It first happened at a media dinner about five years ago. I was sandwiched rather uncomfortably between two older international journalists — one from Amsterdam and one from New York. As we sat watching a slideshow about a dance-music-meets-yoga festival heading to Thailand that following summer, Mr NYC commented that he hoped Carl Cox was playing because he was his “favourite EDM DJ right now”. Heads swivelled and hands were raised to mouths as Mr Amsterdam and I let out a gasp of unadulterated horror. “Carl Cox and EDM?

“We’re not a normal kind of two people coming together.” It’s 2pm on a Tuesday in Brazil at the height of Carnival. Olivia “Liv” NERVO has just woken up to a day’s worth of unread emails, missed text messages and countless social media notifications. 

It sounds like 2018 will be the year of NERVO. Are you aiming for world domination this year? 

What is the label’s driving ethos? 
Liv: “We’re doing our very best not to fit in a box. You know what kind of records are going to come out on Revealed. You know what records are going to come out on Protocol. You know what records are going to come out on Musical Freedom. I hope that Got Me Baby! keeps people guessing and listening and intrigued.”

Speaking of Fallon, you just had your first-ever late-night TV performance in America. How’d it go? 
Liv: “We played on X Factor, but we DJed. [On Fallon], we were singing, we had microphones, we had dance moves.” 
Mim: “And we only found out the day before that we weren’t gonna play behind a DJ booth.” 
Liv: “We thought we were DJing. And we get there and they’re like, ‘Nah, we’re all singing.’ And we’re like, ‘Whaaaaat?!’” 

After Miami, you’re hosting your #NERVONation stage at Tomorrowland over the summer. Any special surprises? 
Liv: “We’re really pushing for a live element, because we always love a live element on our shows. We’re really excited to work with the Tomorrowland crew to build the line-up.”

What is the role of men in all this? 
Mim: “Men have to be gentlemen, as always. A good man is a gentleman. The manners make the man. It’s just up to strong women to teach weaker women, and it’s the people to be taught from young ages what respect is, what boundaries are. It’s horrible that a few men in positions of power have muddied the waters, because there are a lot of good men out there as well. So it shouldn’t be a man-hating decade or year. It should be [about] uplifting women.”