Madrid-based duo Easy Kid share ‘Foolishness’ from their upcoming LP on Spanish label Depaart. The track features on the second EP to be released ahead of the full album. What’s more, the boys joined us talk to us through the arduous album making process, while we also touched on topics like the importance of LPs in the modern music space, Berlin Calling and
WWD: First off congrats on the debut LP, it’s an impressive accomplishment! Tell us about the moment you decided ‘that’s it, I’m done’.
Thank you very much! Well, that’s a great question. We’ve always wanted to be album artists, as they are a bigger challenge. On an album you can go eclectic and explore deeper into different sounds and emotions. In September 2014 we came up with a couple of tracks that would have never fitted in an EP and we thought that it was the time, our sound was mature enough (at least for us) and we had already been locked up in the studio for 3 years, so it was time to start working on our first album.
WWD: What was the one thing you found most difficult about putting it together?
There are different challenges about putting an album together. We’ve always been very proliferous but in this case it was different, it couldn’t be just about ‘going with the flow’ and see what happens. First it was defining the album’s identity which took long, like what was going to be the heart, the texture or the story to tell. Once you are certain about how 3 or 4 tracks feel to each other you’ve got the heart, and then it’s about building the story and the textures! You don’t want to put out a 50 minutes set cut in pieces, for us its more about going to different places, inside your musical personality, but somehow coming back to the same spot, if that makes any sense. But the hardest part by far is getting a proper mix done! Here’s where many people seek for help on a professional studio with a professional sound engineer, but for us mixing its a very personal thing and its also one of the biggest challenges about being a music producer in general terms. We might not reach the quality you can get doing it but its our personal sound.
WWD: In your eyes, what relevance does an LP have in the modern era of electronic music?
There’s two sides in this coin. We’ve reached a point where producing music is very accesible and everybody can make it in their own homes. Don’t get us wrong, we are one of those! But that also means that the amount of artists has increased ridiculously and that the time that we have to pay attention to upcoming artists is getting shorter. We live our lives very fast and we don’t often get time to enjoy a LP. Also the DJ figure is always more kindly to get hands on EPs rather than full albums as sales prove. On the other hand not many of these artists are either brave enough to do the effort of producing an album nor they have the knowledge or versatility to do it, so it becomes some sort of ‘status’ that you can reach if you want to, which is good we guess.
WWD: Are there any albums in the electronic domain that stand out for you as ideal examples of quality LPs?
There are a lot! We are very different one from each other, and we have different influences, but sure we’ve spent long afternoons listening to music together, trying to strip the tracks in parts and analyze them while being amused by their quality. As a band I’d say that specially complex use of effects and sound design LPs are our favs
WWD: Your favourite album of all time (any genre)?
Berlin Calling from Paul Kalkbrenner made a big impact on us as a band.
WWD: Tell us about your relationship with Depaart.
Depaart it’s our home. We joined them in May 2014 with our ‘Yo Mamma’ EP and since then we run the label as a brotherhood and we all take an active part on it, which it’s great. It has actually turned more into a collective rather than a label as it’s just Fran Zaragoza, Georgeous, Moliner and us releasing on it! We are doing great working all together, we are throwing lots of sick parties and events in Madrid and growing quite fast! It feels great to release our first album in our home!
WWD: Can you talk us through your approach to the album?
It had to be focused on us, it’s our first album so even though we have released some EPs before this was going to be our actual presentation card. It had to be composed without taking external influences and focusing on our identity. It’s cool because being two completely different guys can help you to come up with great ideas. We are friends since we are little kids, Pablo is 23 and has been studying music since he’s 6, and he carries on as that’s all that he does, music! Has a deep classical and contemporary formation but he had never been in touch with electronic music pretty much until we gathered in this project after playing together in a band for some years. Guille is 27 and
WWD: Can you give us three essential production tools that contributed to the LP?
Two comfortable chairs, an ashtray and an AC machine, hahaha.
Actually Ableton, Microkorg and our crappy microphone would have been enough.
WWD: Is there a personal story behind the tracks?
Sure, but not always willfully, some of them are just sick twists of cool sounds, hahaha. We don’t come up with the original ideas when we are together in the studio, we come up with them when we are alone in our studios. We develop them and mix them together, but the feelings from the composition are already there, from that night of that day. There are plenty of different emotions from real life events that happened during that year.
WWD: Now that the production side of things is all sewn up. What does the rest of 2016 hold for you?
We have some dates for the summer but not much as Guille is moving to Ibiza as every summer, so we’ll see! Our mini tour won’t start until the end of the summer as we have to get a proper live set ready. We’ve done many attempts but this time it’s the good one, so keep an eye on us! Live music on the way!
Thanks a lot for having us here, it’s been a pleasure!