Riva Starr and Close Counters bring their respective approaches together on ‘Push Your Luck’, a four-track collaboration released through Heist Recordings.
Photo credit: The lead image for this feature is a digital photo illustration created using generative AI, based on original press photography
Italian DJ and producer Riva Starr, also known as Stefano Miele, has been releasing music since 2007, following earlier work in the breakbeat scene during the early 2000s. Across his career, his productions have remained connected to house music while moving through experimental and left-field ideas.
Close Counters approach electronic music from a jazz-rooted and live-performance perspective, bringing harmonies, chord progressions, basslines, keys, percussion, and vocals into their productions. On ‘Push Your Luck’, that approach meets Riva Starr’s experience with house music and the dancefloor.
The project also features vocalist Andre Espeut on two of its original tracks. In this conversation, Riva Starr and Close Counters discuss their studio chemistry, live instrumentation, Espeut’s contribution, the role of Heist Recordings, and the possibilities of continuing the collaboration.
EG: Hi Riva and Close Counters, welcome to Electronic Groove. It’s great to have you with us. How have you both been, and what have the past few months looked like for you?
Riva Starr: Hello! Great to chat with you guys. Summer has been particularly wild for me, especially considering I’d actually planned to slow down on touring and focus more on my studio projects. Instead, I ended up playing across the States, Australia, all over Europe, and Ibiza! I can’t complain though; it’s been a lot of fun, and also a great opportunity to test some of the new music I’ve been working on.
Close Counters: We have been great, thank you! The last few months have been super busy for us, with lots of work on new songs but also playing shows in the UK/Europe, Australia, and for the first time in Asia, which has been super special.
EG: You’ve now arrived at ‘Push Your Luck’, but this collaboration brings together artists with quite different backgrounds and ways of approaching music. When you look back at how the project developed, what do you think made the chemistry between you work so naturally?
Riva Starr: We’d already done a few sessions together, so we had a chance to get to know each other through some more instrumental tunes, which actually worked really well in the club. From there, it felt pretty natural to try something with vocals. After the experience of making my latest album, I’ve become more and more interested in incorporating proper songs into my productions, so it was a real pleasure to do that with the band. They really understand the dynamics between songwriting and the dancefloor, and I think that’s what made the whole process feel so natural.
Close Counters: Riva Starr is an absolute legend of the scene. We’ve been lucky enough to jam together so much over the last few years that it’s easy to forget that, but every time we drop a track, mates from back in Melbourne and Tassie hit us up like, “Wait, what?! How did that happen?!”
Riva brings decades of expertise from destroying dancefloors worldwide on the DJ circuit. Coming from a jazz background, we brought in the harmonies, chord progressions, and basslines from that lineage, making it a really sweet marriage of our two sounds.
EG: There’s a particularly strong sense of musicianship throughout the EP, with live percussion, keys, vocals, and plenty of movement within the arrangements. How important was it to preserve that human element while still making records that function instinctively on a dancefloor?
Riva Starr: That was really the idea behind the collaboration. I’ve always worked with musicians throughout my life, I started out as a dubmaster in bands, so I’ve never really been a purist when it comes to making music. Coming from Naples, I naturally have that cross-pollination mindset, where different sounds, influences, and approaches can coexist. For me, it’s about keeping that human element while making sure the music still connects on the dancefloor. Working with Close Counters has been a real pleasure because they have that same open-minded approach.
Close Counters: That’s definitely something we keep in mind, especially since we love performing as a full live band. One of our previous collabs, ‘Jinga’, has been on high rotation at our festival gigs this year. It’s a high-tempo mix of Brazilian samba and house that translates amazingly well to a live setup, mostly because it’s driven by this huge, energetic piano motif.
EG: Riva, you’ve spent much of your career moving between house music, experimentation, and more left-field ideas without losing your connection to the club. What was it like stepping into a collaboration where the musical conversation was so heavily informed by jazz and live instrumentation?
Riva Starr: As I mentioned before, the band really understands how to bring those two worlds together, real instrumentation and the dancefloor, and they trusted me enough to find the right balance between them in the studio. We both had a lot of trust in each other when it came to the different elements, and I think that’s ultimately what makes a collaboration work. You need to feel comfortable enough to experiment, challenge each other and let the music take its own direction.
“We really enjoy the chemistry and the process, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time you hear us working together”
EG: Close Counters, your work has always blurred the boundaries between jazz, funk, soul, and electronic music. Did working alongside Riva change the way you approached any of those elements, particularly when thinking about how they translate into a house context?
