Beijing's premiere dance music promoters, BaiCai, are bringing back the booking of their dreams to Tango on May 31. Loco Dice will once again grace Beijing's aficionadoes of house music with his soulful, rhythmic sound. In the first of a two-part interview series, Dice got candid with CW's Rachel Simhon about his reflections on the Beijing scene, the tricky question of musical genre, and his ideas on the creative process.

• What do you think about the music scene in Beijing? Why did you decide to come back so soon after your fist visit last year? Were you surprised at how receptive the crowd was to your sound?

The gig last year was absolutely perfect. The guys from BaiCai just took such amazing care of me, and the club atmosphere was definitely a pleasant surprise. I'd played in Shanghai just before Beijing, and couldn't believe how different the two cities were. I felt like I had played to an audience of foreign tourists in Shanghai, but when I arrived in Beijing it was great for me to watch a mostly Chinese crowd really enjoying the show. As a performer, my priority is to be able to connect with the local audience with my music whenever I travel to a new place.

• Maybe you've heard, but the Beijing media is fond of saying that your gig last year really started the "minimal" craze here in the city.

(Laughs) Really? What happened?

• Yeah, apparently minimal techno and house weren't so popular beforehand, but now it's really the hottest marketing tool in terms of party promotion.

Wow, I really have no idea why that was. Maybe I was just lucky, or in the right place at the right time. First of all, I don't think my sound is very minimal at all. I mean, the gig last year certainly had elements of that, but I feel like I really went all over the place when I was there.

• I definitely agree with that. I feel like your sound is a bit too deep and funky to be called minimal, but then again, I've wasted enough time arguing with people about definitions of genre. But I think the bigger issue is that the minimal sound has really been around for well over a decade within electronic dance music, and that talking about it too much as a trend is just going to create a backlash for the artists who are making it.

Exactly! I'm so glad you mentioned that. I think that whatever you want to define as minimal is starting to boom on a mainstream level, so the press likes to take a hold of it in this way that you were talking about -- they just need some sort of marketing gimmick. I think that as musicians we're all just tying to move forward. I want to be creative and do something different.

The job of the DJ is staying on a hunt for fresher and more interesting sounds and music. We're responsible for the music that the audiences hear, so if we simply continue playing the same exact stuff or copying what someone else is doing because the media has labelled it hot, we're not doing anything to promote innovation as artists. What I liked the most about the audience in Beijing was that they seemed to have such an open-minded attitude to whatever I played. It really made me optimistic about the potential that the city has for becoming a huge global scene.

• To change the subject, I'm curious about your personal background. Where does the name Loco Dice come from?

Well, people have been calling me Dice since I was a little kid. I used to be obsessed with rolling around and playing with all of my uncles' dice when they were playing backgammon and other board games, so the name has kind of stuck even after all these years. Then the Loco bit...that started happening in Ibiza a few years back, because all the Spanish people down there used to tell me all the time that I was crazy (laughs).

• Did the guys from BaiCai tell you that the Chinese crowd at Tango, the club at which you have the gig here, is really into playing dice games at the tables?

No way! That's amazing -- I totally can't wait to see it. Do you think that I'd be able to get some of the dice that they use?

• I'm sure that BaiCai will find you some if you ask them (laughs). But to change the subject, you've collaborated with a few really huge names, both in the studio and on the decks. What qualities in other artists make them appealing to you as someone with whom to work? What have been the best expereinces you've had working with others?

Well, working with Martin [Buttrich, co-founder of Desolat and long-term production partner] in the studio is always great for me because he really understands how I'm feeling when we put our heads together to produce music. It's not so easy to find someone else with whom you share the same sorts of ideas in terms of creative vision.

Luciano is an incredible partner on the decks because when I'm spinning with him, I feel like both of us just leave our egos behind in order to transmit whatever energy we're feeling toward the crowd, like we're playing this totally fun game with each other and the audience at the party is just watching and listening to the process as if it were a kind of spectator sport.

• So then what do you enjoy more: being in the studio, or performing on tour?

(Sighs) I think it's really important to have a balance of studio and tour time. I definitely can't do either if I'm not completely inspired, especially going into production. It's really a 50/50 thing. I'm always traveling to new places, so that really gives me the opportunity to take in a new environment and audience. I try to observe that and all of the emotions that come from it, then after that I can really put my thoughts and feelings on the experience together during my time in the studio.

Don't miss next week's second installment of our great interview with Loco Dice at www.cityweekend.com.cn