The new kids on the block armed with a bag of melancholy soul
“It’s a bit twisted, like if Sade had a child with Darth Vader” – says their press release for their new ‘The Levels EP”…DMCWORLD checks in…
The Levels – a massive welcome to DMCWORLD towers – where on planet earth are you today?
Thank you for having us!
Alia Fresco: I’m in Copenhagen, Denmark. On my couch with my computer.
Resound: Tampere, Finland. Sitting by the river in my new apartment, getting ready for the day’s work. A tired cat in my lap. In reality he’s only thinking about my breakfast.
Loxy: United Kingdom, Oxfordshire
What was the first piece of music you heard this morning after rolling out of bed?
Alia Fresco: Resound sent his latest work on the remix for Nuage that we’re doing. It’s a nice one! I listened to that when I woke up this morning.
Resound: Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians. A minimalist classic from 1979. Beautiful and hypnotic music.
Loxy: Stevie Wonder – Superstition
So you each come from very different musical backgrounds and different countries, tell us a little bit about your history, how you got together and who does what?
Andrew (Loxy) and Ilpo (Resound) have been making drum & bass since the 90’s. We started making music together somewhere around 2006 and have been collaborating a lot ever since.
Resound: My musical background goes all the way back to my childhood. I first started playing some traditional Finnish folk instruments when I was 6. From there it went into some band things and eventually discovering that I could use a computer to create my own musical worlds. I was about 15 back then, and that’s when I really got sucked in to making music for good.
Loxy: I have been DJing as Loxy since 1990 working my way up playing for likes of various well known pirate radio stations in London and playing for events at Astoria, Roller Express Dungeons to name a few of the classics. Later on I became involved with Kemistry and Storm and Goldie and was brought into the Metalheadz camp as a resident DJ at Metalheadz events and also had ties with good looking records. Since then it’s just progressed not only collaborating with some great artists, I run my own label (Cylon recordings) and have had material on Renegade Hardware Digital Sound Boy and Shogun Recordings to name a few and a joint album with Resound on Exit Records titled Burning Shadows.
Alia Fresco: I’m a singer-songwriter from Denmark. I’ve worked mostly in pop music in Denmark, but always drew inspiration from hard beats and deep vibes. The Levels came about after I began exploring those deeper sides through my Alia Fresco soundcloud.
Andrew and Ilpo heard a track Alia did with Danish producer Beastie Respond called “Wait for me” and we began sending sounds back and forth between London, Copenhagen and Tampere. We lid each other up instantly with some amazing vibes so it was so easy to go from there. Pretty soon a lot more music started to happen. We were all very into it and felt there was so much more for us to explore. And so The Levels was born.
It’s always different how we do things, but usually Andrew and/or Ilpo sends off an instrumental sketch to Alia. Then she writes a song, records the vocals and sends it back to them. Then we bounce back and forth between us a few times until it’s there. And eventually Ilpo gets all tracks for mixing.
Congratulations on your excellent debut ‘The Levels EP’, please talk us through the tunes…
Thank you! We’re so happy that you guys are feeling it!!
Remember is a collab with Re-Drum. The lyrics is about remembering whats important in a fast and distracting world. Big city melancholy.
Shadow Fighter is our latest song and the one that sparked the EP in the sense that we all felt that we found territory that none of us had been in before.
We Could Be is a collab with our friend dBridge, a DnB scene veteran and founder of Exit Records
With Right Here we went all in on the Summer DnB vibes.
You have quite a fusion of different genres on your tracks, how would you describe The Levels sound?
We want to make soulful music for the future so if we succeed – “Future Soul Music”.
You could be compared to some of the great bands of the golden age of ‘Trip Hop’, who are your biggest musical influences?
There’s so many influences being combined in our music. If you think about it, it’s three music enthusiasts with different backgrounds and careers combining their forces. That’s a handful. So the influences may not be obvious hearing our music. And why should they be, after all, we are doing our own thing.
