Finnish dance duo Super8 & Tab released their second artist album, Unified earlier this month via their home base label Anjunabeats. With pre-released singles like "No Frontiers" featuring Julie Thompson, the production duo known for their vocal progressive house and trance music quickly truck a chord with fans and critics ahead of the album's release. As many artists know, moving from single releases like the guys have done over the past few years back to making an album format is quite a transition. We got to chat with the guys about making the their album, their favorite moments making Unified and advice they would give to others striving to make successful careers like theirs. Check it out below.
EARMILK: How did you decide you were ready to dive into making your next artist album?
Super8 & Tab: We basically knew right after our first album, Empire, that we wanted to do another. Although it took little bit longer than we thought, we wanted to experiment with our sound in between before diving into making new one.
EM: What albums influenced you as artists?
S8&T: Above & Beyond – Tristate
Gabriel & Dresden Album
Coldplay – A Rush of Blood To the Head
Radiohead – Kid A & OK Computer
The Prodigy – Experience
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EM: What do you think of the industry standard of making singles versus albums? What is your take on the album experience within dance music?
S8&T: Both have pros and cons. When we work with single we aim to do one great track for the clubs and it can be taken basically to any direction we want. When we work with the album we need to keep in mind that it has to work in many different situation and album need to sound in some degree complete package too. That is really challenging, but usually challenges are good in music making. It makes you push yourself further.
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EM: What was the concept behind the album?
S8&T: The concept was to do album that has modern Super8 & Tab sound and that it works great when played in the club, but it's also easy to listen at home, car or where ever.
EM: What were you most looking forward to in making Unified?
S8&T: To get it ready, release it, get all the feedback from the fans and start to tour with the music. It's really rewarding when you release new track and you go out to play it and you see people going crazy about it. Now we have whole new album of music we can play.
EM: What was different about how you made this album versus others?
S8&T: With Empire we didn't record all the vocal tracks at our studio by ourselves, but those we did came out much smoother. So this time we brought all the vocalists to our studio and wrote and recorded tracks with them. We feel we ended up with much better result than trying to work over the internet.
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EM: What is a sign of a successful album release for you?
S8&T: There are always things like charts, but more important for us is the huge positive feedback we have got from fans, music lovers and industry people. We are overwhelmed how well Unified has been received.
EM: Do you have a favorite track from Unified?
S8&T: There are so many, but just to name one at this moment it could be "Patience."
EM: If you have a piece of advice to those trying to make their first album – what would it be?
S8&T: Take your time as it's better to give all the time it needs. Maybe try to write those 4-5 album defining key tracks first and then build the rest of the album around those.
Remaining Tour Dates:
November 14 Vancouver, BC @ Celebrities
November 15 Portland, OR @ Whisky Bar
November 21 Atlanta, GA @ Opera Nightclub
November 22 Seattle, WA @ Foundation Nightclub
November 26 Chicago, IL @ Sound-Bar
November 27 Buffalo, NY @ Lift
November 28 Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
November 29 San Francisco, CA @ Vessel
Unified Tracklist:
01. Memory Lane
02. Let Go (feat. Julie Thompson)
03. Code Red (with Jaytech)
04. No Frontiers (feat. Julie Thompson)
05. Who Needs Pain (feat. Jan Burton)
06. Patience (feat. Julie Thompson)
07. Aika (with BT)8. Clairvoyant
09. Say U Luv (feat. Alyna)
10. Antipodes (with 7 Skies)
11. Sonata (with Sunny Lax)
12. Rubicon (with 7 Skies)
13. Souls Of Lovers (feat. Jan Burton)
14. Forever
Super8 & Tab
Unified
- Anjunabeats
- ANJCD040D
