Lemaitre have been spreading their brand of unique electronica since their debut release The Friendly Sound and have been inspiring listeners world wide with their recent EP series Relativity. We caught up with the Norwegian producer duo to find out what makes them tick and where they find the inspiration to create such unifying and simultaneously eclectic music.
EARMILK : How did you guys meet and what inspired you to start Lemaitre ?
Lemaitre (Ketil) : We met in high school actually and then we both did music by ourselves until I moved to another city two hours from Oslo for two years where we met right before I moved home. We both agreed that after school we wanted to try to work in music, so our deal was we would try it for one year because most people our age at that time take one year where they work or travel so we thought we would take our year and try to make music. It started working out after only a couple of months when we released friendly sound, our video guy gave it to a music blog and ever since then we have grown, not so much exponentially, there hasn't been one huge bump, we have steadily grown into what we are now.
E : You mentioned the first release was The Friendly Sound and after that you started working on the Relativity Series which has been well received worldwide and has a very unique sound, could you shed some light on how you go about writing and producing a record ?
L (Ketil) : Every artist has their own workflow and their sound comes from that, even if we were to produce whatever other genre we still have tells. We both started out enjoying Daft Punk and a lot of french house music and ever since then our musical taste has expanded but our core sound has remained.
L (Ulrik) : I think one of the main parts of our sound is that we sample our own stuff. We started sampling other peoples stuff but we didn't know how to clear samples so we started making samples ourselves, we started making funk, soul and even rock samples to resample them. So often the way we start to write or produce a song is to make an old school funk sample and then take bits of that or the whole progression and process it and loop it and write the song around that. So we can basically make whatever samples we like with live guitars and we are able to do the rest 'in the box'. It's a very big freedom to be able to sample stuff without worrying about copyrights and you're able to make them with any melody that you want.
E : The last release you had, Relativity By Nite, does that mark the end of the Relativity series or can we expect a Relativity 4 ?
L (Ketil) : It does. It was a conclusion of an era for us, it was the end of the beginning. We just signed to Astrelwerks and we moved to L.A so this starts a new phase for us. The Relativity series has been really cool to work with and we've had a great time and a great response but Relativity By Nite was a collection of remixes and live versions of songs that we have used just to finish up that whole series. So there is going to be new stuff, with new names.
E : That leads me to the next question quite nicely. First of all congratulations on signing to Astrelwerks, what was it about them that resonated with you and why did you choose them over other labels ?
L (Ketil) : They really got our music and we felt that the people they had signed both previously and lately has been stuff that we really like, Matt Zo, Porter Robinson, they also did a deal with Deadmau5. The guys just seem super cool. We also met Mat Zo in Australia and he had nothing but nice things to say about the label and he had exactly the same experience, that they really got the music that he wanted to make and didn't want to change it into EDM or Pop music or anything, they liked it for what it was.
E : Do you have any plans to tour this year and are you playing any festivals ?
L (Ketil) : We are playing SXSW this year and we are also playing a festival called Hove in Norway. Our touring schedule isn't completely set yet. There will be a US and European tour.
L (Ulrik) : We will hopefully be touring around the US to do some of the major cities, I think in april but we havn't set the dates yet. It is going to really cool doing our first big US shows.
E : Who inspires you to make music ?
L (Ketil) : That's actually a bit different for Ulrik and me. We both really like old funk from the 70's, early Prince stuff is super cool and James Brown, The Meters and stuff like that. Also cool new artists like J Paul and James Blake is super cool. Ulrik listens to a lot of hip hop.
L (Ulrik) : Yeah, I started producing because I wanted to produce Hip Hop. I like producers like DJ Premiere, J Dilla, Pete Rock and Q-Tip especially. It differs all the time, I wanted to make electronic music when Justice came. We find new stuff all the time that inspires us.
L (Ketil) : It's a lot of artists, basically everything we hear we take something from it. If it doesn't bore us.
E : Speaking of inspiration, you seem to have a big interest in Science and Astronomy based on the band name and track titles. Is that a theme that you plan to carry out through the whole project or was that more for the Relativity series ?
L (Ketil) : It will at least continue for a bit longer. We both find it interesting, it's a cool subject with a lot of cool reference points.
L (Ulrik) : We don't directly take inspiration from it, we're really not scholars at anything.
L (Ketil) : It's cool to read about black holes.
E : What's next for Lemaitre ? Any plans to make a full length album ?
L (Ulrik) : Yeah, we are now finishing up a new EP, it comes out as soon as possible, within the first quarter of this year definitely. Then we will start working on a full length but that can take some time so we are not exactly sure when that will be out but that is something we have been looking forward to for a long time. That's going to be our next project as soon as we finish this EP.
E : Well thanks a lot for taking the time to speak to us today, good luck with the EP, we're really excited to hear it !
It seems as if Lemaitre are well prepared to tackle the coming years and with the promise of a new EP in the coming months and a full length at some point in their career it's difficult to imagine how far these two producers can go but one thing is for sure, it isn't something you want to miss.
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