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Willaris. K at Shangri-La

Willaris. K at Shangri-La

Photo: courtesy of artist

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Record Store Recs: Willaris. K record-store-recs-willaris-k-finds-experimental-beats-melbourne

Record Store Recs: Willaris. K Finds The Experimental Beats In Melbourne

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For the latest Record Store Recs, the Aussie left-field producer gives us a look into some of the alternative electronic/ambient music that inspires him to produce as well as some great spots to find these sorts of records in his home of Melbourne
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Aug 20, 2020 - 6:18 pm

With the unprecedented global disruption of 2020, it's important to support the music community however we can. With our series Record Store Recs, GRAMMY.com checks in with vinyl-loving artists to learn more about their favorite record stores and the gems they've found there.

Australian ambient house/techno DJ/producer Willaris. K (born Jack McAllister) has a sound that is ever-morphing and hard to define, but is firmly planted in the electronic underground. With his unrelenting four-track EP Full Noise, dropped in July on dance giant Astralwerks, he brought a speaker-rattling warehouse party straight to our living rooms.

The banger was already his second EP of 2020, preceded by LUSTRE, a moody six-track journey moving through deep house, ambient, experimental electronica and more. Both come just two years since he made waves in the Melbourne electronic scene and beyond with his 2018 debut album, Alchemy.

In June, he delivered a trippy, clubby remix of (GRAMMY-winnner) Flume and Toro y Moi's huge (it was featured in an Apple Air Pods ad!) single, "The Difference," adding more grooves into the fellow Aussie's already textured, colorful production.

Today, "Chapel," the driving Full Noise track (written in Rick Rubin's famous Shangri-La studios) featuring Virginia rapper/sound designer WaveIQ, gets the remix treatment from GRAMMY-nominated German industrial house DJ/producer/master remixer Boys Noize. That living room rave just got louder.

For the latest Record Store Recs, McAllister gives us a look into some of the alternative electronic/ambient music that inspires him to produce, as well as some great spots to find these sorts of records in his home of Melbourne.

The Last Record Store Recs: Chicago House Hero Marshall Jefferson On Representation In Dance Music

Please pick three to five records stores you love.

Skydiver in Melbourne, Aus. 

Hub 301 in Melbourne

Plug Seven Records in Melbourne

Why do you love these shops and what kind of goodies have you found there?

All three shops are within walking distance from my house in Melbourne which is a bonus. Unfortunately, with the current lockdown in Victoria, I think they're all closed but doing online orders. At these stores, I've found inspiring music I'd never heard before, especially ambient stuff, which I find always makes me want to make music.

GRAMMYs

Modern Bliss by Roza Terenzi

More Ambient Gems: Record Store Recs: Öona Dahl Tells Us Her Favorite Places To Find Vinyl In L.A. And Berlin

For at least one of your favorite shops, share a recent record or two (or more!) you bought there, and what you love about the record/artist.

I'm currently not at my house in Melbourne due to the lockdown so I don't have access to my records, but my most recent purchase was Modern Bliss by [Australian producer] Roza Terenzi [2020] which is amazing. Really tight production and an interesting approach to dance music. Also Yeo-Neun by [experimental South Korean cellist/composer] Okkyung Lee [2020] is a special ambient record that I bought a few months back. It's one of those that inspires me to want to make music.

What's an upcoming/recent release you have your eyes on picking up & why?

I'm keen to hear the new Rival Consoles' album [Articulation, released July 31]. His production and songwriting are always so unique. 

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More Record Store Recs: Simón Mejía Of Bomba Estéreo Takes Us To Colombia

When crate-digging, how do you pick out records? For example, is it the cover that grabs you, or do you shop for specific artists?

With music being so readily available in 2020, I'm usually looking for things I haven't heard before because it's a small pocket that exists where you can't get it anywhere else sometimes.

GRAMMY U’s “Music & Activism: Enacting Real Change” Envisions Industry’s Equitable Future

Bearcubs

Bearcubs

Photo: Jacob Lindell

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Bearcubs On 'Early Hours,' Berlin & Art For Change bearcubs-talks-early-hours-berlin-art-platform-change-scoring-his-first-film

Bearcubs Talks 'Early Hours,' Berlin, Art As A Platform For Change & Scoring His First Film

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The British singer/producer also talks how about discovering Flying Lotus inspired him to produce electronic music, writing "Everyplace Is Life" on a train and the biggest thing he's learned during quarantine
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Aug 7, 2020 - 12:39 pm

Laid back, curious and easy to chat with, U.K.-born, Berlin-based electro-chill artist Bearcubs, a.k.a. Jack Ritchie, embodies the relaxed, bubbly music he makes. Growing up playing drums, piano and guitar, he started producing chillwave-leaning electronic tracks in his final year of college in 2012, posting them to SoundCloud during that golden age of bedroom producers.

His second EP, 2017's Underwaterfall, featured steel drums, water drips and enchanting moody soundscapes and saw major outlets comparing him to James Blake and Jamie XX. Not long after, in 2018, he moved from his longtime home of London to Berlin, released his debut album, Ultraviolet, and scored his first film.

This May, while quarantining in Berlin, Ritchie released his sophomore album, Early Hours, 10 tracks of effervescent, cloud-watching daydreams inspired by memories from his final months in London and first year in Berlin.

Bearcubs · Early Hours

Watch: James Blake On 'Assume Form' Collabs: "A Dream Come True" | GRAMMY Museum

GRAMMY.com caught up with the British artist to chat about his latest album, moving to Berlin, scoring for film and learning to limit screen time during quarantine. Ritchie also shares how discovering Flying Lotus in college inspired him to produce electronic music, how he believes art as a major platform for social change and more.

You recently released your sophomore album, Early Hours. How are you feeling about sharing this project, and what was your main goal with it?

I'm pretty excited to share it, to be honest. Before I put these three singles out, I hadn't really released any of my music in about over a year and a half. So I took quite a long pause between previous projects and this one, just because I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do. And I did a film score, which took up a big chunk of time. I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do musically. Also, when I moved to Berlin, it was a bit of a growing point in my life, because I was living in London for years before then and was leaving some of my friends and family behind.

I wanted to use the album a bit to sum up my past three or four years living in London and the experiences I had there, going out and working in pubs and living with a bunch of mates from home. All of this stuff, I just wanted to get this feeling into the album. Maybe a little bit nostalgic, yeah. I didn't want to go into that too much because I think you can overindulge nostalgia. It's a kind of bridge between my life in London a few years ago and then moving to Berlin and meeting new people and getting to terms with that whole situation.

That's so cool. When did you move to Berlin?

It was just about two years ago now, August of 2018.

Do you like Berlin?

It feels like home now. I love it. It's such a chill place to live. I was coming here on holiday and I realized I was coming here more and more often. It was every six months, then every three months, then every few weeks, and then it was like, "I might as well just live here." For me, it's got such a chill and kind of impossible feeling. And there's lots of interesting creative stuff going on. It's quite a 24-hour city. All of those kinds of things made me want to be here.

A Film Scoring Legend: Legendary GRAMMY-Winning Film Composer Ennio Morricone Has Died At 91

Last year, you scored the German film Relativity. How was the creative process for that project different than with Bearcubs, and is scoring something you'd like to do more of?

