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Exclusive Interview: Meet ANZU
What first drew you into music production and disco production in particular?
Music production was something that we both came around to a few years after we finished high school. We both played music growing up and we were both really into electronic music and Simon decided to go to school for recording. He ended up teaching me pretty much everything I (Jesse) know about production and we decided to make music together. It took us a few years to establish what our sound was, it wasn’t until late 2016 that we started making disco music. We’ve always loved disco and French house music, and its something we’ve always wanted to make and it seemed like the right time when we started to work on our first proper release.
Your latest EP “Without Love Vol. 1” captures the greatness of the 70s disco movement while staying true to yourself and today’s modern sound. How did you achieve such a great signature sound in such a short time? Also, what is your creative processes like?
We definitely had to spend a few years writing, working on our production and instrumental chops before we started to write the EP. The EP itself came together relatively quickly and naturally but that’s definitely because of the time we spent writing together. We tried and failed, many times to write songs like this before. A major part of that is working with the right samples, and experimenting with them, trying to get something new and fresh out of an idea from the past. It’s easy to find an amazing piece of music to sample, the challenge is making it into something that people will accept as something new and exciting.
Generally, we each tend to come up with rough song skeletons on our own and bring the idea to the other person to work on and make it into a full track. How much of that track is brought to the table completely depends on the track, and sometimes we’ll make an entire song from scratch together. The starting point is generally a sample or a chord progression or something really basic, which we then chop up and try to change so we can write new parts over top. It really varies track to track though.
What is it like working together? Do you have specific roles in the studio?
We’ve been friends since we were kids and since we’re just a duo it’s pretty easy to work together. We only have to worry about the other opinion, as opposed to a band where you can have 4 or 5 opinions to consider. Our roles are similar, but we both have our strengths. Simon’s musical background is more technical, whereas my background is playing in bands, but at the end of the day we’re on the same page.
Disco and Nu disco is one of our favourite genres and we wonder who is your favourite Nu disco/Disco artist?
That’s a really tough one, aside from all the greats we’re influenced by, our current favourite of the last few years is probably Amtrac.
Can you tell us more about the story behind the ‘’Without Love Vol.1’’ EP?
The writing started at the end of 2016, and once we got on a roll we decided to take a break from playing shows and we ended up with a lot of material. We didn’t want to release it all at once so we decided to release them as a series of EP’s. The initial process was a bit weird. The title is obviously a little dramatic and we were definitely channeling a lot of frustration into the music, but it came out very positive. That’s what disco and good dance music are all about.
What are your goals for the new year, any upcoming projects we can get excited about?
We’ll hopefully be releasing Vol. 2 this summer and Vol. 3 most likely by the start of next year. We’ll be releasing some b-sides and other tracks in between releases as well. I think our biggest goal is just to make sure the music sounds as good as possible and have as many people enjoy it as we can.
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