German electro-house duo Digitalism just released “chapter three” of a recent EP series, and it might be one of the outfit’s most diverse releases yet. The simple three tracks run the gamut of retro-futurism, punk disco, warehouse techno and chunky guitar organ house; in other words, all kinds of groovy strangeness.
The title PR15M references both this vibrant sonic spectrum as well as Digitalism’s new pyramid stage design decked out with all manner of LEDs and laser lights. The duo will unleash the set-up in support of the EP on tour. The tour kicks off in November, but we caught up with Digitalism’s Jens “Jence” Moelle and ?smail “Isi” Tüfekçi to learn more about PR15M in an exclusive track-by-track breakdown.
“Space Race”
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Isi: We had this layout for “Space Race,” and it started sounding a little bit ‘80s. We just thought something was missing. We worked and almost just happened on this idea to take the guitar and play the bass a little bit. We chopped it up, and we used some Sherman Filterbank effects to distort it. We worked and worked. The track was almost done in three or four days
Jence: It was very quick. We’re not professional guitar players — especially I’m not — and everything is a bit out of tune. But that’s what makes it very organic. In a world that’s full of electronic, very strict programs, we thought this feels really nice. There’s a couple of guitars on top of each other that are out of tune, kind of. It makes it a bit more human. It’s really groovy you know? Really cool, really funky.
“Glow”
Jens: “Voll Beat” we had. We’ve been playing it in our DJ sets already, so “Glow” was the last song. We wanted to release “Voll Beat” as a shocker, and we had “Space Race” … a track that needs its time to get absorbed by the listener… We really wanted something with vocals, but the previous EP had “Holograms” and “Red Lights,” and they had a lot of vocals, so we didn’t want to go too far with it.
Isi: With “Glow,” we’re basically sampling ourselves. We’re creating the parts, and then we sample it and all of a sudden you get this loop. We jammed it around, and we said, “Hey, that’s really nice, now we’re missing some lyrics.” It took us about two weeks to get the right lyrics to sing on it.
Jens: We weren’t sure in the beginning — “Do we need more lyrics?” We keep it really minimalistic. It kind of ended up as something that we came from when we started DJing, a kind of thing French house used to do [and] something we’ve done in a couple of our remixes. It’s a little bit of lyrics coming out of the center… In Sweden, they invented this technique, the guys that worked with Ace of Base. They just knew what [the lyrics] would sound like — they just had to find the words that sounded exactly like that. “Glow” is all about dancing, “It’s been a very long time since we all went out and had a great time together,” or something.
“Voll Beat”
Jens: “Voll Beat” started when Isi had this dark tempo beat. We were collecting ideas — this was a couple of months or so. It was half tempo really, and then it went double tempo, and then we thought, “This sounds very ice-cold. What can we do with it?” We had another idea to draw from: this crazy, uptempo guitar thingy. We fit everything together. It didn’t take long to make this, but it felt really, really good.
The beginning sounds like, “Okay, we’re going to a club in Berlin or something”, and then all of a sudden, you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s like in From Dusk Till Dawn when, all of a sudden, they turn into vampires and jump up. It basically goes completely crazy, and turns to this kind of punk techno thing. It’s always one of my favorites when we play, because it’s just so intense, everyone forgets about anything that matters and goes completely crazy.
Stateside fans will get their chance to go nuts to the PR15M live show as it snakes through venues all November. Check the full list of dates and a special visual preview of the production below, and listen to the three-track EP in full.
Digitalism PR15M Live Tour
Nov 13 — Los Angeles @ El Rey Theatre
Nov 14 — Las Vegas @ Bunkhouse
Nov 15 — Calgary @ Commonwealth
Nov 16 — San Fransisco @ August Hall
Nov 17 — Secret Gig
Nov 18 — Mexico City @ Corona Capital Festival
Nov 20 — New York @ Good Room
Nov 22 — Montreal @ Newsspeak?