How important is it to have themes beyond just the musical – a vision, an image, a sense of touching a concept that you then build a soundtrack for or channel the production process through. PHACE: It’s critical for us, and as far as we’re concerned – visual goes hand in hand with audio so we try and draw inspiration from any form of art or media. Whether it be a great film or a stunning piece of architecture, there’s so much feeling you can pull from it and redirect into our own projects. We love conceptual things – taking an idea, developing a framework around it and working within that structure to thread offshoot ideas together and fill out a new picture. We don’t really just sit down and jam – we like to have a firm idea – a tangible end in mind to avoid getting lost! MISANTHROP: It really is critical. Less so at the beginning when we would just work a vibe, but now, we really sit down before starting a track and decide our thematic focus. And as Florian said – the inspiration could be anything – say something as normal
as a sports car – you’re then looking for noises with a sense of a revving motor – for acceleration, sharp braking, clean curves – whether it be heavily researched sampling or heading into the synth envelopes with an idea. And the visual concept runs through all our stuff – we try to put out a video with every track because it just creates a holistic piece rather than having the visuals abstracted through the music. Which is great too!!
How much is building a soundscape rather than say laying a leadline on top of a fat bassline at the core of what you do. PHACE: Ambience is key – setting a vibe – setting a mood. We both respond to similar emotions and moods, so rather than hammer out where our common ground is, it happens organically, and the knobs just click naturally into a place that we’re both feeling. Soundscaping is very much what we do and what a lot of people recognize our music for - a cinematic ambience with a very individual sense of soul. And music needs a