The London-via-Bilbao DJ marks 15 years of Cartulis with two hours of punchy techno and electro, recorded live at FOLD.

When you think of London label and party Cartulis, dark, muscular electro and tough tech house spring to mind. But the name is more revealing than it first appears: in founder Unai Trotti's native Bilbao dialect, cartulis translates to "nerd." Like any labour of love, the project is driven by a deep, obsessive dedication, centred around sound, mood and community.

Recorded at Cartulis' 15th anniversary party this autumn, RA.1017 captures why Trotti is such a compelling DJ. Playing only vinyl, he has a deft ability to balance functional club pressure with more leftfield selections, and as he outlines in his Q&A below, it comes from a belief in creative limitation, committing to a finite set of records and trusting instinct over abundance.

Across the two hours, there are plenty of big, physical tracks built for the dance floor, but also some genuinely strange, confrontational stretches. Around the 15-minute mark, church bells ring out as a gothic female vocal looms overhead—David Lynch, if he needed an electro soundtrack. It's the kind of material you only hear at parties where dancers feel truly at ease, unafraid of the weird. That's Cartulis.

@unai-trotti

@cartulisday

Read more at ra.co/podcast/1036