I was a bit nervous actually, because I've never done a film score before. But it was one of those things I just couldn't say no to it because it was too much of an opportunity. And it was a real challenge, but it was a lot of fun, because I'm used to working within I guess what you'd call a pop writing structure, with five-minute songs. To work with a film score, I had to think about things in terms of 15, 20 minutes and moments happening in the music—things have to become intense and then the music has to fade into the background and not interfere.

It was definitely a different process. The way I started most of the music for the score was I got a rough cut of the film and then I just sat with the piano and watched some of the main scenes. I sketched out the idea of what the mood would be on the piano and tried to get some of the timing right. And I had a lot of contact with the director, Mariko Minoguchi. It was basically a collaboration with me and her because it was her first film as well, so I was like her baby. And I think she entrusted me to make the music because she thought I could do something a bit different and interesting with it as opposed to going with a hardcore experienced composer.

When I went to Munich, she took me through a lot of the story and broke down what she wanted the motives of the characters to be and stuff. I made a lot of music that I sent to them where they were like, "No, that's not quite right." We did a lot of back and forth until we got to a good place. It was really fun to do.

How do you feel like moving to Berlin has influenced your art and/or creative process?

Well, it definitely just gave me a bit of time—for some reason, here compared to London, it feels a bit more relaxed and less hustle-y. Even though it's good to hustle sometimes because it drives you to do you stuff, in Berlin, I feel like there's a little less competition and it's more like people boosting each other up, like a community thing. I've definitely been influenced by that, as well as by the people who I've met.

I've met a lot of really cool, interesting artists here. One of the first collaborations I did when I got here was with a producer and a friend of mine, narou. Literally the first stuff we did, we ended up making "Overthinking," which was the first single on my new album. So yeah, I've done collaborations with people here and the vibe of the city and the people I've met have influenced me.

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I feel like being in a new place can really do that. How long did you live in London? Or is that where you grew up?

I feel like I've always lived in London even though I didn't, because my hometown is just above London, about 20 minutes away. It's a smaller town called St Albans. It's quite a nice place. Growing up, I was always going into London, and later I lived in various places in London, for about six years in East London and Tottenham. I mean, I love London, but I felt like it was time for a change. I wanted to mix it up a bit. Especially since coming here to Berlin, I've felt new surroundings is always good for creativity and giving you new ideas.

You shared that you wrote the lyrics for one of the lead singles, "Everyplace is Life," while on a train in the U.K. Can you tell us more about that moment that inspired the song, as well as the creative journey that led to the finished product?

I often do this thing of making loads of notes in my phone. Sometimes it's just a word, literally, or I see a book title and I write that down, or a little stupid poem or something like that. I kind of use it as my little second brain that I can go back to. For "Everyplace is Life," I think it was a couple of summers back, I was on the train down to Brighton to play the Great Escape festival. And I don't know, it was just one of those days when you're in a really [good mood] and everything's just wonderful.

It was kind of that. I was in a good mood, and it was that thing when you're on public transport and you look around and you see everyone else—sometimes you forget that everyone else has got their own life, and there's all these stories. And you're like, "I wonder where that person's going. I wonder what they're doing." And you kind of imagine these stories about everyone's lives. It is kind of about that, about those little moments in life. And about slowing down and appreciating little moments, whether they're good or bad at the time, they're all kind of meaningful.

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I love that. You said you wrote the lyrics a few years ago, right? And then when did you pick it up and create the beat and the melody?

Yeah. I can't remember exactly [when I revisited it]. I think it was maybe six months ago. I don't quite know what made me do it, but I was like, "Oh, I've got a song that I wrote a while back. I still haven't used it." And I remembered the feeling when I wrote the lyrics and just started from that and started making the beat and the chords. My influence for the track was the Little Dragon song "Ritual Union." I've never heard a track before that's very constant all throughout. The beat keeps going and it's very driving and repetitive, and I wanted to make a song like that, that kept going and didn't really stop. "Everyplace is Life" is me trying to do that, because the beat and everything is relentless through, and then the lyrics are the thing on the top that give the changes and make it interesting.

And then for the album overall, about how long was the process?

Yeah, it was maybe spread across a period of a couple of years, but I'd say in total it was probably only seven months of doing it. I wrote a couple of the tracks a couple of years ago, "Everyplace is Life" and "Diversions." And then I moved to Berlin and spent six months doing the soundtrack, so that took up all my time. After that, as I'd had a while off from making my music, I desperately needed to make something.

Basically, the whole of the rest of the album came in about a period of a few months. It came in a flurry. After that, it was choosing the tracks and refining them, and all of the boring technical stuff at the end. But yeah, it wasn't actually very long. It all came together at the end. I was just looking back at stuff over the past few years, and mixing that with the experiences I've had sincemoving to Berlin.

You launched the Early Hours podcast this year. What is your vision for it and what did it feel like to step out of your "comfort zone," like you said when you shared it, in that way?

Yeah, it was definitely something out of the box for me. I'd never done anything like that before, so it was a nice thing to do. Whenever I do something that I'm a little bit nervous of doing or I wouldn't usually do, I always feel like I get something more out of it. Once we started, it felt really easy. Especially because I was with narou and another friend James Hersey, who's a singer and also based in Berlin. It was kind of like hanging out with your mates, talking about music, which is kind of what I wanted the vibe of the podcast to be. 

I think in the future, I want to make it a bit more centered around having a record player in the middle of the room and everyone brings in a vinyl. When I was at uni, I had a record player and I'd go to the record shop with my housemate and we'd buy a record and then put it on and drink a cup of tea and listen to a whole vinyl. And just look at the front and back covers and the lyrics on the inner sleeve. I feel like that's kind of lost from streaming stuff online. That's my future vision for the podcast. It's kind of something which enables you to slow down and listen to music and chat about it in a relaxed way. Who knows what's going to happen with it, we'll see.

Related: Flying Lotus On The "Eternal Flame" Of 'Flamagra,' Making Fire With David Lynch & Learning From Solange

When did you first start making music? And at what point did you think it was something that you wanted to do professionally?

I mean, I've kind of been making music most of my life. I started pretty young playing drums, at seven. And then piano and guitar, and in my teenage years, I was in quite a lot of bands. I played guitar in a funk band and I was in a '90s hip-hop band playing bass. I played in some hardcore punk bands as well. I didn't really get into electronic stuff until I was at university, because I did digital music and sound arts. I got introduced to electronic music by people who were in my course and I was going to university with.

That opened my mind up to electronic and dance music, because don't think I really respected it fully before. I was always into hip-hop and some electronic stuff like Prodigy and bands like that, but I was never really fully into it. But when I heard some of these producers, especially the early beat scene people like Flying Lotus, the way they make their beats, you can't tell what's going on. You're like, "How on earth have they made this?" I think that's what made me want to start producing. Now I've become a bit more jaded I guess, because I know how things are made and I've got my producer's ear a bit more, but if I don't know how some things were made, that really excites me.

I started putting stuff up on SoundCloud and getting a bit of a following, somehow. I got a paid remix, and I was like, "Oh my God. Someone's paying me to make music." That's what made me think, "Oh, I could do this professionally as well." So I started devoting more and more time to it. Before then, I might have made one song every six months, and now I'm trying to make one song every day almost.

I always love hearing about the evolution of the music that someone is into. When you started university, what did you envision you would be doing at the end of it?

I don't think I really knew. I kind of went to university for the sake of it. I didn't know what to do. I was into music, but I was also not really sure what I wanted to do musically. When I was 17, I wanted to be a guitarist. But after uni, I kind of stopped playing guitar and was way more focused on electronic stuff. I think I was just exploring and figuring things out. And then when I did start making more electronic stuff and when I started the Bearcubs project, then I felt like I had more of a goal of like, "Okay, this can go forward and can go somewhere."

