For the last few years U-Tern has been putting in work and really building a name for himself in the dance and pop music scene. This year is no different as it’s poised to be a big one as well, having already released an official remix for Britney Spears with production partner Oligee. Recently he took a bit of time out of his busy schedule and talked about his past, present and what’s going down in the foreseeable future.
So let’s start from the beginning. How did you get into music and eventually realize that it was something you wanted to pursue as a career?
I got into music in my mid-teens through the whole skate/hip-hop scene. We used to just skate all day, smoke weed and listen to Wu-Tang and Nas and stuff like that, from that I gained an interest in DJing because I wanted to learn how to scratch, DJ Premier was a huge influence on me. I don’t think I ever consciously thought about pursuing it as a career, I just couldn’t do anything else without being bored to death. Money was never a motivator for me; I just wanted to enjoy my work.
Your roots weren’t always in dance music; you initially were a turntablist and more involved with hip hop as mentioned above.Talk a bit about those days. (ups, downs, experiences)
It was a great learning experience for me, it makes me appreciate being paid to DJ because I didn’t make a dime for years and years, and it was more about being really good technically and having skills or whatever. I would just hermit out for hours practicing and trying to get better. I used to enter battles back then too, I even won a couple, at the time that was the best feeling ever. Back then I had no idea you could get paid to play records in clubs every week, that was a whole different scene I wasn’t aware of.
What made you decide to switch genres and pursue dance music?
It was a natural progression, I was into hip-hop and interested in all the original records that producers used to sample which was mostly funk, soul and disco. I just got bored with hip-hop a little in the early 00′s and dance music seemed more interesting to me. I started getting into the French house/filter house stuff and they were sampling a lot of the same disco/funk records that I was into from the hip-hop days so there was a common thread there.
Cordova – Paradigm
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So your previous experiences in hip hop helped with your development in the dance music genre?
Definitely, back then house music and hip-hop beats were made the same way kind of, samplers and records, maybe a synth or two, just bedroom style production. There are a lot of things that carried over from the hip-hop days, mostly just the hip-hop DIY attitude, like making the most out of what you have. Hip-Hop to me was always about taking all your favorite things from all kinds of music and making it your own, that’s still how I like to approach making music.
On that whole DIY tip, how do your ideas generally formulate when you take on a song? Is there something you hear immediately that you know you can fine tune and/or enhance or does it have to sit with you?
It’s different every time, the Mark Ronson remix for instance was originally a remix/edit that I made for DJing out, I just replayed it and added my own flavor to it, then a friend heard it and told me I should put it out, after that Mark got in touch with me and put it out officially. Usually with remixes I’ll make several versions before I settle on something. The goal with edits is to bring out the best in the original song and make it sonically competitive with modern club tracks, just give it a little extra juice.
Interview by Michelle da Silva (@michdas)
Since the release of her critically lauded sophomore album Wounded Rhymes three months ago, Lykke Li’s life has been non-stop. A one-month jaunt around Europe, and the Swedish singer-songwriter was on our side of the world, performing almost nightly. So it’s no surprise that when I sat down with Lykke Li at Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre just hours before her sold-out show, the singer looked exhausted.
“I just arrived today, and I got super wet, so cold,” she said sort of defeated. “I tried to find a hot meal ’cause I was so cold… and I’m doing laundry right now.”
The petite singer is dressed head to toe in black—hoodie, skinny jeans, and ankle boots—her blonde hair slicked back and tucked into the hood of her sweatshirt. Her arrival in Vancouver marks day 12 of her North American tour, and despite the fact that it’s nearly June, it is—as Lykke Li said—raining and cold.
We’re seated on a faded red brocade couch in the basement of the Vogue. She has just finished her sound check, but hollow sounds continue to vibrate through the theatre’s aged walls. Lykke Li is reserved and timid, her mouth barely cracks a smile. One thing I do notice is her saucer-sized eyes; they’re dark but playful, revealing how young the 25-year-old actually is.
“I think what people don’t understand is that when you live this so-called ‘rockstar life,’ it’s a lot of sacrifices,” she says, reflecting on the tour so far. “You’re in the bus with 14 other people, you have no privacy, wearing the same dirty clothes, you shower every fourth day, there’s nothing for your brain.”
