Eli Escobar interview – “It’s about looking back on the good and the bad, the wondrous and strange”
One Louder
“I feel like being a middle-aged DJ is kind of amazing…”
It’s late evening in New York when Eli Escobar sits down via Zoom to talk about the release of his new Love Louder album — a project created alongside friend and longtime collaborator Nomi Ruiz.
“You can play music in a way that’s so much deeper than when you’re like twenty-five, because you’ve got so much more to talk about. More of a story to tell.”
At home in Brooklyn, with his children’s artwork on the walls and ‘NY’ printed on both his T-shirt and baseball cap, he reflects on his storied journey through the city’s club scene — and through life more generally.
“The other night I was playing my Sunday outdoor party and I just got overcome with a lot of different feelings. I was thinking a lot about friends that I’ve lost, and through certain songs that I played, it triggered memories of different times. It can become a very emotional thing — and I don’t remember feeling that so much when I was twenty-five and just trying to kill it, you know?”
Eli has been a force in New York’s subterranean music scene for decades. A DJ and producer with deep roots in the city’s nightlife, he came up during the 1990s and has carved a creative path that reflects his knowledge of club history, his instinct for where things are at, and where they’re headed.
He’s seen plenty of change while navigating the city’s ever-evolving dance scene. Now running a Brooklyn-based nightclub of his own, he appears buoyant when discussing the lay of the land.
“The club scene is phenomenal right now. New York definitely goes through changes, and there have been times when nightlife has taken a hit. But right now is not one of those times. There’s so much variety for everybody. So many different kinds of clubs. And we have a really enthusiastic generation of clubbers — but it’s people of all ages, not just the young kids. So we’ve got a really healthy scene.”
For someone who has experienced many of the subcultural shifts that have taken root in New York’s post-disco club landscape, it would be easy to lean into nostalgia. But Eli is quick to debunk the notion that things were better in the so-called halcyon days.
“I know it’s very easy to succumb to a ‘back in the day was better’ perspective once you hit a certain age. It’s understandable — your priorities change, your life changes, and you start to feel as if certain things have been taken away. You tend to look back on them fondly. And then somehow, the wiring in your brain creates this narrative of ‘things were better’. And it’s like — no, they were just better for you.”
Life’s changes, a profound connection with New York, and the shadow of loss permeate Love Louder — a record shaped by a period of shared reflection for its two creators. With a bittersweet undercurrent, the collection nods to the 80s and 90s while keeping a forward-facing focus.
Eli Escobar and Nomi Ruiz have a collaborative history that stretches back 15 years. Both Puerto Rican, raised in New York and intrinsically linked with the city’s musical community, the new album marks the duo’s segue into a more defined songwriting project.
Eli first discovered Nomi through her work with Hercules & Love Affair, counting himself a fervent admirer of the band’s first record. Around the time of its release, Eli was working on music for the Plant Music label run by his close friend Stretch Armstrong — a legendary figure in New York’s DJ scene. It was Stretch who first connected the two.
“I guess he knew her, or knew her manager. He was just trying to make things happen for me — like, ‘Let’s link you with a singer’. Because at the time, I had done some instrumental releases, just deep house kind of things. And we were like, let’s step it up and actually try to get a song with some vocals on it.”
“And we clicked right away.”
It proved a natural fit. The duo quickly put together their first project — the 2011 track ‘Desire’ on Plant Music — before collaborating on a number of releases, including a 2013 cover of Boy George’s ‘Somebody to Love Me’ on Nervous Records, and 2015’s ‘Shadow Dancer’ as part of Ruiz’s Jessica 6 project.
“She just kept coming back to projects of mine, contributing a song or three songs or four songs to the albums I was doing. We work really easily together — there’s a natural chemistry. And also, we’re good friends, we like hanging out. So once we did that first song together, it was just a constant collaboration ever since.”
While working on Love Louder, Eli and Nomi were hit with the loss of a close friend — James Dewitt, aka DJ BluJemz — a key figure in both their lives and a founding member of Eli’s long-running party, Night People. More than just party comrades, the trio shared a deep love for their hometown and a commitment to shaping its cultural fabric.
Echoing with a reflective, sometimes melancholic tone, Ruiz’s lyrical contributions on the record touch on grief and change, particularly on songs like ‘Go Be Gone’, where she reflects on the challenge of holding on to a city and a world in constant flux.