Who was the first remix you did for?

It was a weird indie duo from the U.K. Their label got in contact with me and asked, "Do you want to do a remix?" And I was like, "Yeah, definitely."

And it was because of the music that you had put out yourself on SoundCloud?

Yeah, exactly. It was just people finding me through my SoundCloud stuff, which I was amazed about, like, "How have you found me?"

Do you remember when you put your first song up on SoundCloud?

It would have been 2012, the year I was leaving university. Yeah, it was kind of dumb, I only really got into electronic music when I was leaving the electronic music course. That's the way it was. It was a track called "Measures," I think, and it had a "Breaking Bad" sample in it. I hadn't even watched the show, but there was this awesome vocal sample where he's like, "You either take a half measure or you go the whole way," or something like that. I guess it was like chill wave. I was listening to stuff like Toro y Moi and Flying Lotus and Baths.

Read: J. Ivy Talks Making Music For Social Change, Leading With Love & The Importance Of Supporting Black Artists

What do you feel like is the biggest thing you've learned about yourself during quarantine?

That's quite a good one. I think I was getting way too much screen time before. I realized I was waking up, looking at my phone, then having breakfast, then working on my laptop all day, while looking at my phone in between when I was taking breaks on my lunch. Then having dinner and going back on my phone, and watching Netflix or films and stuff. So I'd literally spend my whole day on a screen. I don't know why quarantine taught me that, but I think it's because I was indoors so much that it just became more realistic to be [on] the screen so much.

Now I have a policy where I don't check my phone until like 10 or 11 in the morning, once I've got up and done everything. I've been trying to look at my phone less and read more and not be on the computer as much.

How do you think music and art can bring about social change?

I think the power of music and other art forms is that it can sum up a mood of a time or generation in such a subtle but precise way. It's such a powerful platform for change and rebellion because everyone in the world is consuming culture on a day-to-day basis. We are all affected by the events going on around us even if we don't realize it consciously. As artists, this manifests itself through what we create, and as people through what we want to see and hear. It resonates with our current mood and sense of place in the world. The '60s was such a big period of change in women's and Black people's rights as well as freedoms and the opposition to power structures—the culture, fashion, music and the ideas of peace and love were completely reflected in that and tied together with the political message.

Listen Up: From Aretha Franklin To Public Enemy, Here's How Artists Have Amplified Social Justice Movements Through Music

In your opinion, how can the music community contribute to dismantling racism?

I think now it's about going above and beyond to support and boost up Black artists. It's disappointing that the music industry has benefitted from Black music without acknowledging its culture. It's about checking our privilege and becoming aware of how we perceive Black and non-Black music; making space and giving Black artists a voice across the music industry; demanding more diverse festival and gig bookings; and making more of an effort as artists to collaborate with and lift up our Black brothers and sisters. In an ideal world, we would embrace all colors and races, but the level of inequality and racism now is so ingrained in our societies that we must face this and make conscious efforts every day to change it.

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Polo & Pan

Polo & Pan

Photo: Olivier Ortion

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Record Store Recs: Polo & Pan Take Us To Paris record-store-recs-polo-pan-take-us-paris-les-balades-sonores

Record Store Recs: Polo & Pan Take Us To Paris' Les Balades Sonores

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The funky French electro duo also serve up a great list of recommended albums, including reissues from Tokyo's experimental electronic innovator Yukihiro Takashi and Lagos' '70s psych rockers Ofege
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
May 27, 2020 - 1:15 pm

With the unprecedented global disruption of 2020, it's important to support the music community however we can. With our series Record Store Recs, the Recording Academy checks in with vinyl-loving artists to learn more about their favorite record stores and the gems they've found there.

Parisian electro-pop duo Polo & Pan, consisting of Alexandre Grynszpan and Paul Armand-Delille, are a beloved festival fixture across the globe, thanks to their upbeat, vintage-inspired brand of electro funk. Last year, the pair toured their joyful music tirelessly around the world, with major shows at Coachella, Spain's Vida and Paraiso fests, Israel's Garden of Babylone and Belgium's Paradise City Fest, to name a few.

They are currently working on their sophomore album, the follow up to 2017's vibrant Caravelle. Earlier this month, they dropped a teaser of what's to come, the Home Sweet Home mixtape, which you can enjoy below. As the hour-long project's intro explains, it includes "edits that we love and cherish, snippets of the upcoming album and other exclusive surprises."

We caught up with Grynszpan and Armand-Delille in a rare break from their productive quarantine studio time for the latest edition of our Record Store Recs series. Read on to learn more about the duo's favorite hometown record store and the epic list of records on their wish list.

Polo & Pan · Home Sweet Home (the mixtape)

More Record Store Recs: Chulita Vinyl Club On The Best Music Stores In L.A., Oakland, Austin & Beyond

Please pick a few record stores you love.

Les Balades Sonores in Paris, located at 1-3 Avenue Trudaine and currently offering shipping to Europe, North America, Brazil, Israel and Japan.

What do you love about this shop? What kind of goodies have you've found there?

One of the nicest record shops in Paris, Les Balades Sonores is located not too far from our label [Ekleroshock and Hamburger Records] offices. Great spirit, lots and lots of different genres of music. The record shop owners Toma and Esther are a charming and passionate couple. They have all the good stuff in-store: Brazilian and Japanese exotica rarities, classic electronic music LPs, the last trendy indie bands, a few old-school hip-hop classics, and of course all the '60s and '70s legendary jewels we love from the psych/pop/rock golden age. We just picked up a bunch of cool records there, with a new Italian favorite.

BeauMonde · Béliz - Mémoires | BeauMonde BM1908

More Record Store Recs: Jean Pierre Takes Us To Chicago, Brooklyn, Frankfurt, Amsterdam & London

What's a recent record or two you bought there and love?

Béliz's album Mémoires.

GRAMMYs

Polo & Pan vinyl selects | Photo: Courtesy of artist

What are some other recent releases you've recently picked up on vinyl?

[Fellow Ekleroshock artist] Andrea Laszlo de Simone's Immensità EP

[U.K. spoken-word artist and saxophonist] Alabaster dePlume's Corner Of A sphere

[New Dehli band] Peter Cat Recording Co.'s Portrait of a Time: 2010 - 2016

[French hip-hop group] NTM's Paris sous les Bombes [Originally released in 1995.]

Yukihiro Takashi's Saravah! [This funky solo album by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Takashi was originally released in 1978, the same year he co-founded the pivotal Tokyo electro band. It was rereleased last fall, for the first time outside of Japan by Paris' WEWANTSOUNDS imprint.]

[Lagos '70s psych rock group] Ofege's Higher Plane Breeze [This album, the band's third, was originally released in 1977 in Nigeria, getting its first reissue via Tidal Waves Music.]

What was the first CD or record you remember purchasing when you were younger? 

Grynszpan: X-Files: The Album [The 1998 soundtrack]

Armand-Delille: Fugees' [GRAMMY-winning 1996 album] The Score

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Learning In Quarantine: 5 Virtual Music Industry Conferences To Enhance Your Career

ARTBAT at Cercle in Rio de Janeiro

ARTBAT at Cercle in Rio de Janeiro

Photo: Raul Aragao

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ARTBAT On CamelPhat Collab, Pete Tong & More artbat-new-camelphat-collab-djing-clouds-loving-la

ARTBAT On New CamelPhat Collab, DJing In The Clouds & Loving L.A.