Alia Fresco: Trip Hop definitely hit me hard in the 90’s as it brought some serious deep vibes into pop music, but I’m not sure that we’re directly inspired by Trip Hop in the band. I grew up listening to classical and church music in my home and fell in love with pop and soul music as a teenager. Larry Graham/Sly, Whitney, Michael – the greats! My influences are spread all over genres and periods though. I’m all about beats, vibes and perfectly cut pop songs.
Resound: I can definitely understand the comparison. I don’t feel being influenced by trip hop much myself though. I never listened to that stuff much! I get inspired by a lot of older popular music. I love the sound signatures of bands and artists like The Doors, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Neil Young, Sade, U2 and Duran Duran just to mention a few. Then there’s stuff like Steve Reich and Brian Eno. Absolutely fantastic. Some of the modern techno music also inspires me a lot.
Loxy: I’m inspired by a wide variety of music including Soul, Funk, Reggae, Dub, Hip Hop, Pop and Rock. I’m definitely not narrow minded when it comes to music.
What was the appeal of setting up your own label to start out, rather than shopping it out to another?
The control you have. Keep it simple and being able to let your ears decide where to go and nothing else.
What are your favourite clubs in Denmark, UK and Finland?
Alia Fresco: The meatpacking district in Copenhagen right around the corner from my place is a nice spot to hang out. Also there’s a street and club festival called Distortion in the early summer. If you plan to visit Copenhagen you should go there. You will see 200.000 Danes going crazy in the streets from the first sun beams after 9 months of darkness.
Loxy: Fabric, Electric, Corsica studios, The End Club, Blue Note Club and Leisure Lounge if we’re talking favourites of all time.
Resound: In Finland I prefer to go to small local things and underground Techno nights. It’s all about friends and good music.
What is the best and worst thing about being in a band that live so far apart?
We’re all about contrasts and clashing different elements. Hopefully, living in different places we will be able to do that even more. Also, we each have time and space to experiment and try different ideas. When you get together to make music there is always the pressure of time limits, which takes away from the experimentation. The downside is obviously not being able to hang out, catch a vibe and have the quick dialogue you only have IRL. But we’re sure that’s something that will change when things progress further.
Have you any plans to tour live?
Yes. We want to, and that is a natural progression as we move on further. Right now we are mainly focusing on making more music and get it out there.
Name one thing you love most about each other?
Alia Fresco: I love Ilpo’s working temper. It’s very much in tune with my own, so we really get things done.
I love Andrew taste in music. You can always tell from his reaction if what you’ve made is good, bad or somewhere in between. They’re amazingly talented. I’m blessed!
Loxy: If we are talking relative to the levels then it would be Alias vocals and Resounds depth of detail on studio engineering.
Resound: Alia makes our job as producers very easy by doing a lot of editing and production work on her own vocals. Andrew has an impeccable taste for good music, and because of that he is always on point with his musical ideas.
The best thing about Summer is..?
Long days. There is nothing like sunshine!
Up and coming producers to watch out for over the next 12 months?
Alia Fresco: Copenhagen producer Beastie Respond. He’s completely in his own mode. Big beats and big chord changes.
Loxy: Last life, Shiken Hanzo.
Resound: Khords.
List 3 things we don’t know about The Levels
Alia Fresco: We actually want to be a quartet! We’ve been looking for a 4th member who could take our visuals into new places in sync with our sound.
Loxy: There is a track in the works that me and Ilpo started 5 years ago. It turned to a Levels track more than 2 years back and we still haven’t finished it.
Resound: I spend too much time listening to and analyzing reverb sounds on old records. It makes me lazy and antisocial.
The last GREAT album you listened to?
Alia Fresco: Beyoncé. This year seems to have a lot of big albums though!
Resound: Tehni – Saivo. It’s Finnish progressive folk music. Deep and beautiful.
Loxy: Joey Bada$$ – B4.DA.$$
And finally, what is coming out next from you studio wise?
We have a remix pack coming out with some of our tunes from the debut EP remixed by some of our favourite producers. We are also working on new material.
The Levels ‘The Levels EP’ is out now
