If you don’t know who Dirtcaps are, you soon will. They have moved beyond the status of ‘next big things’ and are now taking their place among the biggest names in electronic music. They’ve remixed stellar names like Hardwell and W&W, and collaborated with superstars such as Laidback Luke and Coone. However, it’s their live shows that are creating the biggest buzz. They’ve stormed the world’s biggest festivals (Tomorrowland, TomorrowWorld) and have toured all over the world.
Dirtcaps, famous for their heavy trap-house sound, and incendiary live shows, are back with Foreign Tongues. For the first time, we get to see Dirtcaps’ more mellow side. Over sparse piano and minimal trap style beat, we first get to hear the beautiful voice of Eleni Drake. As the beat builds up, so does Eleni’s voice. By the chorus she’s soaring, when the drop comes, so are we.
Super current, the drop has the synth voices that everybody loves at the moment. It will start fires on the dancefloor. There’s a carnival atmosphere by the end, when the brass comes in to bring us home. Foreign Tongues is about failure to communicate in a relationship. If you drop this in the club, the crowd won’t fail to communicate how much they love it.
As they drop their new single Foreign Tongues, featuring Eleni Drake, Digital DJ Pool were lucky enough to get a quick interview.
We’re loving the new track Foreign Tongues. It’s a bit more more laid back than most of your other tracks isn’t it? Are you guys mellowing out on us?
Thanks! We are not mellowing out. We’re just trying to push our limits sound-wise. We don’t want to think in genres and styles, just make what we feel and love. We noticed that after a lot of heavy club releases we wanted to focus on more radio friendly tracks. That is the reason we came up with Foreign Tongues.
Foreign Tongues seems to represent a step up in songwriting as well as production. How did you come up with the concept?
It started with a progression and a small idea for the drop, like almost all of our songs. The big difference with Foreign Tongues was, we went to London for a writing week. This last year, we developed our writing skills a lot. We tried to be way more involved during sessions in the creative process, not only doing the production. The whole week in London was amazing, and when we met Eleni Drake and heard her voice, we were pretty sure we could make something really cool with her.
Duos can be pretty volatile. How do you guys like to work in the studio? Who does what jobs?
We’ve been together for such a long time that we know each others strengths and weaknesses very well. But at the end we do and decide everything together. The end product is always a combination of the both of us.
You’re famous for your explosive live shows. What is the best show you played? What happened?
It’s impossible to name one show. Let’s keep it framed to the last period. We just got back from an amazing tour in Australia and Asia. It was the first time we played in Tokyo and the energy there was insane! it was so insane that we decided to jump into the moshpit during our set. That doesn’t happen a lot.
You’ve toured and collaborated with some of the scene’s biggest names. Is there anyone you haven’t worked with yet, who you are really itching to?
We’ve wanted to work with Flosstradamus for a long time. We’ve already worked together on projects and did a cool session in New York, so let’s see what the future brings. Also it would be amazing to work with artists like Travis Scott, ASAP Ferg, or Partynextdoor.
Where next for Dirtcaps on their road to world domination?
We just released our new single “Foreign Tongues” and after that we got a lot of music lined up for 2017. We have some really cool shows up to the end of the year. In 2017 we are planning some sick tours, so the future looks good. With our own label KLASH we’re gonna release other artists as well so that’s gonna be fun. We really love to adopt new sounds and see what’s happening in the underground. It’s so cool to work with those talents on our own label.
Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in the industry?
Try to stay close to yourself. The industry is a beautiful, but also a misleading thing. Focus on what you think is the best music you can make. Don’t follow trends. Make them! Don’t be afraid to experiment. Work hard, and just enjoy the ride!
Finally, your new track is Foreign Tongues. Which foreign tongues can you speak?
We can talk English, German, French and can say 3 words in Japanese.
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