#vectorwolf

Throughout your years of experience you have remained passionate about using hardware for your work. What was your first synth or piece of gear? What do you use most often? What have you used most on this particular album?

Brent: My first piece of gear was a Yamaha CS2X. I actually still own it but I prefer analog these days so I don't use it much except for the awesome 64 preset arpeggiations it has. What i use most these days depends on what project I'm working on, if its my grIMP solo stuff I usually use an MPC 2500 for the beats and a mixture of modified 80's video game consoles like the NES and C64.  

As far as Vectorwolf goes we mostly use analog synths including the Roland JX-3p, Akai Ax-80, Roland Alpha Juno 2, a Moog Sub Phatty and a Linn Drum Lm2 for the percussion.

Dani: I mainly use Brent's gear. My favorite thing to play on of his is the AX-80. That thing feels like a work of art, beautiful design with lush analog sounds. My personal setup is a bit more minimal. Laptop, a Launchpad (nicknamed Launchy), and 1 analog synth the Korg VolcaBass. The VolcaBass was used on the album for some nice texture and effects. 

Could you share some information about your solo projects so that we know what sort of background you are coming from and what elements each of you are bringing to the table?

Brent: I started out producing dark instumental trip hop/big beat type stuff and many years later started incorporating chip-tune influence. I have always dabbled in other styles like house and drum'n'bass and have always enjoyed it but just kind of stuck on the trip-hop/big beat side of things until I met Dani and we started exclusively producing drum'n'bass together as grIMP + Psyborg and now synthwave infused drum'n'bass as Vectorwolf.

I have some other side projects such as Sinister Monk; a big beat take on horror grindhouse and surfer rock and a 4 piece band called Basic Programming; female vocal based folk electronic with heavy beats.

As far as what I bring to the table, I think Dani and I are pretty much on the same tip as far as producing goes and we kind of just toggle different ideas back and forth, we kind of bring the same things to the table, just from different angles. 

Dani: I have a dark electronic project known as Psyborg. With that I've released a single on Glitchmode Recordings, a remix for Left/Right under Waxhole Recordings and multiple albums and remix albums for my home label Waxtooth Records. My crowning achievement as Psyborg would be my EP Malware which was very successful, it was hosted on EDM.com and its opening song was remixed by one of my heroes; E-sassin.

As far as the Vectorwolf project, although he both had our hands in every aspect of it, I believe Brent's strong suite is the melody and core song writing and mine is the programming, arrangement, and effects. Sound design was probably the most collaborative aspect, as we made it a point to be in the same room when he crafted and chose the sounds for each element. Everything from turning knobs on the Moog, compressing a Linn Drum kick to beating a frying pan with a hammer into a mic.

As I understand your friendship and interest in synthwave and the retro revival scene developed around the same time? 

Please tell us how this happened to evolve and when you began working together as musicians.

Brent: Dani and I started working together in 2010 and quickly learned that we where both into a lot of 80's shit like old school video games, 80's TV shows like Airwolf and Automan... that kind of stuff. and thought "why don't we make an 80's soundtrack?" After that it was just like the adult version of playing with action figures, coming up with story lines and characters for this fake movie. We made no compromises, this was a very selfish album for us in that we did every thing for us, anything we just thought was "cool" we added "fuck what people think". Its some of the most fun i have had working on music in the last 15 years.

Dani: I have always been fond of b-level sci-fi movies from the 80s, so when Brent turned me on to an artist named Chrome Canyon I instantly fell in love with his fantasy style retro revival. I wanted us to do something similar but with more of a sci-fi and horror feel. Around the same time we discovered something called "Blood Dragon" (I'm sure you're aware of it, lol) which was just that; The dark sci-fi 80's soundtrack that was exactly like what I wanted us to create. Of course this led both of us to discover and get fully immersed into the retrowave/synthwave scene. Essentially Blood Dragon and Chrome Canyon were the gateway drug into a culture we didn't know existed, that just happened to be perfectly suited for our tastes. We decided to join this culture, but with a twist; drum'n'bass.

