Parra for Cuva [live]
If there’s one word that encapsulates Parra for Cuva’s sound it’s “wanderlust”. His music has become known, above all, for a sense of worldliness – a magical terrain where Caribbean steel drum may meet an ancient Zimbabwean instrument over melodic electronic soundscapes that immediately take the mind to far-away places. It’s this sense of openness that the German electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist has cultivated from the start, and even as his skills become evermore refined and his sound more mature, Parra for Cuva’s music retains this starry-eyed quality of wander that’s hard to resist.
Born in 1991, Nicolas Janco has been fascinated by sound since a very young age. His first studio was in his childhood bedroom in Northeim, a small city in Germany, where two rudimentary speakers and a midi piano sat amongst his toys. He started his journey with music with classical piano but his enthusiasm soon took him on forays into hip-hop, jazz, pop and indie. And even upon discovering electronic music, moving to Berlin shortly after to pursue studies and a career as a producer, his journey with different instruments and musical languages was just beginning. In his studio today the diverse display of instruments – from bells to flutes to kalimbas and percussion of all kinds – makes evident just how much Nicolas is an explorer of sound.