Get to know the Artists: Q&A With Canadian Duo LEVRIGE on their latest 160bpm single ‘BIG TRIG’ on Elastic Rhythms
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: LEVRIGE
- Canadian duo Levrige bring forth their latest rave smackin' single 'BIG TRIG' to the rave grounds, giving us a blend of their unique take on Juke Music, Jungle samples, and a hyper-sonic style of their own that separates these two from the norm. This heart throbbing couple are both incredibly talented producers with a driving focus on their sound, making them a power house unlike any we've seen or heard of before. 'BIG TRIG' will be out this June 4th, 2021 on all available streaming platforms worldwide here on Elastic Rhythms. We decided to ask them a few questions to get to know this duo better, and here’s what they said:
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1. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work?
We've both realized during the pandemic that a lot of our motivation and inspiration comes from attending festivals and live shows. Also having that next gig to look forward to and be able to test new tunes at. Overall when the motivation is there, other life commitments and projects make it difficult to have as much studio time as we'd like, so when we do get a decent session in, something good usually happens. Also, if a project isn't going anywhere quickly, we've learned putting it on the backburner for awhile rather than trying to force it really helps with productivity. To keep things interesting, we try to record weird stuff such as scraping a pineapple with a fork, or tapping a drumstick on Jenn's nail. We also use a lot of samples of recordings of background noises from our daily lives in our music to try to keep it unique and original sounding.
2. What is the best advice that you have been given?
Jenn: Musically speaking, It was a real aha moment when we realized that we were using too much reverb overall. Huge thank you to Sam Binga for the honest and extremely helpful feedback.
Andrew: Be deliberate with your sound choices. For example, ask yourself what are you trying to accomplish by adding that layer to the snare, or by adding compression to a track? Don't just do things because you think you're supposed to.
3. What advice would you have given yourself 5 years ago?
Stop comparing yourself to others.
4. What is your favorite late night studio snack?
Jenn: Dill Pickle Kettle chips or tortilla chips with homemade guacamole (I make a mean guac!)
Andrew: Natural Peanut Butter. I'll just eat it straight up off a spoon, I love that shit so much.
5. What in your personal life has influenced you to choose your music career?
Jenn: I started going to festivals and parties before I started DJ-ing and it's always brought me so much joy. I also really enjoy travelling. I started DJ-ing because I thought it would be fun to learn how to mix records. When I realized how fun it was playing music for people, combining that with travel and attending festivals was a clear path.
Andrew: It just comes from me wanting to share music. I love digging for new music, and finding interesting stuff that other people may not have heard before.
6. How harshly do you critique your own work?
Jenn : We have a lot of finished tunes that we haven't really sent around so I think that's a good indication we are pretty critical.
Andrew: We constantly A/B our mixdowns with tracks we find inspiring. It can be a pretty disheartening process sometimes, but it at least provides motivation to learn new techniques.
7. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Jenn: Hopefully travelling around playing to huge dance floors.
Andrew: I have dreams of doing some sort of live set. Not sure if we’ll make it happen but some seeds are being planted now so we’ll see.
8. How would you like to be remembered?
In terms of musically, it would be nice to just be remembered at all. If you can produce a body of work that can stand the test of time and be remembered in any way, we both think that’s pretty awesome.
9. If you had to live in a different country, which one would you choose?
Jenn: New Zealand would be cool, but I’m pretty happy living out in the woods on Vancouver Island right now if I’m being honest
Andrew: I think when it comes to bass music, England would be awesome. But honestly, I feel we have a pretty good thing going here on the West Coast.
10. If you were our President, what would be the first thing you’d do?
Jenn: Take from the rich and give to the poor.
Andrew: Cut military spending and reallocate it to social programs and education.
11. Analog or Digital? and why?
Too hard to choose between the two, we use both! Arranging in a DAW is the best and there are lots of great plugins, but many of the sounds from analogue gear just seem to have a certain quality that we cannot achieve digitally.
12. If you could sit in on any production session, who would it be with? And why?
Jenn: Tough one! Probably Alix Perez. He is able to make so many styles of music so well and pumps out tunes so quickly I would love to see what his workflow is like. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an Alix Perez tune that I don’t like.
Andrew: Someone like Amon Tobin would be crazy. He was one of my earliest inspirations and he’s always sounded so futuristic.
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THANK YOU LEVRIGE! 'BIG TRIG' will be out this June 4th, 2021 on all available streaming platforms worldwide here on Elastic Rhythms.