The Nicolas Sales Interview

Scrolling through the endless Instagram feed, you know the drill: @rap, AI cats rapping Luh Twan, dill.cheese likes, and so on and so forth. You know just keeping the rap economy afloat. Every other blue moon though, the algorithm lines up. That's how i met @nicosurreal.

Nicolas Sales is making experimental electronic music, often a blend of digitally pioneered subgenre's of underground hiip-hop and techno music, respectively. Nico isn't riding waves. He’s the true, one-man operation: producing his own, mixing, mastering, and laying down vocals. Going steady at 20k monthly and having rare collabs with underground heavyweights like 645AR and KirbLaGoop, he’s quietly reshaping the modern grind. We’re tapping in with Nico to see what keeps the hustle moving.

Underising: You mentioned being based in Berlin. What's the underground scene like there? Would your music be the same if you were stagnant? I notice you move around a lot.

Nicolas Sales: So I moved to Berlin in 2018 to study audio engineering, graduated in 2020 and just decided to stay lol. I lived in Berlin for 6 years, and during that time I tried to integrate as much as I could, eventually learning German and even passing as German lmao.

The longer I stayed in Berlin the more I let it change and mold me as I realized how much stuff I'd been missing out on and how much weirder my art could be. I was hugely influenced by rave / party culture, and the underground events and people at them that took me in like I was one of them.

I went from making lo-fi hip-hop and emo rap (cringe) to developing my sound and falling in love with experimental electronic music and IDM. I realized that merging genres you wouldn’t associate with each other normally is the way to go, and that’s the source of a lot of inspo these days for me.

Underising: Being a one man band, that's talent. How do you do what you gotta do in the stu without getting stuck in a loop? You're releasing man, and I know work and personal can't mix. As an entrepreneur, you gotta have that line right? What drives you bro.

Nicolas Sales: Good question! I have managed to intertwine my creative and personal life well enough, although there has been strain in the past. Because I work from home, and “home” changes so often because I travel, backpack and even couch surf often, I’ve kind of learned to adapt to wherever I am and I’m able to get creative pretty quickly anywhere. Producing, mixing and mastering my own music (and even doin the videos, visual and cover art, etc. myself) has become almost the only way I can do this shit, because I don’t end up depending on anyone else to go from raw idea to finished release. I still try and bounce ideas off of close friends, day ones and my girlfriend as often as I can to avoid working in an echo chamber. One of the things that drives me is that feeling after I finish a song and just play it on repeat for like half an hour, imagining what the visuals for it could be and (because I tend to work pretty quickly) letting the track simmer and inspire me.

Underising: That's awesome. In your case, when did you first start seeing traction on your music? That echo chamber you mention, did you ever feel like you were just throwing stuff in a void until your music finally took off?

Nicolas Sales: My lo-fi stuff started to take off around 2016-2017, as I managed to get tracks into some of those big user-made “beats to study and relax to” playlists on Spotify. Eventually I started to feel comfortable singing on my own beats because I realized sending beats to rappers and them not quite doing what I hoped they would on their verse was annoying, so I said fuck it imma sing / rap on these myself.

I worked as a dishwasher in a food co-op in high school (2015-2017) to save money for my first mic, interface, midi keyboard etc. and I still use the same mic today (10 years later). Pretty soon I started to make better and better music and eventually (around 2018) a rising AMV page on YouTube reached out and asked if they could feature some of my songs on their channel. That quickly started to get more traction and attention on my non-instrumental / lo-fi work, and there is where it all started I’d say.

Underising: That was a good call honestly. At some point you realized you were good and you didn't box yourself in. It's just natural talent. But there a reason you're detaching from reality. It's all at a cost. Speak of the devil, Yeah your latest song is a trance dude. "Forces Old And Ignored", Eso que significa para ti we?

Nicolas Sales: Appreciate it man! Yeah it’s one of my favorite releases as of recent. That song is about the things we once feared, respected and coexisted with, things that have been lost to time and modernity, like connection to the land, nature, and certain spirits or forces that influenced entire cultures, shaped the way we saw and interfaced with the world around us. TL;DR, pagan / heathen gods, dark energies around us that we projected on thousands of years ago, that may lay dormant waiting for our awakening—for the veil to lift.

And also I made that instrumental and immediately thought “I’m not selling this one, I’m not dropping it as it is, I’m keeping it and recording on it, it’s too fire” lmao. That’s my usual process. I make beats and the coolest ones I end up keeping for myself.

Underising: As you should. I can't even imagine anyone else taking that much care and attention to detail with it.-I'm all about being in tune with one's self though, I believe that energy radiates. That's literally what Underising is about. We’re all born with the ability to rise, and many take detours, others lack the motive, you clearly found yours.

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