Close Counters: Definitely, Riva has a fine touch and a great understanding of house music architecture. Songs like ‘Push Your Luck’ are particularly stripped back for our productions, which is thanks to the confidence of Riva’s direction.
EG: Andre Espeut appears on two of the original tracks, adding another distinct vocal dimension to the EP. How did that part of the collaboration come together, and what did Andre bring to the records that helped shape their final identity?
Riva Starr: The band suggested Andre when we were looking for the right voice for these couple of new beats we’d produced. It’s been such a pleasant surprise getting to know him, not only because of his incredible skills in the studio, but also because he’s got such a beautiful soul. We really clicked from the very beginning; it was a vibe at first sight, and I think that connection really comes through in the records.
Close Counters: We actually met Andre at Brick Lane Jazz Festival last year when he was singing right after us with Afriquoi. We were huge fans, and it turned out the feeling was mutual! Around that time, he was also working with our friend Aroop Roy on ‘Let Me In’, where we got to witness his power in the vocal booth firsthand. We invited him to lay down some ideas on the tracks we’d been working on with Riva, and he absolutely crushed it—coming up with toplines that gave the songs a super clear direction and structure.
EG: The EP moves through four tracks that each have their own character, with ‘Scat Dub’ in particular taking things somewhere looser and more playful. Was there a deliberate intention to give the project that breadth, or did the different personalities of the tracks emerge naturally during the process?
Riva Starr: We wanted to make it feel almost like a mini-album, showcasing the 360 degrees of our world, so it made sense to give each track its own personality. We wanted an instrumental tune like ‘Gearbox’, as well as a DJ dub version of the lead track that could work on those darker, more heads-down dancefloors. We also really loved that little scat part Andre did, so we decided to expand on it and turn it into a proper version. In the end, the breadth of the EP came quite naturally from wanting to show all these different sides of the collaboration.
EG: There’s always an interesting point in a collaboration where you have to decide which ideas to pursue and which ones to leave behind. How did you handle that creative dialogue between you, and were there any moments where one of you pushed the others somewhere unexpected?
Riva Starr: That’s 100% the magic of a good collaboration, just like a great DJ B2B in the club. You push each other into unexpected territories, and that’s exactly what kept happening in the studio. Someone would bring an idea, someone else would twist it in a completely different direction, and suddenly you’d end up somewhere you hadn’t planned to go. I know there’s a lot of talk about AI and the future of music production, but I’m pretty confident that the magic of putting different sensibilities, experiences, and personalities in a room together will be very hard to replace.
“You push each other into unexpected territories, and that’s exactly what kept happening in the studio”
EG: Heist Recordings feels like a very fitting home for this EP, given the label’s long-standing relationship with groove, soul, jazz, and the more musical side of house. What was it about Heist that made you want to bring ‘Push Your Luck’ there?
Riva Starr: I’ve been a long-time fan of both the label and Dam Swindle, so doing a collaboration with them has been on my wishlist for a while. I actually started the relationship with a track for their 100th release, ‘Take Up The Space’, featuring the amazing and thoughtful lyrics from Ziyon. So when we started working on this EP with the band, it felt like a natural fit to approach Heist. We reached out with the project, and at the time it just seemed tailor-made for the label’s ethos and sound. Thankfully, they felt the same way!
EG: Having now experienced what can happen when your respective musical languages meet, do you feel there’s more territory here that you’d like to explore together?
Riva Starr: Absolutely! We already have more things in the works. We’re pretty super-productive whenever we get together in the studio; we can easily lay down two or three solid ideas in a session, so there’s definitely more to come. We really enjoy the chemistry and the process, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time you hear us working together.
Close Counters: Absolutely, there’s a bunch of other demos we’ve created in our time writing together, so who knows what’s next! For now, we’ll continue having all the releases we’ve put out so far as staples of our DJ set.
EG: Thank you so much for your time. We wish you all the best with ‘Push Your Luck’ and everything ahead. Take care!
Riva Starr: Thanks guys!
Close Counters: Thank you so much, been a pleasure chatting!
Riva Starr and Close Counters’ ‘Push Your Luck’ is out now via Heist Recordings. Stream and download your copy here.
Follow Riva Starr: Spotify | SoundCloud | Instagram
Follow Close Counters: Spotify | SoundCloud | Instagram