Interview: Empathy Test + Exclusive First Look At The BLSHS Remix
-While your music is normally dark and some of the remixes cover a similar ground others encompass completely different genres such as EDM, dance, minimal electro, techno, beats, and even some drum & bass! What genres would each of you say that you most listen to when not working on your own project? Which of the genres within your remix album do you most identify with?
Both of us listen to music of most genres really; whatever is new and good. Adam probably listens to a wider range of stuff, from classical to underground dance music, while Isaac's mostly into Indie and Electronic Pop. We both like stuff with a strong structure and a good chorus or hook though. From the remix EP, Isaac's favorites were definitely Aeon Rings' and Minuit Machine's, although everything on there is great in its own way. Adam liked Aeon Rings' too and we both appreciated Thomas Datt's production expertise although Progressive Trance isn't perhaps a genre we'd naturally associate with! Gash's remix of Holding On is definitely the most innovative and progressive, you have to check that one out!
As the Throwing Stones Remixed EP progresses however, you'll find some totally different kinds of remixes on there. The EP shouldn't really be seen as a reflection of where Empathy Test is going, but simply as our music reinterpreted through the minds of other artists of whom we are fans. No doubt remixes often have an influence on how artists develop but not really in this case. We intend to continue to modernize our sound and create something fresh, whilst still retaining that haunting and personal quality to our music that people seem to connect to. -When converting your melody from an acoustic sounds to something electronic do you generally compose it using hardware synths or do you put everything together in your DAW? What equipment do you most frequently use and is there anything particularly interesting in your collection? Everything is put together on the computer. We are very much a "digital" band in that sense. The sounds you hear are created by either manipulating samples or synthesized using software. Sadly, we don't have space for a big collection of hardware!
-How have you gone about choosing musicians that you wanted to do the official remixes? Were there some prerequisites or did you just take various submissions and go from there? Could you just explain the whole process and how you came to the final product? We just picked people whose music we liked or whom we thought would do something interesting with the tracks. We then approached them via email, Facebook or Soundcloud and asked them if they'd like to remix us. A few of the people we'd not had contact with before simply didn't reply or were too busy to help. Having very little time ourselves, we can totally understand that, but it's always nice to reply to people anyway! For those who were up for it, we gave them all the parts of the tracks and left them to it.
We didn't really set any definite deadlines, which allowed them to take their time. Once we'd got all the remixes back, Adam mastered them and we set a release date and created a promo schedule.
-Could you briefly describe how you met and began working with each of the musicians who are working on your Throwing Stones Remixed EP? They're all basically people we know or whose music we were introduced to during our first year as a band. Some of them we asked to do a remix and some of them asked us. Black City Lights has been a big influence on Empathy Test and is on Stars & Letters Records. Stars & Letters is run by Mark Roberts, AKA We Are Temporary. We Are Temporary has gigged with Aeon Rings, who are on the same record label as BLSHS, so they're all linked. Minuit Machine was a band Isaac had been listening to on Spotify. We ended up performing with them at Wave Gotik Treffen. Thomas Datt, we're proud to say, is a fan of ours! He asked us on Facebook if he could remix us and we're very glad we said yes. Elsewhere, KVLT is the new project of Mike and Ivan from Belarus, who used to be called The Playfellow and for whom Isaac recorded some vocals a few years back. Gash is an old friend of Isaac's who DJed at a music festival Isaac used to put on. Figures of Eighty is a side project of Adam's with our friend Ned Woodman who has been a Breaks DJ for many years and whom Adam used to make music with as Magnet Men (not to be confused with Magnetic Man!).
-It seems as though you have done a lot of touring this year; how has that gone? Do yu enjoy being on stage or does it make you guys nervous? What are your plans for touring in the future if you have any? Are there any particular venues, cities, or countries you would like to tour? Yes, we've done a huge amount of shows this year and it's been pretty exhausting, but rewarding too. We organized our own UK tour with fellow Londoners Vivien Glass and we have to admit, it has been tough. Whilst still holding down day jobs we've played shows in different cities almost every weekend of the summer. We turn up at these small venues we've never been to before, let alone played at, with different equipment, sound engineers and obstacles to overcome each time. We've spent a small fortune on travel, been double booked, kicked out of the venue as soon as we finished playing, suffered near crippling sound issues - the lot!
That said, the reaction and support from our fans has been immense and has really carried us through the hard times, for sure. While Adam isn't massively keen on performing and hasn't joined Isaac, drummer Casey and stand in keyboard player Liza for the tour, in favor of working on new material, we both get a buzz out of coming off stage and meeting the people for whom our music means so much. That's the real reward of touring. We're hoping to sign up with a booking agency in the near future which will hopefully allow us to tour further afield and with a lot more comfort and ease! I imagine a German tour is probably on the cards based on the positive reaction we've received there, but we'd like to go all over Europe. -Is Empathy Test planning another release after the Throwing Stone Remixes? When might us music fiends expect that?
We are working on new material as we speak and it's really starting to come together now. We've been experimenting with four new songs live, which have been going down very well ā namely, Siamese, Demons, By My Side and Sleep. We're most happy with Sleep and Siamese but the other two need some work. We also have a few more tracks in progress, including a totally new one called Seeing Stars.
Unfortunately, Isaac being on the tour and also running the promo for the remix EP has slowed things down considerably, but now that Stars & Letters are out of the equation it also means that we have to decide exactly what we're going to do with these new tracks. Will it be an album? Another EP? Just a single? Are we ready to release an album? These are all questions that unfortunately might not be answered until we finish the new material and get a new label on board. -Thanks for talking with us! Hopefully we'll talk again soon! Any final thoughts you might like to share with the audience?
No problem, always a pleasure talking to NeonVice. We hope everyone enjoys the BLSHS remix of Here Is The Place, which NeonVice has the exclusive first play of. When this goes out we will have just played the penultimate gig of our UK tour in Nottingham and will have just one left. That's with the excellent Vile Electrodes on 15th August at The Hope & Ruin. Should be an excellent show. Tickets can be bought from jurademons.com. Apart from that, you can catch us at Flag Promotions' SOS#2 Festival [https://www.facebook.com/events/365583843627990/] on 8th August in London and we're also headlining Riba Rocks Festival [http://www.riba-rocks.com/rr-2015/]in Spain first weekend of September. It's going to be awesome!