As 80's kids what were some things about that time or even the music which you might most frequently misrepresented? Are there things that you are nostalgic for which very few people might be able to remember from that time?

Brent I don't think that there is too much of the new retro revival stuff that misrepresents the 80's, one of the reasons why I like it so much is how accurate most of it is.

I think that younger producers emulate the sound from media from the 80's perfectly but I think it helps that we have actual nostalgia growing up in the 80's. From waking up on Saturday and having no internet and playing your NES all day, to going to the mall and every one is smoking cigarettes inside looking like fucking Madonna and Bon Jovi while you go to the record store to buy a new album on cassette. There was just something about living in the era that helps us produce music from the era in a way that we feel captures what it was like to be there a bit more (and then we added drum'n'bass lol). 

Dani: Young producers making retro 80's music today when they were born much later is no different than all of the 90's and 00's bands that sounded like Led Zeppelin. Future generations will always look to what came before them for inspiration. I think the vibe of the 80's is pretty well documented ;), so there is certainly a lot of material for that inspiration.

Do you guys have a mission statement of what you were trying to achieve with this release? Did this intention or sound evolve while working or was it a solid idea when you started?

Brent: The album started out with a very concrete plan; Make an 80's soundtrack to a movie that does not exist and try and merge drum'n'bass in with it in a way that sounds natural to the source material. It was a risky move to mix such a modern style with something that usually has a very pre-defined sound, but asked ourselves "how long can this music and movement exist without change and innovation?" as far as we feel dnb adds a new fresh twist on the genre but can live happily in tandem with the 4/4 stuff. The song Love is a Battlefield's beat is essentially drum'n'bass on the Linn Drum is it not? Come to think of it that might have been the song that gave us the initial idea. 

Dani: Mission statement? To go on a time-travelling adventure to save mankind, of course.

Favorite track? Most pain-in-the-ass track? Did you scrap any works which you had intended to put in this release and why?

Brent: My favorite tracks are probably Hell's Gate and Love Scene. I feel like Hell's Gate nails a perfect balance between dark Nightmare on Elm Street type horror with dark drum n bass and yet is still playful with the sound design and timing(fun track to listen to).  Love Scene.... its just silly and the saxophones make me laugh. Also Grid Runner is a good jam and one of my favorites.

The most pain in the ass was definitely Street Justice. For one thing it was 2 songs that where in the same key and we decided to merge them into one song, also..since we where using a real Linn Drum, for some reason the stacked snare and kick where phasing each other out .... super frustrating during the mixing process.

Not much actually got cut ... nothing more than a few loose sketches. We pretty much got most of it spot on compared to what was in our heads right off the bat.

Dani: My favorite is the album's title song "Forgotten Future". There is a moment where its full tempo dnb and this crescendo seamlessly transitions the song into a halftime more traditional synthwave feel. I think that moment perfectly captures what the album is all about. It feels like time-travel through music. My Second favorite would have to be Street Justice. Early on we had a rule that every song with a beat had to be dnb/synthwave hybrid, but as time went on I feel we were both itching to do a traditional synthwave song. Once we finally gave in to that temptation Street Justice happened, and I think it came out better than we could have imagined. I think It coming out so well was the result of a kind of delayed gratification thing.

The most pain in the ass song for me was Hell's Gate. Its a very complex song with many elements and layers playing together. I must have went through 5 different versions of the arrangement, a few different basslines, several different ableton files. Etc. Etc. The song had a mind of its own and just didn't want to happen. They say "don't force it" but I did anyways and once it finally "clicked" I couldn't be more happy with the results.

One song that was scrapped was this weird experimental thing. It opened with some dark 80's pads and random noise and then drops into some funky breaks (think early "rave" or Prodigy's first album). It was just too under developed when it came time to start wrapping up the album. Unfortunately it was the only song we used Brent's circuit bent Casio on, so we couldn't add that crazy thing to our gear list.