It should come as no surprise that when a new talent breaks through in the world of techno, there’s a strong chance they were born in Germany.
One of the fastest growing duo’s in recent years has been 2pole, and you guessed it, they’re both German.
The pair’s previous releases have seen them put tracks out on Suara Music, Tronic, and Lost On You, among other tops labels, and next up they return to OFF Recordings for their new Overlap EP.
We recently spoke to the guys to chat about the new 2-tracker, their typical approach to picking a label, whether we will ever see a 2pole imprint, and more. Get the full discussion below.
You’re about to return to OFF Recordings for the release of your new Overlap EP, talk us through the tracks on this one?
Oh yes. We talked to OFF Recordings about a double release of two EPs. And we signed five tracks. The first 3-track NEOWISE EP is already out with two music videos and the second 2-track EP is OVERLAP.
Overlap is a techno tool, which we produced together in one of our studios. We recorded that one into Ableton Live using analog synthesisers, drum machines and outboard effects. In the box we arranged the audio files and mixed it.
Flitter is a melodic techno anthem with huge synth lines from an Oberheim OB-6 and big basses from a Pro-1. All drums are made with a Roland TR-909 with some outboard effects tweaks. We hope you’ll like these two as much as we do!
And previously, you’ve released on Suara, Tronic and Lost On You, what is your typical thought process when it comes to choosing a label?
Usually we like to discuss which label is cool for us the moment we finish an EP. Sometimes we get influenced by a promo or release of a label we like, so our tracks will go into that direction. The third way: labels asking us to send a demo EP – this is when we do not have to discuss about it.
Will we ever see a 2pole label?
Ha! Of course we are always thinking about starting our own label. But we know it is time consuming. At the moment we want to focus on music, our project and our community, which we need to get a label running. There’s no date right now, but we’ll let you know!
Working as a duo, how do you manage studio sessions when it comes to conflicting opinions?
We’ve got two separate studios where we can work on our own layouts and jobs for clients. We do not live very close so it’s not easy to get studio sessions together. We have a shared Dropbox folder, so we can work together on a song project.
And of course we communicate a lot over a day via FaceTime and phone to talk about music and business stuff. We both can handle criticism really well, which is very important for our work and is always welcome!
And before the pandemic, what way did you split up DJ sets?
Playing on stage together as a music project is our main goal, and why we produce music. We both have different folders on our sticks of songs with different flavours, which will fit nicely on stage.
This is 2pole, sometimes we play back-2-back on four CDJs, sometimes one of us is playing 2-3 tracks, before the other steps in. We do not have any pre-made schedules, because we like to play music for the people and not for us.
On the subject of Covid, what are you missing most about being on the road and playing to crowds?
We really miss speaking to people, face-2-face, networking, hanging around with people from different cities and countries. And of course we really miss the vibe of a loud sound system, dark halls, festival vibes, deep basses and travelling without sleep. It’s so boring to play our DJ sets alone in our studios.
And have your studio sessions been affected at all from lack of inspiration and not being able to road test tracks?
No – not at all! We have produced a lot of new tracks, EPs and remixes in the last couple of months. This is our passion, with COVID-19 or without it. Not testing the tracks is a new experience to us. But I think we have enough knowledge to produce nice arrangements without testing it live in front of a dancing crowd.
Thanks a lot for taking some time to answer our questions, before we go, what’s your favourite techno production from 2021 so far?
Thanks a lot for your invitation! And yes, for us ‘Radio Slave – Variations V1’ on Rekids is our favourite techno production in 2021 so far.
2pole’s Overlap EP arrives March 26th on OFF Recordings.