Hello guys, great to have you with us today! How are you both doing and whereabouts are you based at the moment?
Ey! Thanks for having us, we are both good, Ash is a little tired as he’s just done a 20-hour drive from London to Ibiza where he is now based. Kris is still holding fort in London, for the time being.
In spite of the impact the pandemic has had on the music scene, you have had a very strong year of releases through 2021; with Nervous Records, Stress Records, REALM Records and your own imprint Night Mayors all playing home to Trutopia material this year – congrats! How has the year been for you and what has helped you to stay so focused in the challenging times?
Yeah, we’ve witnessed a lot of artists slowing down through the pandemic, saving all their material for when we are all allowed to dance to it again. We’ve felt to do the opposite, keep the output as strong as we can as well as forming new relationships along the way with the likes of Realm bosses Gorgon City, who we will be joining on their Olympia tour, as well as bringing new talent to our own imprint including hot talents Macka, Mak & Ward, BoyNorth, Apres, Jay Gunning, BUUG & more. Overall this has helped shape our positivity to come out of the pandemic all guns blazing!
July marked one year since the launch of your label Night Mayors and there’ve been some great releases along the way. What was the inspiration behind launching the label?
Night Mayors originally starting as a live-streamed house party, bringing together brands like Desperados, streaming partners EtonMessy & acts such as LeftWing & Kody, TCTS, Clyde P, Ben Sterling, Angelo Ferreri & more all for a massive house party, which got labelled the biggest house party in London by Ministry Of Sound. Then the pandemic hit and it only felt right to carry on building Night Mayors by setting up as a label. We’ve been really inspired to bring new, under the radar artists through and we have a wicked team behind it making sure everything runs as it should, also organising the parties to make a huge comeback in the new year.
What has the experience of running Night Mayors been like so far? What has been the most challenging part and what has been the most enjoyable part?
We love running the label, finding new talent & also the A&R side of it really excites us. The most challenging thing has been servicing club music through the pandemic, although a lot of the music has had huge support from the likes of BBC Radio 1’s Sarah Story and LARGE playlist support on Spotify, we all need to be able to feel the music in a club which it finally looks like is happening.
Staying on the topic of Night Mayors, your next release ‘You Move’ featuring James Yuill arrives October 1st! Can you tell us a bit about this one?
Yesss it’s landed and we couldn’t be happier with the response.
This one started during our many sessions throughout lockdown, Kris and I moved in together so we could really hone down on some new material, whilst we had ample time. We wanted something uplifting as it’s been a long couple of years with corona. This feels like the perfect moment for it & it’s been a staple in our sets from festivals to the club across the summer.
How did you and James end up working together on this one? What was the creative process like working together?
It’s always a huge point for us to be working with original vocals, sometimes we spend weeks searching for the right vocalists and are just so happy we got a promo with the new Dennis Ferrer and Disciples Featuring James. We instantly got in contact with James, gave him a few ideas and let him run with them. The top line “You Move” came back and a few voice notes back and forth later, we were there.
We’d love to know a bit about what has inspired the Trutopia sound – who have been some of your greatest musical influences through your lives?
We both have a variety of influences from the likes of Armand Van Helden, MAW & early MK. I guess you can hear these influences in some of our music that’s landed on classic heritage labels Nervous Records, Strictly Rhythm & Stress. Moving forward with our sound, you’ll defo hear our darker side which we guess takes influences from our childhoods growing up on The Prodigy, Jonas Rathsman, Disclosure etc.
Thanks a lot for chatting with us today guys. Congrats on and best of luck with the upcoming release and we look forward to seeing what’s next for you. To round off, is there anything else in the works that you’d like to share with us?
Yesss, it’s been a pleasure to chat with you and we hope to catch up with you in the near future, hopefully at a show. For all the people locked in, we hope to see you on a dance floor very soon, please do get at us on socials @Trutopia & we hope you love the new single “You Move” Ft. James Yuill out now!
Nowen.
xx
Dan Prince
Out Now… Trutopia – You Move Ft. James Yuill (Night Mayors) Cat No: NM009
https://www.beatport.com/track/you-move-feat-james-yuill/15685005
https://www.instagram.com/trutopia/