Shaped by the artists’ shared connection to New York and the people they’ve lost along the way, the LP is tangibly rooted in a sense of place.
“Also, it’s about looking back on the good and the bad, the wondrous and strange — just all the different things that happen in life.”
Eli was raised in a creative household, with a violinist mother and a visual artist father who “played congas in a group with my mum.” Music was always around, thanks in part to his mum’s expansive vinyl collection.
He started digging for records at a young age, drawn first to the hip-hop wave swelling around him in 1980s New York. By high school in the 90s, he was immersed in the city’s nightlife and naturally gravitated towards DJing.
“It seemed like my destiny, I guess. I felt very drawn to that.”
He cut his teeth at parties and soon began experimenting with music production. By the mid-90s, he was producing and playing clubs around downtown New York.
“By the later part of the 90s, I was playing out like five nights a week sometimes — just really, really grinding.”
After years of DJing at revered underground events, playing worldwide shows, and releasing music on labels including Classic, Phonica, Razor-N-Tape and his own Night People imprint, Eli has established himself as a pillar of the global dance community.
Fervent about the DJ craft, Eli takes a much more relaxed approach to production, only spending time in the studio when inspiration strikes.
“I love DJing, I’m fanatical about it. It consumes me.”
“I’m constantly putting together playlists, planning, finding songs, making edits. I’m really obsessive. But music production — if I don’t feel inspired, I just won’t do it. I could go six months without even considering turning anything on. Then I could have a week where I make like two albums’ worth of material.”
Eli combines this ad hoc production drive with a come-what-may attitude.
“I just sort of do whatever feels natural.”
“I have a sort of disregard for any intention behind my music. Like during the pandemic, for some reason I made three beat tapes that were basically rap beats. And I had no plan. I wasn’t like, ‘I’m going to reconnect with my love for hip hop.’ I just did it because it felt appropriate at the time.”
True to form, Love Louder unfolded intuitively — a reflection of shared moods and shifting instincts, an album of fully formed songs that allowed Eli to revel in his role as producer.
“I felt very enabled to write. I could actually step back because I knew [Nomi] was going to add so much. Like, sometimes when you’re making a track, you programme a little drum beat, then a melody, and you’re like ‘alright, that’s nice — what do I add now?’ But with this, I was like, ‘this is the melody — now I can send it to her and she can decorate it and make it beautiful’. It was kind of a liberating experience as a producer.”
In 2023, Eli further enhanced his status as an NYC nightlife protagonist when he opened his own club, Gabriela, alongside a childhood friend. The idea was conceived during the pandemic, born out of lockdown-induced dancefloor longing.
“We were just like, ‘it would be an amazing time to open a club’. You know the energy’s going to be there. It was just fantasising about something that wasn’t really possible. So there’s a nice little spirit behind it, as far as that goes.”
They were careful to consider Brooklyn’s existing club landscape.
“Instead of just opening another club that was competing, we thought about what we could do that was different. And we felt like a smaller, intimate place that almost felt like a house party vibe would be really cool.”
“It ended up becoming this place where there are so many regulars you see all the time — a really nice group of people who are always coming back. And I think you can feel it when you go there.”
Eli explains that the club has retained the same staff since opening, helping to create a warm atmosphere and a strong sense of familiarity. In terms of curation, he personally books all the DJs, with a small group of residents ensuring the focus stays on consistently great music, not lineups.
“I kind of wanted it to be like — look, there can be a place where people just want to go because they know the music will be good. They don’t need to check RA or see the set times.”
The club features a compact dancefloor, a mezzanine and a front room.
“So you have options,” says Eli. “And we also wanted the dancefloor room to have the best sound system anyone’s ever heard in New York.”
“It’s like a Frankenstein system,” he grins, explaining that it’s based around vintage Gary Stewart Audio speakers.
“They’re sort of elusive. There was one club across the street from my apartment — called Love — that had them. I remember it had the best sound.”
“So we were able to get our hands on these speakers, and then we supplemented them with a bunch of other retro subs, midrange, and low subs. And then our sound person made his own tweeters to hang at the top. So it’s a mix of different things.”
The system’s analogue makeup wasn’t driven by a preference for vintage gear, but by a simple desire to achieve the best sound possible.
“None of it was done out of any ethos. I would’ve been happy to go digital, too. I don’t care — as long as it sounds amazing.”