“Flow” is a scientifically recognized state of mind where a person is completely focused and immersed in what they’re doing- All time seems to stop, the whole world seems to disappear, and the person is performing and creating at their peak levels. Top performance athletes, engineers, and especially your favorite music artists all try to do whatever they can to achieve the State of Flow. Although everyone has their own method to achieve “flow”, factors such as creative workspaces, learning beyond their craft, physical/mental well-being, feedback/self-evaluation on work, and resting time- help all artists create their best work.

As a self-taught artist, D-Unity‘s journey has always centered around creating quality music that is extensive and long-lasting. His “quality over quantity” mindset has led him towards becoming one of the world’s most prolific and acclaimed producers within the scene of electronic dance music. As of late, he is proud to present his upcoming 4-track EP Every Little Problem from Christian Smith‘s acclaimed label Tronic. This production is tight with quality elements, with each track featuring heavy tribal drums and powerfully uplifting vocals from the Colombian rising star Juli Aristy. This energetic and tribal groover EP is now available for pre-order and will release fully on November 18th, 2022.

 

How D-Unity Sets Up a Creative Inducing Workspace

To be honest, I don’t really have a specific place where I like to produce. I always like to get into making music while traveling as it keeps my creative mind-flow fresh. Although, whenever I am inspired I prefer to change locations once in a while, but I have nothing against just doing it straight from home on my laptop. Once the inspiration hits, it is all about the current creative state I am in — once I catch it, I try to ride it for as long as I can!

 

How D-Unity Challenges His Mind And Constantly Learn Outside of Music

In order to keep my mind healthy in between gigs, I always try to get out of the house every day, whether through exercise or long walks/runs. In my case, it really calms me down and lets me re-evaluate things about
music, life choices… everything! I could say that it really straightens me out in a way. While producing, getting away from the studio every couple of hours is a must — especially when I am stuck within my creative process either working on a loop, drum pattern, or trying to find that perfect breakdown.

 

Premiere: D-Unity “Every Little Problem” EP – Tronic

 

Throughout the years, I have learned to balance myself out and apply strict discipline throughout my daily routine. Discipline is one of the most important traits anyone could have. Motivation comes and goes, it’s not like I wake up every morning and feel “happy” all the time. I got my good days and bad days just like everyone else, but I feel like once you apply discipline throughout your daily routine, you start creating habits that lead to you being systematic at what you do.

 

How D-Unity Maintains Positive Thinking And Mental Well Being

Just recently, I had a very intense 6-month tour, and it really got to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love being away from home being on tour, frequent traveling became a part of my life years ago — but after so many sleepless nights, partying, not eating right, and exercising right over a period of time, things can really get to you. This break felt a little different than just getting away from gigs for a few days…it felt different and much bigger than that.

It is quite understandable that as DJs we need breaks once in a while after a heavy tour, but this one felt a bit different, and, when I say I needed a break…. I really needed a BREAK — not one week, a month, not two months. It was very difficult to put a specific time stamp on the current situation I was in.

I really felt like I wanted to get away completely from gigging, from production, from everything that had to do with music, which felt really “out of the box” in my life at the moment. In the beginning of this phase, I told myself that when it felt “right” in my mind again, I would come back and get right back on track… and that’s when the scary part came in…haha because it felt like it was never going to come back.

Now, looking back at it, I think I was going through a bit of a burnout stage. It felt a bit scary at times, as I literally felt like not doing any music at all, and every time I would go back to the studio it felt like I was forcing myself to produce because “this is what I was supposed to do as a Producer / DJ”. I was also accompanied by weird thoughts and constantly thinking of how “fake” this industry really is. I took occasional gigs here and there but was not really focusing on them, and even behind the decks, something felt “off” inside me — it felt different and much less exciting than usual.