She pauses to sigh.
“You sacrifice a lot in order to do it.”
But the singer seems to truly believe that the sacrifices are well worth it. She says that she likes the magic of being on stage, and that performing Wounded Rhymes has been an easy transition because her band hasn’t changed—just one of the many things that are different this time around, as compared to when she toured Youth Novels three years back.
“Life around me has changed so much, and I feel like I’m heading into deeper territories all the time with the subject change,” she says. “I’m evolving as a person, and I think I’m drawn to different things than I was before.”
Although the 10-track album was written and recorded in sun-drenched Los Angeles over the course of six months, Wounded Rhymes is noticeably darker than Lykke Li’s debut. But according to the singer, this was unintentional.
“I do things through instinct—through lust—so that was what I was feeling at the time, and I only put down what I was going through at the time,” she says. “At the time, I was experiencing some hardships, so I wrote it that way. Then, I wanted to have a very hypnotic sound, to work with layers, so hopefully with each listen, you can find something new, and to have it really alive, that was my only goal.”
When it came to making videos for singles “Get Some,” “I Follow Rivers” and “Sadness is a Blessing,” Lykke Li was as involved in that process as she was in writing and singing the songs.
(more…)
(Image by Sebastian Kim for Interview Magazine)
This was something I meant to have posted way back in February so, I apologize for the tardiness on this. I could list off the many reasons why this is superbly late, but who wants to read about that. Anyway, back to the topic of Luke Rathborne. This past February, I got to have a short chat with him by phone on topics ranging from changing identities to musical inspirations.
Anytime an artist releases new music, the comparisons can be quite daunting, especially if one gets comparisons to someone as talented and prolific as Bob Dylan or John Lennon. That seemed to be the case when Luke was on the cusp of releasing his double EP, Dog Years/I Can Be One (our review can be found here). However, he didn’t really have many thoughts towards these comparisons as he didn’t want to sound like “an asshole.” Returning to the EP, I asked Luke how the writing process and as they were both written at different times, he described them as being “kind of like glimpses into whole records that exist.”
Luke is still quite young and at 22 years old, he’s still searching for that “identity” he moved from Maine to New York to look for. ”People are fascinated by change,” he said. ”The desire and will to keep changing is more important than the change itself.” Though, one thing that remains constant is the enjoyment he gets from looking out into the audience each show he plays. Luke said that “playing music is secretly the most honest and most beautiful form of expression, it is mysterious and yet always innately understood. The fact that we keep our enjoyment so discreet makes it that much more.”
Now, with this small glimpse into Luke Rathborne, hopefully you’ll get the opportunity to listen to his music or see him live. He’s young and talented, and definitely on the rise. Since we talked, he’s toured the UK and he’s played a host of shows in New York. Not only that, but he also opened for The Strokes at this year’s SXSW – pretty stellar, no? Big things are coming for this guy so keep your eyes and ears peeled.
Two Door Cinema Club has been on the rise since their inception back in 2009, granted not everyone may be familiar with the band, but they would recognize their songs as they’ve made appearances in countless commercials and television shows. Personally I remember receiving their EP from Kitsuné back in January of ’09, not giving it much thought I gave it a quick scan and was thoroughly impressed with the initial offering and since then they’ve remained on my radar. Spending the past year or so touring and especially putting in a ton of work in the North American market in support of the album Tourist History, we were lucky enough to get an opportunity to chat with TDCC.
Here’s how that conversation went…
What’s difference between touring North America and the rest of the world
When we first started touring America obviously it’s was not as good as everywhere else for us. But now we’ve been to most places around the world and doing the small shows and building it up slowly, which is something we’ve always been very passionate about doing, starting small in every territory. So I guess there are some places still where we’re not very well known asides from Dublin and London. But we’ve been to some cool places, like our show in Rio for example, it was our first time there and it was just crazy, one of the best shows we’ve ever been to. The crowd there just went nuts.
What’s the music scene like back home, is it much different than say in North America?
