By Martyn Pepperell

Resurrected from a set of previously thought-lost session files from the late 2010s, Ten Days In San Antonio is the first collaborative album from two friends from different sides of the globe, Surly (New Zealand) and MoonDoctoR (USA). Over ten dynamic club tracks, they imagine a neon-tinged late-night synthesis of the regional sounds of Chicago footwork and UK garage where euphoric rave stabs, laidback g-funk whistle synths, and perfectly placed hip-hop vocal chops float across rumbling bass and syncopated machine beats. Landing in a high-tech dancefloor interzone, the results are something neither of them could have envisioned alone. 

Like a stoner buddy comedy, the backstory behind Ten Days In San Antonio began during a two-hour Texas car drive from Austin to San Antonio after the two producer-DJs played a show together during Surly's 2017 world tour. After being introduced through their mutual friend Jae Drago, one of the founders of the Juke Bounce Werk DJ collective, Surly and MoonDoctoR spent the next ten days hanging out while writing and recording together at MoonDoctoR’s Freshmoon home studio in San Antonio.

Afterwards, Surly flew to Chicago, where he played their soulful footwork collaboration ‘The Friends’ while DJing a dance battle. On the strength of the audience reaction, Surly flew back to San Antonio to spend another ten days at Freshmoon with MoonDoctoR’s family, and their friends DJ Earl and Aggy (both of whom feature on Ten Days In San Antonio). “It was a packed house,” MoonDoctoR reflects. “We were smoking, kicking it hard, and the music was becoming a byproduct of us hanging out. There was a super creative flow happening during that time.” 

Following Surly’s second trip to San Antonio, life got hectic for all involved. After misplacing the session files, completing the project slipped into the too-hard basket. If it wasn't for recent music technology developments, which allowed them to begin remastering and polishing bounced demos into finished tracks, it could have very easily stayed there as well. 

Six years after they started working on it, they’re finally ready to share their collaborative work with the world. For MoonDoctoR, releasing the album is also his way of paying homage to his late brother, J. Mundaca, a talented artist and musician who played a key role in his music career and also spent some very memorable days in the studio with them while they were recording Ten Days In San Antonio.