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"For a Feeling" is the Ukrainian duo's latest dance release to top Beatport's charts and their seventh track in a year to be selected by Pete Tong as his weekly Essential New Tune
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
May 8, 2020 - 2:02 pm

Back in 2015, Artur Kryvenko and Vitalii "Batish" Limarenko, both successful DJs in their native Kyiv, met at a club and joined forces to create ARTBAT. It wasn't long before their deeply emotive brand of melodic techno made them one of the biggest names ever out of Ukraine and had them playing shows at major clubs like London's Printworks, Berlin's Watergate and Blue Marlin and other Ibiza hotspots, along with big events like Amsterdam's Awakenings and Brooklyn's City Fox.

In the global underground electronic scene, 2019 was undeniably the year of ARTBAT: they made their BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix debut, DJed for Cercle atop Rio de Janeiro's Sugarloaf Mountain and their fire releases earned several No. 1 spots on Beatport's charts, eventually closing the year as the top-selling artist on the platform.

Their latest release, "For a Feeling," is a collab with GRAMMY-nominated duo CamelPhat and vocalist Rhodes and has been No. 1 on Beatport's Top 100 for the past two weeks. Calling in from Kyiv, the dynamic duo caught up with the Recording Academy to talk about the new track, what it was like playing on that magic mountain top, and the support they've gotten from Pete Tong and other big DJs. We also dove deep into their lifelong love of electronic music, the rich techno scene in Ukraine and how much they love love Los Angeles.

You guys just released "For a Feeling" with CamelPhat, which is already No. 1 on Beatport. I'd love to learn more about how the collaboration and the track itself were born.

Well, we really like CamelPhat's production but it's a little bit of a different style from our work. We had a lot of good chats and a good connection with them. We played together and decided to try to combine our styles and do something new.

The CamelPhat guys gave us a vocal and some ideas and we really liked the vocal [sung by Rhodes], especially the meaning of lyrics. The meaning felt special for us because we like to feel the music and everything around us, we like to feel that it's deeper. We decided we needed to make something really beautiful with it, for both the dancer and the listener.

Read: Cassian Talks Debut LP 'Laps,' Attending His First GRAMMYs & Staying Calm In Quarantine

So the starting point of the track was built from the vocal?

Yes. The vocal and some of the rhythm. We worked on it two or three months together. Then we tried it out and people started to love it. Other DJs asked us about the track and we shared it and got some very good feedback from big producers—like Tale Of Us liked the track very much.

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So it already get some love on the dancefloor before quarantine?

Yes, of course. We made it last summer and we played it the whole autumn and winter and a little bit of March. It's actually one of our favorite finishing tracks. And as I said, Tale Of Us, Adriatique and other DJs played it for about half year. That's why people already knew this track and were waiting for its release.

Pete Tong recently named the track his Essential New Tune, which I think makes your seventh one. What does that recognition from Pete, as well as the other DJ support and everyone downloading it on Beatport, mean to you two?

We're very thankful to Pete for having his eye on us. He's said wonderful things about us and has liked some of our songs and presented them as essential tunes; for us it's a big honor. 20 years ago, when we were young, Pete Tong was one of our big inspirations. So, the support from him brings us a lot of happiness.

And with Beatport, when we see that people are downloading and buying our tracks, we understand that we are making something which helps people enjoy life, something for their feelings. And when we see this support of our tracks, we feel like we're on the right path. It also helps us find more inspiration in the studio to deliver the emotion, that energy on all that sides that music can bring in.

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As we are all feeling pretty isolated right now, it must be really powerful to know that your music is still touching people even when you're not able to share it in person.

We're receiving a lot of videos, Insta stories and posts with our music as people are listening and playing it at home. It's our little inspiration for our current work in studio. It's not an easy time now because we cannot share our music live and we cannot meet people. Everything is on pause now, but some time it will start again and continue as it was when everything was good.

ARTBAT · ARTBAT - Essential Mix (BBC Radio 1)

Speaking of Pete Tong, you released your debut BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix last year—what did it feel like for you being a part of the iconic series? Were you nervous going into it?

It's a big honor for us of course. We are music diggers and lovers and for two decades, maybe more, we've been listening to Essential Mixes from all the big DJs and electronic bands, like Daft Punk. To be part of it, and on the list of artists who've made Essential Mixes, is a big privilege for us. We are very thankful to Pete Tong for giving us that opportunity. From producing tracks, the other side of our lives is DJing, and the Essential Mix is a big step in DJ life.

I cannot say that we were nervous but we were very picky while picking out the tracks, to find the balance between old and new tracks, and we were very excited for it. Essential Mixes are one of the main, important mixes in the DJ catalog. It's a big recognition.

Also in 2019, you played an epic Cercle set atop Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro. What did that experience feel like for you two, and what was the energy was like playing in that beautiful setting?

It was one of the best experiences in our lives. We had wanted to be a part of Cercle, but we understood the guys pick the artists out themselves. And then they invited us to take part in a Cercle event. We wanted to do it in Kyiv because we live there and love our country very much and show people our country. But the email proposed the venue [Bondinho Pão de Açúcar, or Sugarloaf Mountain Cablecar] and when we saw the mountain we agreed.

When we arrived in Rio de Janeiro, there was a very big storm, so we were very lucky that we had one more day there. The Cercle guys moved the event to the next day, which was very good weather. You can imagine our feelings when we arrived to Rio de Janeiro, it's like a 15-hour flight, and when we landed, we learned that we couldn't have the event today because the weather is rainy and stormy. It could've been canceled because of that, but the guys had time and we could stay for one day more.

It was actually so hot the next day, we were afraid it would be hard to play because we were coming from winter to a very hot summer. But we were lucky because there was a very good breeze on the mountain. When we started to play, we were even under the clouds sometimes, playing for people who knew us and like our music. They were smiling and it was a very close atmosphere because there was just 250, 200 people. It's not a big venue and everyone was very friendly and happy.

And when we were playing, I looked back at the mountain and I thought "thank you my life, thank you energy, that you bring me, with music, to this mountain." It was the best DJing experience. With the beautiful nature, the quality sound system and happy people, I never had an experience quite like that. We will remember it for all our lives.

And actually, when we watched the video [watch for yourself above] after, we couldn't believe that it was us playing there. It's so beautiful. We knew how beautiful it was, but from the other angle of the drone, and the blue sky, blue water and green nature, it's like the best natural combination of colors, music and clouds. And the guys from Cercle also said that it was their favorite location. I think it's one of the best experiences of our DJ career and we know it's very hard to repeat this.

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What do you think are the key elements of a great dance track?

You know, dancing comes from inside you. For some people, one thing gets them moving, and it's something different for others. But, I think for a great dance track, it should be balanced between groove and melody. Sometimes melodies get in the way of dancing because you're starting to really listen to it instead. It's hard to say because every time is different, but I think the key is to find the good balance between uplifting and building. And the melody can't be very long, so you can catch the flow. Of course, rhythm is the dance mover. So good rhythm is most important for the dance track. We dance with the rhythm.

When you guys are playing a club set, what are you looking for in the crowd? For example, what do you do if people aren't dancing?