Yeah I think we have a really strong music scene, there are loads of bands that we grew up with over here that kinda only did well in Belfast and Ireland. So we were lucky in that we had a lot of extra different bands that the world didn’t know about. I think the trouble is being from Ireland it’s still kind of remote, like it’s still separate from the UK so a lot of bands still don’t get noticed by the industry in London, only if they really move over and do lots of tours in the UK , so it’s real unfortunate that a lot more bands don’t get discovered. With the Internet though, it’s hard for people to ignore the music scene.
Yeah, I’m sure that Vancouver will be excited for you guys though because we have a pretty big indie scene here and we basically love anybody from anywhere.
[laughs] Yeah, we’ve never been to Vancouver, which is ridiculous. I didn’t realize how close it was to Seattle until recently because we’ve been to Seattle a couple of times, but we’ve never made it as far as Vancouver. I always just assumed that it was a lot further away.
So I know Tourist History came out officially last April, but can you give me a bit of background on it?
We formed the band when we were 17 and we started recording the music for that album when we were 19 or 20, so we had a few years to get good first before we came up with those songs. We had about 30 songs in that space of time that we could choose from, I guess that’s the good thing about your first album is that you have so many songs to choose from. We’re super happy with the 10 that made the album, we felt they all could’ve been singles, which is what we really wanted. With the recording, we did it in London with a guy by the name of Elliott James. Then we got the tracks and got had them mixed by Phillipe Zadar. We’re super happy that we got to work with those guys and we wouldn’t change anything about the album.
Yeah, with the amount time that you guys had to create this album, what sort of things were you guys able to take away to apply to the next project?
Yeah, I think it’s good to go into the studio with your songs ready and we weren’t just ready. We had just recorded our demos ourselves in the bedroom. But that was a necessity at that time because we didn’t have much money based on studio time, so whenever we were going in the studio, we had to know exactly where we wanted to go with the songs. I think that’s something we’ll always do because it’s good to get a bearing on your song before someone else does.
Interview by Michelle da Silva
If you aren’t a fan of American Idol, you probably haven’t heard of Anoop Desai. But don’t write this sixth-place winner from Season 8 off as just another forgettable talent from North America’s most-watched singing competition, because Anoop is about to do something major.
This North Carolina native got our attention when he busted out a soulful rendition of Boyz II Men’s “Thank You” during the first round of American Idol auditions. As he advanced to each round, Anoop continued to wow with his mix of R&B and pop choices, singing everything from Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative,” to Eternal’s “Angel of Mine,” to Usher’s “Caught Up,” and even Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors.”
Now, two years after the show chose a winner, Anoop is ready to make a mark on the music world with a trilogy of EPs called Zero. The first record is called Zero.0 and is out now, while the next two will be released over the next six months. A listen to Anoop’s debut single “All Is Fair” and it’s clear that fans of Ne-Yo, Usher, and the likes, will also be swooning for Anoop’s smooth stylings.
SpeakerBoxxx recently got a chance to interview Anoop, asking him about American Idol, what this trilogy of albums is all about, and what it’s like to be a rising R&B star.
Tell us a little about your upcoming trilogy of EPs. Why do three albums over the course of six months?
Anoop Desai: I’m calling it the Zero trilogy because I’m crafting each one to capture the essence of a particular feeling. I might be the only one who understands that feeling since I’m writing the majority of these songs, but I hope others can take that journey with me. I want people to really be invested in this project, spread the word to all their friends, and really make this a successful, organic effort to support good music.
Is each Zero album quite different? How did you divide the songs into each album? Do they tell a linear story?
AD: It’s not really mathematical like that. Each album tells a story, definitely, but you have to feel it and see it in your mind. I couldn’t write a narrative for you.
Your sound seems to be a little bit R&B, a little bit pop, a little bit soul, and hey, even a little bit dance. How would you best describe your music?
AD: Cohesive. Even though I experiment a little bit on Zero.0, I think listeners can still grasp the most important thing to me: a sense of melody.
