourism, the lot. Has that affected how you make music or think about your place in the city?

T: No.

S: We resist.

Walk us through a typical day when you’re not thinking about music at all.

T: If not thinking, I might be listening to it.

S: Can’t remember a day I didn’t think about music.

What job did you think you’d end up doing when you were younger?

T: My grandfather’s job. Trash man.

S: Surfer.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had, and did it teach you anything useful?

T: Selling stupidly expensive underwear. Nothing learned.

S: Working as a graphic designer for an advertising agency. It taught me to never do that again.

Monday morning – are you genuinely excited about your week, or just pretending?

Still excited.

Are you being paid what you’re worth? That’s not rhetorical – most artists aren’t.

T: Sometimes. There’s a lot at stake here, though. So many different scenarios, right?

S: Don’t know how to measure that. What I do know is that lots of artists are struggling right now.

Who’s the most interesting person you’ve met in the last year who has nothing to do with music?

No one.

You’ve just had a blazing row with your best mate. Do you wait for them to apologise, or do you crack first?

T: I crack.

S: Me too.

Stranded on a desert island with one person – who are you choosing, and how long before things get weird?

T: I don’t know how to respond to this one.

S: Me neither.

Your doctor tells you to exercise more. What are you realistically going to do?

T: Check another Doctor.

S: I’ll think about it.

If you had a working time machine right now, where (or when) would you go, and what are you hoping to find there?

T: I would be right here and destroy that thing.

S: Fuck time machines.

What’s coming up that you’re actually excited about?

This release.

If Scam Dust could score a film – any film, real or imagined – what would it be?

Something from a friend.

Where does Scam Dust go next? More visceral, more cerebral, or somewhere else entirely?

S: I guess we’ll find out soon.

What’s something you wish more people understood about what you do?

We need your full attention.

What question were you hoping we’d ask that we didn’t?

Shall we continue?

Gastric Pulse is available now on Paraiso

Tracklist:

Bileebob – Club Kid Up All Night – Interdimensional Transmissions
Bileebob – Star Cross (Instrumental) – Interdimensional Transmissions
Atom Heart – Little Grey Box – Logistic Records
Jerome Hill – The Prowl – Super Rhythm Trax
Conrad Schnitzler – Das Tier (Marcel Dettmann Edit) – Running Back
Fundamental Knowledge – 1994-3 (Substance Remix) – Seilscheibenpfeiler
Delta Funktionen – Sting Operation – Radio Matrix
Mitchell Goor – The Unfortunate – MRT
Sleezy D. – Trust Track – Partehardy Records
Love Letters – Morse (BMG Mix) – Interdimensional Transmissions
Traxx – Mysterio – Nation
Legowelt – Computerized Paradise – Clone West Coast Series
Unknown Artist – Beat Traxx 1 – Stilove4music
Infiltrator – Something Happened On Dollis Hill – Underground Resistance
Plastikman – Elektrostatik – Plus 8 Records
LFO – Tied Up (Acid Mix) – Warp Records
Liaisons Dangereuses – Peut Etre… Pas – TIS
Al Wootton – Selah – Trule
Christian Bloch – Construct (VC-118A Remix) – Kontakt Records
Goldie – Inner City Life (Frankie Bones NYC 89 Freestyle Dubplate) – self-released
Jamal Moss – The Lust With-IN – Modern Love