We start to find the people who you can tell came to dance. Some people maybe just came to party or to listen to music but not to dance, so we're searching for the people we see have a lot of energy, who want to dance and seem happy. So we're trying to first make the flow that keeps them in good mood. We're looking for happy faces and trying to keep them happy and smiling.

But our music is not always happy, sometimes it's kind of deep. So then we're searching for people who are really engaging with it, getting deep in to the music. If they feel it and catch the flow, you can watch them, and if everything is good you see if them dancing and you understand you're doing good.

When did you first start listening to electronic music? What artists made you want to start DJing and producing yourself?

We both started to listen to electronic music very young. I started when I was eight or nine. First it was ['90s] European dance music, like Dr. Alban, maybe you remember him. So it was like '93, '94. For my whole life, I've lived in headphones. I'd spend all my money on new music, buying cassettes, then discs.

And in 2003, I started DJing and I gained a deeper interest in electronic music. Then, I found electronic German records like DJ Hell and then Tiefschwarz. I also listened to DJs like Paul van Dyk and Armin Van Buuren to Carl Cox, Adam Beyer, and also Stephan Bodzin was the one of my favorites. So all the famous DJ that you know, I listened to them. Some of them inspired me in some styles and others in different ways. I really liked how Stephan Bodzin made his own style with Oliver Huntemann, as well as Carl Cox's techno, for its power.

And of course, Batish and I listen to a lot of electronic bands like Orbital, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Depeche Mode. Also, I like Pink Floyd a lot.

More: On 'Violator,' Depeche Mode Double-Crossed The 1980s And Won

How did you discover all this music? Was there a good record store where you grew up—how were you listening to all this cool music from such a young age?

No, it started from cassettes, like I told you, when I had some lunch money from my parents for school, I tried to save it and every week I'd buy two or three new cassettes. And then in 2002, we had internet and I searched different forums for music and where to download it. It wasn't good, but there were the peer-to-peer sites and you could search for the track and the artist. And later, when I went to work, it was a very small salary, but I had good internet there and I could download a lot of music for my DJ sets in clubs.

How old were you when you started DJing?

I started in 2007, so I was 24, 25.

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What was the house and techno scene like in Kyiv then and now? Were there a lot of other DJs then or was it a close-knit community?

Ukraine is a very musical country, people like music here very much. Of course, we have Soviet experiences here and it was not easy for the culture here because of economic hardships. The scene's growth depends on the economy, so when it started to be better from 2014, the scene started to grow also. We have a very good techno community here. In Ukraine, we have a lot of fans of house music and melodic techno, the music that we make. We have very quality clubs that we can compare with the best clubs in the world for sure.

We don't have a lot of festivals. There's a few, but they're not very big. Festival culture only started here, maybe five years ago, in Kyiv. But for music, people are very educated about it. And everyone is waiting for this quarantine to be finished, waiting to get out of our homes especially in summer. We should have had few good festivals here this summer but they're canceled.

Read: How Will Coronavirus Shift Electronic Music? Maceo Plex, Paul Van Dyk, Luttrell, Mikey Lion & DJ Manager Max Leader Weigh In

Have you guys been spending more time in the studio during quarantine? Have you been making or even just listening to more music?

Yes. Our last gig was March 8th or 9th. After that, we arrived to Kyiv and put ourselves in self-quarantine for two weeks at home. We actually had some symptoms of coronavirus, so we stayed at home, then got tested after to make sure we were not spreading the virus. It was negative then, so we started to go to the studio. Now we're in the studio three, four, maybe five days a week, trying to find some ideas to make tracks. We actually already made some tracks. But you can understand it's not easy time in terms of inspiration.

Somedays you have inspiration, some days you don't because you're tired from this situation and the restrictions. Sometimes it's hard for the mind, especially when our gigs are canceled. It's not an easy time now. But, like I told you, we're getting good feedback from people, people playing our music and sharing emotions with us. And we're releasing music! Now we've released "For a Feeling" and we also have for one cool track to release in summer, I think.

And we're preparing music for our new sets when the quarantine is finished. We will be ready to show people the new stuff and we always love to play music and enjoy life together with people.

Why did you decide to form ARTBAT together, and what does the project mean to you, as a duo, with the music you're putting out?

Before we met, I think we had like six or seven years of DJing. And it was the period when we played a lot, maybe in all of the clubs [in Kyiv]. I needed some new stuff. I started to search for a person with whom it would be fun to create music with. And faster, more quality, because when you're alone it takes a lot of time deciding if it's good or not and just searching for ideas.

We met in the club, our friends connected us, and we decided to spend one time in the studio together and try it out. In our first studio session, from the first hour, we learned that we can make good music that we both like, that we can make it fast and we like the process together. We can spend all day in the studio and joke, have fun and talk, which doesn't happen when you're working alone. Together, we're sharing a good time and playing music and finding good ideas.

So, we made one track, then two tracks and started to realize we could continue with this. We started to do DJ sets as a project and we searched for the names, for two months actually. Then the idea came from our names; ARTBAT is Artur and Batish.

Now it's like our life, for sure it's the best that can be in in our social, creative life. Our project is everything for us. We live like one family and we're very close. Our passion and our project is almost the same. And we're very picky about the tracks, about everything, because we're very connected to our creative name ARTBAT. It's kind of a dream that came through and now it's all of our life.

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Obviously, you guys had a huge 2019. Is there a dream, something you hope will happen, for ARTBAT next year?

Yes, yes, we have our next step, we can't really say now because it's still a baby, we're making it, filling it with ideas. I can't tell you now but, hopefully in few months. But one dream for us is, of course, to play big festivals to share music with big crowds because we like this energy and the feedback from people. Also, we like to represent Ukraine in the music world. We like that people know we are from Ukraine, and a lot of people know us here, but doing gigs around the world is a big pleasure for us, to be people who bring our country in to the music scene

GRAMMYs

ARTBAT in Los Angeles | Photo: Courtesy of artist

Where do you live now? [Artur asked interviewer.]

I live in Los Angeles.

It's our favorite city in the world. We have been almost all around the world, but L.A. is one city where we really want to try to live someday. One of the first feelings when we came to L.A., you feel this freedom, like freedom for your mind. The atmosphere of freedom is everywhere. I think it's the best city in the world.

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How Will Coronavirus Shift Electronic Music? how-will-coronavirus-shift-electronic-music-maceo-plex-paul-van-dyk-luttrell-mikey-lion

How Will Coronavirus Shift Electronic Music? Maceo Plex, Paul Van Dyk, Luttrell, Mikey Lion & DJ Manager Max Leader Weigh In

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"Now, the silver lining could be that people are going to make some amazing music coming out of this. When you don't have the pressure of making a hit track for the club, you usually make something more interesting," Maceo Plex predicts
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Mar 26, 2020 - 12:06 pm

Amidst all the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, one certainty is this will affect everyone in some way, and it already has had huge effects on all who work in the music industry. As major music events like Coachella, Ultra, SXSW, Glastonbury, Time Warp and many more continue to be canceled or postponed, as well as upcoming tour and club dates, many artists, managers, promoters and the crew members are facing gravely reduced or non-existent income over the next few months and possibly beyond.

We reached out to four globe-trotting DJ/producers—Barcelona's Maceo Plex (Ellum Audio), Los Angeles' Mikey Lion (Desert Hearts), San Francisco's Luttrell (Anjunadeep) and Berlin's Paul Van Dyk (Vandit Records)—and London/New York-based DJ manager Max Leader to learn how the pandemic is directly affecting them and those they work with. While this crisis is radically shifting their plans this year, they all see silver linings, especially in the sense of unity felt in the dance music community and, increasingly, humanity as a whole.