Diamond Rings is literally as cool as ice (and by ice I mean the kind that rappers rap about, the diamond kind that glitters…a lot). I had the chance to briefly speak with him a little while ago right before his epic Vancouver show. It was refreshing speaking to someone who really doesn’t care what people think because at the end of the day, what people think doesn’t define him: he defines himself and being himself makes him happy and creative, and in turn, brings us fans some rockin’ electro-pop ear candy.
Hi! How are ya? How’s the tour going?
Diamond Rings: Amazing, having a good time. I’m with PS I Love You. It’s great.
What’s it like being on tour all the time, city to city, culture to culture?
Diamond Rings: It’s kind of like being in the circus. I don’t know. It’s so many things. There are so many responsibilities every day. It’s a really big balancing act but it’s fun.
What’s the most important thing you get out of touring?
Diamond Rings: Probably just the feeling of being able to express myself fully and honestly every night to a room of people who want to see me be me. That’s the reward at the end of the day.
On the subject of you getting to be you every night, how would you describe yourself and your music and what do you think attracts your fans?
Diamond Rings: People are attracted to seeing something exciting, different, and unique but also something that is real. I guess realness is an ambiguous term, you can’t really explain. Some people just have it and are able to express themselves that way.
Not going to lie…I didn’t know who Anya Marina was until recently. Well actually, I did. I had heard her music but didn’t know it was her’s. After scoping her out on MySpace and doing some research, it became apparent that though we may not recognize her name, you’ve probably heard her music via Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy, or the Twilight Saga: New Moon. I got the chance to talk to her the other day about having her music on said shows, her latest release, and the importance of staying grounded in the music industry.
First things first, do you ever get a break? From the looks of it, you guys are touring every day!
Anya Marina: Yeah, today is our one day off! It’s pretty crazy. I thought I would have lots of time to myself but you find that while on a bus with so many people it’s fun and you actually develop this pack mentality where you all sort of move together or you have this unspoken language if someone needs alone time.
Despite the fun, are you craving being back home, having alone time?
Anya Marina: I’m looking forward to getting back home and finishing a couple mixes for my full length album, I was almost done before this tour came along. I’m really enjoying myself on the road. It takes a few days to get into tour mode but once you get used to it you think, I always want to be touring. Then when you get home and have been there for a few days you think, I want to stay home!
Download: Anya Marina “Whatever You Like” T.I. Cover
So let’s talk about your music. Can you tell me about your album?
Anya Marina: It came out of a lot of feverish writing that started about a year and a half ago. I wrote about 35 songs and paired it down to 12. Once I paired it down I realized that the themes that were coming through were about moving, transition, drugs, and the darker places in America and life. It’s a little bit darker than the last album but I’m really proud of it because I stretched my song writing muscles. It’s also name after Felony Flats, which is an inner city neighborhood in Portland where I live.
If you’ve yet to hear of Painted Face, you’re not alone, but all that is about to change. With her incredible vocals mixed with vibrant music, it won’t be long until everyone will fall in love with Allie aka Painted Face. Having played in previous bands, one of them later being Telepathe, she’s now embarking on a solo journey to do what she’s always felt was her calling. Lucky for us folks on the West Coast, she’s recently kicked off a tour, check the dates below and check out the interview we did we with her.
Her EP Undreamt is available now for only $5.00, cop it here.
Let’s start with your name, Painted Face. What’s the meaning behind it and how was it thought of?
Painted Face: I saw the words “Painted Face” written on the back of a tarot card. I had been looking for a name that I could use as a moniker and it was both personal and abstract so it seemed good for solo project. It’s also really visual, it has a lot of possible meanings.
For people that haven’t heard your music yet, how would you describe your sound?
Painted Face: I would say it’s spacey synth pop. It’s kind of dark kind of serene and very melodic.
When did you start playing your first instrument or figure out that this is what you wanted to do?
Painted Face: I grew playing music and dancing, but I don’t know that I realized it was a necessity to me like food and water until after college.
So what was it after college that you made realize that this was you and that you had to pursue this path?
Painted Face: I think I just couldn’t deny the creative part of me that wanted to create all the time. I have a lot of interests, technology and fashion are among them, but music is not negotiable. it’s just a part of me.
