Coffee break with Stereocalypse
Over a year ago, the ‘Lace Star EP’ landed on the scene as debut work of Stereocalypse, the Italian duo formed by Andrea Doria, synths maniac and studio addicted since the early 90's, and Olderic, renowned DJ and producer since the early 2000’s. With a strong focus on melodies and deep club vibes, the duo has provided us a perfect example of how to make a remarkable entrance in the scene, delivering 2 EPs (‘Lace Star’ on Siamese and ‘Arboria’ on Get Physical) and a couple of remixes ( ‘Color the rain’ by Flowers and Sea Creatures, and ‘I don't know’ by WhoMadeWho) that have attracted the attention of more influential DJs in the circuit, and mostly Innervisions' chiefs Dixon and Ame.
Catching the long awaited release of their new single ‘Blue Dome Escargot’, included on the 10th edition of Innervisions’ ‘Secret Weapons’, we wanted to ask them a few things about themselves and how they plan their future.
‘Blue Dome Escargot’ is quite an interesting name for a track. Where does it come from?
Mostly, the names of our tracks come naturally. It's such an instinctive thing when we are creating music and all these little sounds suggest us images... We saw that sad (you know blue also means sad in English) ‘escargot’ crawling, slowly following the rhythm of our deep melancholic track... But we need to tell you… No shrooms that day!
And, it’s quite funny seeing people posting a kind of blue snail emoji as comment to videos where Dixon and Âme dropped our baby.
BDE is out on IV’s ‘Secret Weapons part 10’. Seems like the guys wanted to release a very selective compilation… What’s the story behind your contribution and how does it feel to release on one of the most influential underground labels of nowadays?
We agree with you, this release is very special since it sums up a full year of track selection by Dixon and Âme themselves, and we are obviously very happy to be part of it. To be fair Innervisions’ world is one of our favorite since the beginning of our project, we simply sent ‘Blue Dome Escargot’ to Steffen and Kristian in the end of October 2017 when the track was just finished.
Listening to the mood of the main melody we thought about them and their music selection, and they came back with a great feedback, asking for the track to be part of their next Secret Weapons compilation. Huge pleasure for us. At that period they were still playing both our remixes to Flowers and Sea Creatures and WhoMadeWho, so that was the perfect moment to create that connection.
Let’s talk about you guys. How did you two meet?
Enrico already knew Andrea and his long time reputation in the electronic scene but never got the chance to meet him, until a good friend of ours organized the first meeting in October 2015. The meaning of the first encounter was just to talk about the music scene, since Andrea had been out of the game for approx 8 years, since he decided to take a break and focus more on sound frequencies and composition. We were both looking for new inspirations at that time and everything started step by step, Andrea got back with new fresh enthusiasm in making new music and Enrico pushed his own boundaroies in terms of music production… Studio session after studio session we got more and more feeling and the rest is what we are today.
Has working together changed the way you make music?
Yes, definitely, we can say we are both evolving. Andrea finds more balance working with a skilled and dancefloor-oriented DJ like Enrico, due to his attention to raw elements like drums, percussions… While Enrico can adapt his dancefloor-friendly rules to Andrea’s vision, experience and talent in composition.
You both have a lot of experience in terms of music production and synthesis. What are the most important elements for a great track? Do you have a particular synthesiser that MUST be in your studio?
Everything is important to make a great track, from the elements to choose to how to put them together… But mostly for a great track you have to create that kind of original and unique touch and feeling. Sometimes it’s a matter of luck, some other times we have a clear idea of what we want to achieve. We have a poster on the studio’s wall which says: ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law’, and so we do with our music. We love to explore a lot and put together new musical concepts, no matter what the market asks. We just work on tracks that we can live and feel.
We MUST always have some special toys in the studio! Aside a glorious Roland SYSTEM-100M, two old but gold modified Commodore 64. Many different sounds of our tracks, ‘Escargot’ included, come from that little 8 bit SID chip MOS 6581.
Melody is definitely a key element in your productions. Is there anything in particular that inspires you when you create? Anything related to your original logo?
Anything can inspire us, but it comes mostly from images, everyday situations, or it can also be when thinking about philosophical stuff, fantasies…
You got a point, from our perspective our logo expresses the power of the eye of the mind, you don’t need other eyes while creating music…
And we listen to a lot of music from the past of course, especially New Wave and ‘Cosmic’ from the 80’s.
Through the years you have witnessed many styles of music coming and going. What do you think are going to be the main music trends for this year?
Honestly we care very little about trends, for us music is strictly connected to human feelings rather than just trends or musical genres. Which is why we think that this year will just focus on emotions and feelings, no matter what the musical genre is.
Can you tell us more about your plans for 2018?
We will reveal new music of course. We will build our live-set duet (for now we prefer to perform a DJ-set by Enrico only). For the rest you can stay up to date by following our socials, we love to make surprises and nowadays you have to share step by step, because everything goes viral in a few seconds and people get bored easily.