Music
Camo & Krooked: On a quest for the perfect sound
When creating Mosaik, the Austrian producers really set out to raise the bar. Here they share an unprecedented insight into their creative process.
Austrian electronic duo Camo & Krooked are writing us an exclusive diary detailing the making of their new record Mosaik. In part two, they share a few of the lessons they learned along the way.
Technical knowledge … our dear old friend. Last Autumn we realised that we definitely need to improve in this respect, and we started analysing sounds and disassembling them into tiny bits and pieces. Why does a snare drum sound like a snare drum? Is it possible to somehow replicate a snare drum with a synthesizer, while still sounding convincingly analogue?
Maybe our sound lifted drum’n’bass into adolescence
After reading these questions, you might think that we are maniacs – and we probably we are. But in the end the tiny details determine whether an album sounds homogenous or not. Especially the drums need to sound beefy, no matter if we talk about rimshots, snare drums or toms – and that holds true for music in general. The funny thing is that you can create almost every sound with a synthesizer when you have enough knowledge. The regular listener will probably never realise these fine nuances, but we wanted to gain the respect that we deserve from other producers. And in this episode, we are going to tell you why that is important to us.
1 min
Camo & Krooked: Mosaik Diaries
Camo & Krooked: Mosaik Diaries
On the two kinds of drum'n'bass...
Within the drum’n’bass scene there is a huge amount of people who are incredibly into music and who are spinning records and producing themselves – and they value a tune according to its sound and technical elements as well. We wanted to go down well with the nerds to increase our street credibility so that we could take the liberty of producing more mainstream songs as well.
There are two types of drum’n’bass: the more poppy kind, where the production is often complete trash. And secondly, the technical kind. The genre is somehow still underground and the people with the loudest tune gain the most respect. From all genres, drum’n’bass is definitely the weirdest because everything hits twice as hard. And it is awesome that it still is that way – if you took this away, nothing would distinguish you from other producers who use Ableton stock sounds and quickly create something.
Camo & Krooked
© Matthias Heschl
Searching for the perfect sound
For Mosaik we were on a quest for the perfect sound. But what even is perfect sound? Definitely something subjective. For us it was the combination of analogue synth sounds and foley recording, which is the recording of sounds from articles of daily use. By doing so, we created a kind of recognition value. What is even more important is that the tracks chime together – somehow you could describe Mosaik as a concept album, if such a thing even exists in our genre. Obviously, as we are still an act that plays in clubs, we had to agree to a compromise – super arty downtempo-tunes might not be the best idea for a crowd that likes to freak out sometimes. But we learned to manage this.
Bangers, chilled tunes, some surprises… nothing here is standard, and every track has its own style, vibe and meaning. It is tricky to include exactly these features – meaning and emotion – in drum’n’bass because often there is no space for these elements between all the craziness. This was already a hard task when we were producing the Zeitgeist album. We are really glad that our listeners accept these features, that they show so much love on our social media channels, and it proves us that apparently we did a good job. Sometimes, other artists even adapt our style and below their YouTube videos you read comments such as “Oh, sounds like Camo & Krooked”. It feels really nice that we managed to create some kind of trademark sound.
Camo & Krooked
© Matthias Heschl
Sure, sick party tunes are booming – but each trend needs a counterculture
On forming a drum'n'bass counterculture
Will Mosaik set another trend? Concerning that really "in your face" sound, Noisia are on the throne – it is almost impossible to do better than them in this respect. We are the opposite pole, using a completely different approach. Yeah, we’ve got a rousing build up, but then exactly the opposite happens: all of a sudden the listener is confronted with the least possible amount of sounds.
It took a while until the crowd accepted that – funnily enough we still feel the aftermath of Zeitgeist because this album became popular only after some time. This summer is probably the best time for Mosaik to be released. Sure, sick party tunes are booming – but each trend needs a counterculture. We polarise with our sound, many people even say: “I don’t want to listen to that on the dancefloor.” But when they experience it afterwards, they realise that it stands out from the crowd and you can dance to it nonetheless.
Camo & Krooked
© Matthias Heschl
The beautiful thing is that Noisia like our sound – we already did a remix for one of their albums, on which they released 17 remixes from various artists. They even chose our remix as a single for the whole album. That was a huge honor. Moreover, we are more than happy that the underground loves our style.
Maybe our sound lifted drum’n’bass into adolescence. Luckily it doesn’t seem to be boring. Grown-up while still being kittenish – that could be a good description. A couple of years ago, in 2011, when we released Cross The Line, we were the crowd’s favorite, but other producers smiled at us. Zeitgeist somehow marked a turnaround, especially the tune All Night, because many producers said: “I’ve never heard a tune like that before.” Now we are more than excited about the feedback for Mosaik.
On making something that lasts
If it does not set a trend, then it has a unique feature at least – and that is fine as well. However, we are optimistic – and primarily proud of ourselves that after three years of hard work we achieved our goal and that the album still sounds up to date although the production phase took so long. When it comes to electronic music, three years is a lifetime. Artists come and go. We are lucky that within this time no other artist had the same idea as we had.
