The Aztec Mystic “Knights of the Jaguar”
The birth of our underground brand, Factory 93, not only brought on an adrenaline rush reminiscent of the renegade warehouse-era of raving—on which Insomniac was founded—but it also had us thinking back to all the people, places and parties that made this whole operation possible. With that came a burning desire to crack open our collection and dust off the classic records we couldn’t live without. Through our From the Crate series, we’re breaking out seminal and obscure cuts alike, imparting some knowledge in the process.
Almost 18 years since “Knights of the Jaguar” was released, the song could masquerade as something brand-new, and that’s not just because of the renewed interest in productions from the ‘90s. The calling card of Rolando Ray Rocha—then known as the Aztec Mystic and now as DJ Rolando—is timeless, urgent and vital. It’s still one of the most recognized and successful songs in the lengthy discography of Detroit’s crucial and honest techno label Underground Resistance. And it still always ends way, way too soon.
A Mexican-American from Southwest Detroit, Rolando joined UR as a DJ in 1994 and started producing music in 1996 with the encouragement of label founder Mad Mike Banks; he released his first single as the Aztec Mystic on the label the following year. Infusing techno with Latin percussive styles made him stand out and eventually boil over, beyond the 313 area code.
“My father was a musician in a Mexican band, so it’s in my genes, really,” he told XLR8R in 2011. “If I go back home to a wedding or to parties or whatever, it’s always there. In a way, it’s my secret little weapon as a producer.”
And that weapon—authentic soul and heritage—is sharp. In a fickle and disposable world of dance music singles, 1999’s “Knights of the Jaguar” was a lengthy hit among a wide variety of top DJs. Imagine the unicorn-level rarity of stars like Jeff Mills (who deeply influenced Rolando) and Paul Oakenfold rinsing the same track at their gigs. The song seemed to pump on forever, to the delight of international dancefloors—and biters wanted in on the action. Before the end of that year, UR caught wind of an inferior copycat version called “Jaguar,” which Sony Germany was blatantly promoting without permission in order to undercut UR’s sales and eat off the track.
UR was eventually able to prevent the official release of the janky bootleg “Jaguar” (though French DJ Sébastien Léger dropped a paltry rip-off version in 2008). But the signal that the German theft sent to the music industry was loud and clear: A major label felt it had the right to steal from and stomp on an independent label in order to make money. It wasn’t the first time such a swindle has been attempted, and it surely wasn’t the last, but it stands as one of the more blatant examples in dance music history before the social media era.
Chasing the dragon of “Jaguar” wasn’t easy. Rolando admitted to XLR8R that he found it “daunting” to follow up. “People think that you need to do another ‘Jaguar,’ you need to do just as well or better or the same thing,” he said, “but I didn’t and don’t want a bunch of my records sounding the same.”
Rolando relocated to Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2004 and continues to actively work as a DJ throughout Europe. He set up his own label, R3 Roland Rocha Records, in 2014. Listen to his current mixes and releases (as well as a rare mix from the Aztec Mystic) on his SoundCloud page.