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The Show Might Go On

Longtime (he's been in it since '90s raves) underground legend Maceo Plex, a.k.a. Miami-born Eric Estornel, was set to headline Ultra, Movement (which was recently rescheduled from May to September) and Time Warp plus a bunch of major club dates over the next few months. He underscores that this is going to be hard for everyone as they all scrambles to readjust, reschedule and recover losses, and thus will likely reshape the electronic music industry as a whole.

"It's not just DJs it's musicians, bands, anybody that their job is to congregate people together to hear music is affected. That can be promoters, DJs, they all have the same story, club owners, everybody's pretty much screwed. It does give you a sense of unity because everyone's in it together," the Ellum Audio label head told us over the phone late last week.

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Leader has been in the industry for years, formerly as a promoter and currently, for the past 18 years, as a manager of a roster of major DJs. He also paints the picture of a challenging year for everyone planning and playing events in 2020, highlighting just how many dates and dollars have already been lost.

"The bread and butter for my artists and for me is in live shows. My clients tend to do anywhere from six to 12 shows a month and we work three to six months in advance. So, what happened two weeks ago, was the cancellation or attempt to reschedule the gigs, between one to three months from that moment to three months ahead," he explained during a phone chat last week. "And the promoters that were booking for three to six months from that point, were not booking anymore because they didn't know what was going on, which means that you're already at nine months of no shows. So, if you start looking at nine to 12 months, it means in the space of two weeks, you're suddenly 12 months away from receiving any income from touring."

Canceling even just a few shows could be financially crushing to promoters, as well as the clubs and everyone else who works for them. "Also, these promoters, some of them are weekly promoters, some of them are monthly promoters, and they try to honor deals. Now you lose one show for artists of the caliber that I work with, you could lose $25,000, $30,000. If you lose that amount two or three times in a row, you could be out of business," Leader noted.

For Estornel, van Dyk and Leader, their long, successful careers have put them in a place where they are currently okay financially. Of course, dipping too far into savings is stressful, as is not having an income stream to share with your team. "I'm already going into savings, because of having to cancel the ongoing business," Leader added. "I would say that my business is 90 percent gigs, so I have effectively lost 90 percent of my business right now. And it happened immediately. It happened overnight."

Estronel was set to debut his new M^3 live show in Los Angeles on March 14, which, as he put it, ended up being "the first weekend that no events were happening pretty much anywhere." Two days before the event, California banned all gatherings over 250 people (now restrictions are even tighter) in the interest of public health and safety.

"I was waiting, too. I'm not a promoter, but I was promoting [M^3] pretty much in conjunction with Factory 93, so I already had the production and all the equipment and everything paid for. So that's why it's super important to reschedule. But, at the same time, I think Factory 93 was giving money back to whoever wanted it. I don't know how they were doing it, but I had to pay for a lot of that production out of my pocket. It was already there and I was like, 'Well, f**k it. Let's do this stream.' That wasn't anywhere near what we were going to have planned for the holograms and all kinds of crazy stuff, but at least we used some of the cool lights. So those can kind of come together quickly."

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Both van Dyk and Luttrell had major tours slated this year in support of their 2020 albums—the German trance legend's 10th album, Guiding Light, drops on April 17, while the S.F. deep house hero's sophomore LP, Lucky Ones, came out on March 13. Of course, with global spring dates, both tours have been put on hold.

Luttrell was also set to make his Coachella stage debut in April, which will now have to wait until October. "It's affected it quite a bit thus far. I have an album tour that was set to begin April 2. Now everything is being pushed back a few months to end of July through August. Feeling good about getting most of the shows rescheduled at least!" he shared over email.

For Mikey Lion and his Desert Hearts crew (the label/party maestro squad he leads and co-founded in 2012 in San Diego), their flagship "72+ hours of nonstop house and techno" festival was slated for April 23-26, but luckily they were able to find new dates pretty quickly. Some of the other festivals the crew were booked to play have also been affected, including at Lighting in a Bottle, whose 2020 edition was canceled, and Vujaday in Barbados, which was postponed to November. Desert Hearts is also beloved for the fun club nights and block parties they throw in a bunch of different cities. Those will have to wait this year as well.

"We postponed the festival to Oct. 22 to 26, 2020. Luckily our fest is in a really good place right now to come back because we were able to find a make-up date quickly and we didn't have too many deposits out there right now because we were monitoring the whole situation," Lion explained over the phone. He noted how this is not necessarily the case for other independent festivals and events, and that could have far-reaching negative effects in the industry. "I think that that's probably the biggest problem that all the other festivals are going through right now, is that if you're an independent festival that's not backed by Live Nation, AEG or some other big financial backer, you're using your ticket money to secure the acts that you're having, all the equipment, everything. You have so many deposits out there. Then we have this totally unforeseen disease that's coming through and everyone's having to cancel, and then all of a sudden all the fans are looking for refunds and those festivals don't have the money to be paying their fans back because it's all tied up, it creates this really hectic ecosystem where the fans think that they're getting ripped off and festivals can't do anything about it."

For all the events and festivals that are able to successfully reschedule and bring the majority of their lineup with them, that is a big relief, but of course a year's worth of events can't all happen in the fall and winter, especially outdoor events in colder climates. And who will get to play in the more limited event pool? Probably the bigger DJs, for the most part, with less slots for local opening acts—and less money for everyone overall. It is hard to predict exactly how hard the crisis will strike the global economy, but it has already done damage, with many hourly or gig workers currently out of work. For most people, the less income they make, the less money they will spend on going out, festival tickets and travel, so it becomes harder to get people to clubs and festivals.

"The festivals are already rescheduling and they're not going to be able to pay the same," Estornel noted. "So DJs fees are definitely going to go down in general. Which is kind of a trickle-down effect; the bigger DJs will have to charge less and some of the smaller DJs' fees will then obviously go down as well. Then resident DJs that live in that city might not even play at all. Or if they do, for very cheap, because the promoters are not going to be able to charge the same entrance at the same ticket price or entrance at their clubs or whatever because people are not going to have any money,

"Rescheduling events, in my case, because of the fact that I'm in a position to headline, I get to reschedule first before others. I feel bad for all the other people that are, to promoters, maybe second or third tier artists that aren't getting rescheduled right away… I'm in a position where I can't complain because I can reschedule. But then again, I can't because I'm booked. I was booked up for the rest of the year."

Estornel also underscores that festivals moving towards later dates is going to cut into the bottom line of clubs, as everyone is now competing for a limited window of dates and likely a smaller pool of attendees with any money to spend on nights out. "A lot of these festivals are moving to those [later] months and they're going to take up a lot of the weekends that clubs function really well in those parts. So economically, it looks pretty crazy," he explained.

Leader echoed both of these points, that there are a limited number of dates for events and DJs to fill for the rest of the year and smaller pool of money for everyone. He is also cautious about predicting that events will be back up and running before at least a few months off. He notes recent conversations he's had with promoters, those who are looking ahead to book fall/winter dates—no one can pay deposits right now. Everyone is pretty much just trying to stay afloat at this point.

"The conversation that I do have with bigger promoters is, 'Okay, we're looking at the last two weekends in October, the first two in November, the New Year's Eve, we're looking to fill these holes. This is who I want from your roster on that. However, obviously we can't contract this right now. We obviously can't pay any deposits for it right now," Leader said.

