Interview By: Quinn AllanAlready prominent figures in the West Coast dance scene, DJs MartyParty and Ooah joined forces in 2005 to unleash their unstoppable beats on the world. Together they form PANTyRAid, a powerful combo with a polished new sound. They’re out to prove there’s more to their electronic mayhem then your standard club track. We at CWG thought we’d find out just how they plan on doing that:
Quinn Allan: The list of genres and sub-genres concerning electronic music is nearly endless. Do you find it all hard to label your music, or do you forgo labels altogether?
PANTyRAiD: Impossible to label our music (smiles). Our music gets placed in the oddest categories on website stores sometimes! We like to describe it as hip hop bass music or e-hop.
QA: Creating music, mostly through computers, must make the long distance collaborating much easier. How long does it take to complete a track when sending it back and forth?
PR: It varies - one us will start a project and then FTP it to the other, they make a part, FTP it back etc. If we sit together it takes a day to have a finished song. It’s very fast. The ideas and inspiration is endless in this production environment. Even with a lot of back and forth it’s a matter of days for a track to become a finished song.
QA: Although familiar with each other’s work, you first met at a festival in Costa Rica. How does the Costa Rican electronic/dance scene compare to here in the states?
PR: Our time in Costa was at the beach - however we spent time in the capital and the scene is very 4/4 cheezy house with a lot of electronic reggaeton thrown in.
QA: Without a strong reliance on spoken word in your music, do you find yourselves at an advantage when spreading your music in countries where English is not the dominate language?
PR: Our production of original songs is challenging as we don’t have voices. We need to speak with our instruments. It is difficult to capture a listener for 5 minutes without a lot of expression in the lead and we typically do this with a bass lead melody. It absolutely makes our sound more portable across markets and we want the music to be heard globally as everyone can interpret the emotion of the music without relying on the language or meaning.
QA: In 2008 you guys made the move from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, NY. Most musicians see L.A. as a music Mecca, do you find that your music is more at home on the east coast?
PR: I, (MartyParty) live in Brooklyn still where I have my studio, Josh (Ooah) moved back to L.A. to work on the Glitch Mob album. The west coast is definitely more happening with bass oriented music. The east coast is slow to catch up and I spent most weekends flying to the west or midwest (HUGE FANS IN THE MIDWEST!)
QA: Sex plays a big part in the marketing of your music. That said, what are your personal feelings on using sex as a marketing tool?
PR: Bring it. We make sexy music because we are passionate emotional men (smiles), like booty shaking music. We wanted that to come through in the marketing, art and artistic direction of the whole brand. Our music is very much loved by the ladies and therefore we wanted to also make sure it was tastefully done and not trashy. It’s often hard to not cross that line.
QA: As with any music scene, artists are always looking for that “new sound”. How easily do you find it to explore territories other artists haven’t?
PR: Electronic production means a lot of room for experimentation - merely open up a new synth and start tweaking with the oscillators and filters to find a new sound. Its one of our loves - sound design - and we try and use different drums, sounds and keys in all our songs - its one of the goals of the project. We are tired of hearing albums made with the same instruments, we love each song to have a totally new feeling through variations in all the instruments and constant dynamics in the mixdown.
QA: It is usually beneficial for artists to be aware of other artist’s work. What albums are you guys listening to now?
PR: We tend to listen to tracks from our peer producers in the community - we are all close and share our works as we cook them so we are always in touch with the next sound before its released mostly. We also love a female voice, Fever Ray, Bat for Lashes, Lykke Li etc. are always on our minds. The latest underground hip hop and dubstep gets us turned on fast!
QA: Becoming familiar with recording hardware and different kinds of software usually leads artists into other areas of music production, outside creating. Do you guys produce other artists?
PR: We remix for a lot of well known artists and this is something we want to do more of - we can quickly take a tune and change its sound completely, and are master audio manipulators meaning we need only a small piece of audio to create a tapestry of parts. We hope PANTyRAiD becomes a major remixing force - its also a lot of fun and we get to work with our favorite artists. We are looking forward to producing the next hip hop with a good MC - thats our dream - bring it on!
QA: With a label based in the U.K., festivals in Central America, and recognition on both coasts of the U.S., you guys get around a lot. What would you say your favorite place to play live has been so far?
PR: Colorado and California are our best crowds, we have not toured Europe yet - 2010 is the plan.
PANTyRAiD’s debut album, The Sauce, was released in September of this year, and has been making sweet electronic waves throughout the electronic/dance scene. You can hear their beats at www.myspace.com/pantyraidmusic.
