Keys N Krates challenge house-centric new album, ‘IN:TENSION’ [Q&A]
by: Cameron DeFaria
Nov 14, 2023
One in every of North America’s most dependable digital music outfits, Keys N Krates have formally dispatched their third studio album, IN:TENSION. Launched on November 10, the brand new album embodies Adam Tune, David Matisse, and Greg Dawson’s lifelong tastes and musical influences. Citing old-school home artists similar to Armand Van Helden and Masters At Work, the “Dum Dee Dum” trio ship their boldest tackle home music to this point. They even managed to land a visitor function from GRAMMY Award-winning R&B celebrity Ciara on the album’s centerpiece, “Fantasy.”
Together with Ciara, Keys N Krates additionally recruited the skills of R&B singers Taite Imogen, Dana Williams, and Lion Babe, in addition to the late Detroit label head Aaron Carl. To match this shift in sound, Keys N Krates have put apart their typical dwell setup of keys, drums, and turntables to deal with DJ units for the IN:TENSION tour run. The continuing tour will conclude with a homecoming cease in Toronto at Velvet Underground on December 9 and, lastly, at New York Metropolis’s Elsewhere on December 15.
Sizzling on the heels of the discharge of IN:TENSION, Keys N Krates sat down with Dancing Astronaut for an unique Q&A. Learn it beneath.
IN:TENSION is an enormous step into home music for you three. When did you resolve on how the album was going to sound?
Adam: “We’ve all been followers of home music from time and have been dabbling it in on the previous few initiatives. We felt impressed to go full in on this venture as a result of we love the 120-130bpm vary and all of the grooves that may be explored, and it felt like a terrific parameter for us to discover inside. We wished to strategy the style with care and respect but in addition with our personal disconnected form of take.”
Are you able to break down what the album title means?
Greg: “We wished the album to have a sure form of power pocket to it that feels a bit tense at occasions, so the thought of being in a state of rigidity felt good. It additionally felt soulful, and funky, like Janet Jackson’s ‘Management’ report or one thing. The Janet Jackson ‘management and rhythm nation’ period positively influenced this album from an lively stand level. Quite a lot of music decisions had been guided by, ‘would Janet dance to this in a membership with the sensibility of that period in thoughts?’ The title is also a nod to this physique of labor being our most ‘intentional’ but. Our manufacturing chops are the perfect they’ve ever been and it sort of feels like we all know what we’re doing now, and make the stuff that we’re feeling. So there’s that double that means between the energetic house of the report and the execution of it.”
Are there any particular artists who influenced you on this venture? Previous and current?
Matisse: “Undoubtedly Janet Jackson in spirit, however from a manufacturing standpoint, positively Masters At Work and Armand Van Helden for his or her drum layering and pattern chopping. And Disclosure, Kaytranada for a few of the extra fashionable elements of the manufacturing…”
How are you having fun with performing as DJs compared to your typical dwell setup?
Greg: “Actually, we adore it! We’re so into making music proper now and enhancing as producers… Doing DJ units offers you this fixed suggestions loop between what’s being made within the studio and the way the crowds are responding to it.”
What are your favourite tracks from the album to play out dwell?
Matisse: “I really like enjoying ‘What Ladies Do’ and ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me.’”
Greg: “I really like enjoying ‘Increased,’ ‘Fantasy,’ and ‘I’m Feeling One thing.’”
Adam: “I really like how ‘I do know’ sounds on an enormous P.A. We actually love enjoying each track although.”
What was it prefer to work with Ciara on “Fantasy”? How did that monitor come collectively?
Adam: “We made the preliminary track thought along with her Ciara’s tone in thoughts, not essentially considering we might get her to do it. However we ended up having the ability to get the thought in entrance of her, and he or she liked it! So, we completed it collectively through FaceTime and textual content. It was a bunch of backwards and forwards however we lastly received the track to the place everybody was proud of it.”
Do you propose to discover the realm of home music transferring ahead?
Matisse: “Sure, positively. We really feel like we’re simply beginning.”
What are you most trying ahead to in 2024?
Greg: “Trying ahead to this album circulating, making extra music, and enjoying it for folks throughout!”
Classes: Music