Livestream Nation

van Dyk explains how not being able to travel to his sold-out Moscow show on March 13 led him to play via livestream to the packed venue in Russia from an empty club in Berlin. From that experience, he decided to launch a weekly livestream series from the club, which he's calling PC Music Night. He and fellow German DJ/producer Chris Bekker have shared two livestreams so far, much to the delight of trance and progressive house fans around the world.

"I was supposed to play in Moscow last weekend and because they have restrictions of people from Germany flying into Russia because of the Coronavirus and you have to go into quarantine," van Dyk explained. "What do people do when their shows are canceled and something cannot happen? Well we use the latest technology. We came up with the idea of me going into an empty club here in Berlin, have everything set up and then stream my performance from Berlin live to Moscow. It obviously is not the same as me being there because, it's difficult to interact. I had a little monitor so I was able to see what's going on in the venue in Moscow, but it was one way to sort of cope with the grim times and the possibilities that there are right now. and we came up with an idea from that streaming experience."

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Since both the epic Paul van Dyk and Maceo Plex sets aired on March 13 and 14, respectively, many DJs and artists have understandably jumped on the livestream wagon, craving a way to continue to share their music with the world and engage with their fans. It's safe to say that music livestream offerings are a bit oversaturated at the moment, but it has been fun to see the different ways artists and their fanbases have been engaging with them. For Estornel, he's aiming to think outside of the box when it comes to interacting with his fans during quarantine times:

"Everything's flooded with DJs doing streams. So now I'm thinking of new ideas… something more interesting. Somewhere between nerdy, like a studio talk but musical where you could dance to it. Hopefully we'll do something for these months, until things get back to normal."

Since we spoke last week, Lion and the Desert Hearts squad have started a new daily livestream series that's very on-brand with their colorful, playful vibes. Stepping out of the box a bit, the eclectic offerings include Q&A on Mondays with Lion, cooking lessons with his brother and labelmate Porky on Tuesday, yoga on Wednesdays and DJ sets from the squad on Sundays.

https://twitter.com/DesertHearts/status/1242143134353477633

Introducing #DHtv, our way of keeping this beautiful community connected through these strange and interesting times, daily at 5:30 PST with a little something for everybody. Let's have some fun shall we? ✌️ pic.twitter.com/kTWMzulD5C

— DESERT HEARTS (@DesertHearts) March 23, 2020

It's About Time For Unity!

While not being able to interact with others "irl" is difficult for all of us, connecting online, especially over music, can be especially powerful during these times of isolation. van Dyk witnessed this during his first PC Music Night livestream, where he encouraged fans to send track requests and special shout-outs in the comments.

"Chris Bekker and myself played for five hours for free for everyone who wanted to join, just simply to put a smile on people's faces, for people to connect. There was so much interaction going on from people from the U.S. talking to people from Italy, from Italy talking to people in South America. It's like they were all interconnecting. There was a sense of community, a sense of being there for each other. That is the essence of what we are trying to do with this DJ set."

The Berlin legend underscored the importance of staying in touch with others while we are apart, as during times of global distress, we all need comfort and support. "It's those little things to still be there for each other. I don't really like the term social distancing because what we have to do is stay physically apart from each other. But if anything, we should be socially closer and support each other. I think this is what we can do, and this is what we should do in crazy times like this."

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Seeing as the coronavirus crisis really does affect everyone, van Dyk sees this as an opportunity to put aside our differences and practice real empathy and growth. "In these times right now, I think we can all interconnect. At the end, of the day it doesn't really matter if you're a Trump supporter or if you support Sanders. At the end of the day, it's about the species, us as humans. Everyone is affected by it. We have to be there for each other. And that's about actually putting the human first, putting the real us first and therefore being there for each other," he added.

Lion pointed to the surprising and rather atypical unity we're seeing here in the States between Democrats and Republicans as they try to address the crisis is something to be celebrated. It could also have policy implications that change our lives for the better going forward.

"I think that things like universal healthcare and ideas like universal basic income are at the forefront right now of things we're realizing would be a massive help. It's crazy to see Republicans even embracing those things right now because of the situation that we're in. I don't think they would ever come to grips with and accept it unless they're seeing it affect them," Lion stated. "Hopefully we start getting some relief for people that are really struggling right now."

"I think that people are going to come out of this much more understanding of other people's situations and we are all in this together," he added. "I think that we're going to start seeing a lot more compassion from people in the world."

Luttrell echoed their messages, in sharing what gives him the most hope right now: "I feel like a big crisis like this—especially one that affects the world all at once—gives us an opportunity to come together and become closer as humans on this planet."

In the midst of trying to reschedule, reorganize and roll with the waves of the world, everyone we spoke to has already felt unity across the electronic music scene and the larger music and events industry. As Lion noted, many artists have been understanding about returning deposits for canceled events, given the circumstances, even though money will not really be coming in for a bit. At the end of the day, everyone in entertainment is more or less in the same boat right now.

"For the most part, I think that agencies and the artists are being really cool with getting back to the deposits in a lot of circumstances because I think everyone gets it, that we're all in this together," Lion said. "People are definitely working together on it. At the same time, that's money coming out from the artists and all of our foreseeable calendar just got completely wiped out, basically. I don't have any income coming, none of the other Desert Heart guys do, and we don't know how long this is going to last.

"It's a really harrowing experience, and it's not just the artists that are going through it, it's the managers, the agents, all the photographers and videographers, security, bartenders, all the logistics people to build teams. The list goes on and on and that's just the music industry. You know, the entire entertainment industry is getting absolutely battered right now. Think about Las Vegas, it's a city of almost 700,000 people and their entire ecosystem is based on entertainment. That entire city's pretty much out of work right now, I'd imagine."

Resources For Music Creators & Professionals Affected By COVID-19: West Region

For van Dyk, it is important to him to be able to personally esure his regular team is financially stable during this time. "It requires us being socially aware of our surroundings, of the people who need help and then actually do something. I'm committed to do this in this way, and therefore I don't think my crew needs to be too worried about it."



View this post on Instagram


Here's a fantastic new video that we've made for you, I hope you enjoy it.⁣ ⁣ When I wrote this song and named this album, I never expected it would be released during a time like this. However, instead of dwelling on the obvious and unfortunate irony of it all, I'm trying to make a conscious decision to continue reminding myself just how fortunate I am.⁣ ⁣ I make music. I’m not putting myself in danger every day like the medical professionals and everyone still out there working to keep our society running - like the head of the CDC, or the people keeping grocery stores stocked and functional - but I do hope that what I have to offer can help bring joy to people feeling stressed, overwhelmed, scared or hopeless right now.⁣ ⁣ If you’re stuck inside like the rest of us, put this music video on and dance around in your apartment, or lay in your bed holding your phone watching it, whatever you feel like. If you have one, get your dog all riled up. Give them lots of belly rubs and laugh at them zooming around the house to the music. Imagine how happy dogs are right now? Their favorite people are home all day. They’ll never disappear for hours on end (which to them probably seems like days). Dogs are possibly the most stoked they’ve ever been in history. Sadly, I don’t have a dog cause my landlord doesn’t allow them, but thinking of all the dogs out there living their best life with their favorite humans that are stuck at home right now makes me really happy.

A post shared by Luttrell (@ericluttrell) on Mar 25, 2020 at 12:20pm PDT

To Release Or Not To Release?