In order to overcome this, I had to get away and reset my way of thinking, not just about music but my life’s purpose in general — I had to really dig deep inside my head and get to the core of the beginning of my musical journey, get in harmony with my surroundings, limit social media which really contributed to my negative thinking, and think about why I chose to do what I do in the first place. Things got really deep at times… let me tell ya lol.

After a while, I decided to take a break from gigs and focus strictly on production and the style that got me into producing in the first place, which was a more tribal/ethnic-influenced style of my productions from years ago. I tried to stay away from all the trendy influential techno everyone was making at the time, and try to make something that strictly came from my soul, something that strictly represented “D-Unity”. And then after expanding with different ideas, I caught my next wave — by wave, I mean my next inspirational wave where I would literally bang out 5-hour bombs one after another (and trust me, this doesn’t happen a lot for me nowadays). I told myself I’m not going to stop until that wave would eventually pass (and based on any real producers way of thinking, you will know when that wave comes and goes)

I was able to knock off about 10 tracks in the past few weeks and I was never more happy with the creative process. After finishing all these tracks, I felt “ready” again — I felt like my mind and life balance were in the right place at the right time. Things aligned just right for me once again. Once I felt like I was happy with the outcome, I decided to send the tracks over to Christian Smith — he loved them and decided to sign 5 tracks right away for a 4-track exclusive Tronic EP and a 1 compilation track as well.

During this time I was also able to finish an up-and-coming remix for Joeski as well as two Unity Records EPs coming out end of the year. I am currently expecting a 5-month tour in South/Central America and the USA kicking off at the end of October, and I have never felt more ready than NOW!

 

How D-Unity Lets Himself Rest And Not Over Work

You have no idea how big of a role “sleep” plays in your well-being — it is one of the basic human necessities, but imagine if your “sleep time” is constantly being taken away from you…you eventually become burned out. In terms of your thoughts and thinking, you start to observe how negatively your brain and body react to it.

We are all trying to show our “perfect lives” on Instagram, Facebook, and social media but we never show the “shitty” gigs, the missed flights, the crappy airport food, and trying to catch up on sleep whenever we can due to many connecting flights. It all takes a toll on your mental well-being and body — sometimes it can really affect your personal and business life in a huge way.

For example — I can’t think of how many days I wanted to be with my family during the Christmas season, birthdays, or other important life events… and instead, I spent my time all alone in a hotel room by myself before a gig or catching my next connecting flight to another city. Like I said, it’s not all the amazing posts you see on social media — you have to be strongminded and know what you are sacrificing in your life moving forward — don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, I wouldn’t trade it for any other career in my life, but I also feel like a lot of the process and life on socials is purely faked to get you more likes, followers, and “status” that in reality, nobody gives a fuck about — and that’s the real deal. I don’t care how many gigs or followers you got… this shit will eventually hit you…one way or another, and you better learn how to deal with it.

 

How D-Unity Got Into the State of Flow for His Newest EP with Tronic

As I mentioned earlier, I felt like I really needed to get back to my roots on this one which was a more tribal and Organic/Raw techno sound. I wasn’t thinking about making it for a specific label, I felt like whatever I was making I was purely making it for myself and the sounds I love the most.

For every track, I started off with a more natural drum pattern alongside some layered bongo loops giving it a more South American/African style flavor which worked great alongside those heavy techno kicks and groovy baselines. Again, this is a personal style — not everyone can relate, but to be honest I couldn’t care less about what other DJs or producers thought about it. At that time, it felt as if all I was doing, in terms of my production process, came from my own perception of “my ideal sound” not following any trends and keeping it very organic and true to myself.

In terms of my production process, I tried to “re-introduce” myself — taking breaks when I needed to and to re-align myself to make my creative process constantly fresh.

I could not have been happier with the result! Hope you guys love the EP as much as I do! You can hear the preview of the EP exclusively on 6AM.

Thanks for having me!

Connect with D-Unity: SoundCloud丨Facebook丨Twitter丨Beatport丨Instagram