As van Dyk put it, music is a necessity in most people's lives, especially those who make it. Music plays an important part in all of our daily lives, and right now feels like a time where many of us are turning to music to escape or to dive into our feelings. "I'm a musician. To me, music is an essential of part of my life. When I'm sad I'm listening to music. When I'm happy, I'm listening to music. When I'm somewhat in between, I'm still listening to music. It's my passion. Therefore, music is something that's essential, from my perspective, in everyone's life," the German artist said.

"Right now, everyone has endless time on their hands," Lion added. "People are digging, people are paying attention, everyone's at their computer. It is a good time to get stuff into people's hands and really try to affect people in a positive way. Music's absolutely one of the best ways to do it."

"To me, music is an essential of part of my life. When I'm sad I'm listening to music. When I'm happy, I'm listening to music. When I'm somewhat in between, I'm still listening to music. It's my passion." – Paul van Dyk

Perhaps it's a great time to put out an uplifting track or music video, but what about releasing an album or club cuts? While many in the industry seem to be encouraging fans to support their favorite artists with online album and merch sales, other entities, like Amazon and even some artists themselves, have decided now is not necessary a good time to release projects. If you can't tour in support of the release, will the financial investment in the project be worth it?

For electronic artists specifically, who support and promote each others' new, often then-unreleased, records by playing them at their DJ sets around the world, the hype and release cycle just had a big wrench thrown through it. Additionally, if most of the DJs of the world are hunkering down in their home studios right now, which tracks and albums will cut through the noise when everything is dropped in a few months?

Leader's comments speak to this, and the "hustle," as he put it, that will ensue to get the gigs and have your music heard this year.

"You can definitely plan ahead in terms of what you're releasing to the world. Everyone is assuming that come July, August, this will die down. I personally am not having conversations besides with the most optimistic of promoters about shows, pre-October, right now. And really, most of the conversations are 'Well, let's see what the next couple weeks unfolds for us,' so you're not really banking on anything there. But in terms of products or music being released, and social media, building your fan base, and working on consultancy jobs or working with brands, there's still some business out there that can be done. It's a hustle."

"One thing that I am thinking is that all these DJs who usually are gigging Friday, Saturday and Sunday, home on Monday, recovering on Tuesday, making music on Wednesday, and then getting ready to tour again on Thursday, are finally having long periods of time to actually make music. And so, I think what we'll find is a plethora of music coming out at the same time, which has an effect on the developing artists," Leader continued. "Even if I'm looking in October [for their release], I think the market is going to be really excited about the [bigger] producer who's finally released some new material because they had four, five months off the road."

https://twitter.com/DesertHearts/status/1242553564070723585

If you have the means, we encourage you to support the artists you love through this trying time ❤️

— DESERT HEARTS (@DesertHearts) March 24, 2020

Estornel and Lion also spoke to releasing tracks during the age of COVID-19:

"You don't sell music to dance to or to DJ to when nobody can go out and dance," Estornel explained. "They're not really selling that much music. You have all these artists that had their releases planned and it's like if you postpone the schedule, then their music doesn't come out until way later, when that music's old, basically."

"You can't really go test out new tracks now. I feel like the entire record label promo system right now is just worthless, because how are people even going to go try out your tracks or get feedback on stuff?" Lion says. "I've been seeing a lot of artists go to moving all their stuff over to Bandcamp because it's a much more direct peer-to-peer system over there than having a middle man like Apple Music or Beatport. I'm actually running through and getting our Bandcamp set up today."

Read: Musicians Earn $4.3 Million From Bandcamp With Nearly 800,000 Items Sold On Friday

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Gvd1FJpZv

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A post shared by Maceo Plex (@maceoplex)

Creativity & The Future Of Dance Music

Regardless of artists' personal stances on releasing new music now, it's likely many of them will be using the ample free time to work on music in some way. 

"The city where I live, San Francisco is now on lockdown," Luttrell said. "I won't be traveling outside my apartment much the next few weeks. I'll take it as an opportunity to focus on having more interaction with fans online and come up with fun ways to promote different songs on the album... I'm already working on a bunch of new songs that will eventually be the next album, so I feel like there's going to be a lot of time to make that really special. A lot of those songs will have been written during this lock down in S.F., so maybe I'll use the weirdness of it all as some sort of inspiration."

Similarly, van Dyk also feels new music will come out of this experience for him. "I finished my new album," he said. "I was ready to be out on the road in the world to play my music in front of my audience. So it's a bit of a strange timing for me, but I constantly make music and so, I'm pretty sure whatever extra time I have at hands now, some music will come out of it."

Leader also sees these times as a creative challenge and powerful reset for his work. "I think that everyone's playing from a level playground now. You know, everyone is suffering, and in a way, we're all in it together for that reason. And I'm optimistic by nature. I believe that this will end, and we will get back to business, and that it allowed me to really think outside the box in terms of my business. If you're in an intense job like I'm sure you have, you're going a million miles an hour, and you always wish you had a second to breathe, this is giving us that second."

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Estornel, who has a young son, acknowledges the challenge of working from home if you have kids that are now out of school. Yet he is embracing the creative exploration that may likely come from the reduced pressure he and other DJs are inevitably facing to make the next club banger. 

"Now, the silver lining could be that people are going to make some amazing music coming out of this. When you don't have the pressure of making a hit track for the club, you usually make something more interesting," Estornel said. "So maybe something new will come out of this, but for the most part it also kind of depresses people because if things are kind of bad out there and you're making dance music and nobody's dancing. It's like, f**k. You don't feel inspired. It's tough.

Maceo Plex added, "I feel less pressure to make a bomb kind of, because there's no reason to right now. In the past, the reason why I have any kind of a bigger name is for all the music that I made that I wasn't worrying about making a bomb. I was just trying to make something that was cool and creative, or pretty or just different sounding tracks. Those ended up becoming bombs. So, I mean, it's kind of good. Creatively, I don't have that pressure. So I might have a bomb after this, I don't know. I'd rather not think about it."

Regardless of whether or not the world is gifted any glittering Maceo Plex bombs over the next month, electronic music will be shifting. With a halt as drastic as this, there is no way things will remain exactly the same when we return to the dancefloor. He sees parallels to the disco backlash in the late-70s that, while harrowing, directly led to the emergence of house music and thriving underground scenes in Chicago, New York City and beyond. As the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens.

"I think this may be the biggest blow to clubbing since the disco backlash back in the late-'70s, early 80s when everybody was for just a moment it was like this media-driven burning of disco records and stuff." Maceo Plex said. "Since then, clubbing got bigger and better and dance music got way more popular over the past 30, 40 years. I think this is kind of like a reset. I'm hopeful we're going to come out of this strong. Nothing can really stop people from listening to dance music and dancing. …We'll be fine, in other words. It's just that it's going to take a couple of years to get back to the size of festivals that we were used to for a little while. They're kind of almost ridiculous at this point; 100,000 people festivals and stuff like that. I don't feel bad for them as much but because they've made so much money, but EDM, this is probably going to be such a huge blow to commercial EDM music more so than underground music."

"I think underground dance music's going to get big. It's going to get bigger, in a way. It's going to see a Renaissance," Estornel concluded. "Whatever happens, the dance music community is in for a wild ride, with new faces and sounds likely emerging over the coming years."

Quarantine Diaries: L.A. Pop Luminary Katelyn Tarver On Quarantining With Siblings, IN-N-OUT Burger & White Wine

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