Gaudi & Grouch – “Future Relic” – Interview
Gaudi & Grouch – “Future Relic” – Interview
Daniele Gaudi (born 12 July 1963), better known simply as Gaudi, is a London based Italian musician, solo artist and record producer. Gaudi is quite a phenomena, and while specialising in dub music, electronica, reggae and worldbeat, has been involved in countless projects over the years spanning a wide spectrum of styles and musical directions both as a musician and as a producer.
Grouch encompasses the audible tales of New Zealand born producer Oscar
Allison. Born and raised in the breathtaking vistas of Aotearoa/New Zealand, this
incredible backdrop enthused and ignited a passion for dub and ethnic percussion
which would later form the basis for his electronic journeys.
So when a duo like this teams up for a joint album project we made sure to hook up with them for an interview. “Future Relic” was just released on Iboga Records, and it is a very special album that defies genres and formulas.
While you read, listen to Gaudi & Grouch full album “Future Relic” :
Q: You started this music project together back in 2017 and it’s taken you around the world (the Himalaya Mountains, Mauritius Island, New Zealand, to name a few destinations). What inspirations did you take from your travels that found their way into the album?
GAUDI: Travelling is movement, is exploration, excitement and passion. These are exactly the elements our album Future Relic is made of.
GROUCH: One of the best parts of being a touring musician is being immersed in different places and all the wonderful cultures around the world. Every experience in life shapes who we are and all these experiences good and bad inevitably inspire what come out during the creative process. But hey to be able to sit with some monitor speakers overlooking the Himalayas with some of my best friends in the world is a pretty good recipe for tuning in!
The idea came about after a few years of good vibes and a few collaborations with Gaudi, we decided why don’t we do something special and different from what we normally both do and meet somewhere in the middle…
Q: The album concept is not something you see everyday. Can you please explain a bit what people can expect to find on it and how it worked out?
GAUDI: Grouch and I met the first time 10 years ago in a festival in the US where we both were playing, we had an instant connection and a great chat in the backstage about the importance of music in our lives and the fact that both our music-styles were not classifiable in one genre only. We found lotsa similarity in each other’s “way to thinking”, with both our production techniques we were in-fact (and still are) looking for “originality”, so we both felt pretty proud not to be easily classifiable in a particular music-genre.
Subsequently we then kept seeing each other in many other countries worldwide, every time we talked about doing something together, so in 2016 we wrote and produced the track ‘Frere La’ which ended on the album “Grouch in dub” and the single ‘Aisha’.
In 2017 during my Australian tour we spent time together in Oscar’s studio in Melbourne and started the foundation of ‘Future Relic’.
GROUCH: The idea came about after a few years of good vibes and a few collaborations with Gaudi, we decided why don’t we do something special and different from what we normally both do and meet somewhere in the middle, something a bit faster and upbeat than what Gaudi usually writes and something a bit slower and funkier than what I do with my Grouch project.
The tricky part was having to do the whole thing from a distance (hence the title track)
📷 Grouch at Universo Paralello
Q: Why the name ‘Future Relic’? And the cassette on the cover (something many of your listeners never used)?
GAUDI: We thought about this name a lot, we wanted something to reflect both our ways to produce music, myself with my analogue vintage gear, generating dirty and noisy sounds with lotsa punk attitude and physical electricity, and Grouch with his amazing cutting edge digital plugins and softwares and his ability to create futuristic crispy soundscapes.
This album includes exactly both our worlds and I think we managed to balance it pretty well, achieving a perfect equilibrium resulting in a very fresh and original sound!
The cassette in the front cover represents the format I was using when I started making music, using a 4-track cassette recorder, which also defines that specific “analogue era” we wanted to undermark with this album.
GROUCH: We wanted to go for something with one foot in the old school paying homage to the pioneers with the more analogue way of writing music using mostly very basic equipment and bending them to the absolute limit and beyond of what it was made for, basically doing a lot with very little, and the future with limitless possibilities and technology at your fingertip and beyond.
Q: What prompted the two of you to join forces?
GAUDI: I really liked Oscar’s energy and his production sound, stylistically different from mine but carrying the same attitude, so I was curious to see what kinda fusion would have been generated with our music combo….. and here we are.
GROUCH: Gaudi and I hit it off almost immediately when we met around 2011 and have been fans of each other’s music so it was a natural evolution to create something together
Q: What did you learn from each other by working together on the album?
GAUDI: Working with Oscar, I realised that structures in these kind of tracks can be much more flexible and less schematic than what I thought the dancefloor was in need of., and I loved it!
GROUCH: I learned how great Gaudi is at making little “brain worm” hooks with his fantastic collection of analogue synthesisers.
► Get it: https://www.beatport.com/release/future-relic/3424672
Q: What was the best part of working together? What was the most challenging?
GAUDI: The best part of working with Grouch is the freedom that we both have while in the studio together, freedom of expressing what we want and what we are in that precise moment, there’s no boundaries in what we do, no music-genre and all music-genres!
The most challenging aspect it was perhaps when we had to work remotely, me in my studio in London and him in his studio in Australia. Sharing files and waiting for a reply from each other (with our 12 hours time-zone difference) was not easy as playing something together and share that immediate enthusiasm.
GROUCH: Working with Gaudi is great because he creates fantastic analogue sounds and ideas which I then use to arrange the tracks and is very fast with this, while I take quite a long time to get the finished product. The hard part was being so far apart and sometimes not in the same space for creating things at the same time
Q: Are there more Gaudi/Grouch projects planned?
GAUDI: The most beautiful thing about our G&G project, is that nothing is planned, this is what we both love about this collaboration, we do what we want when we want if we want.
That said, yes I’ve the feeling that will be more dangerous G&G choones to shake your bum bum 😉
GROUCH: Nothing planned as of yet but I’m sure we will get up to some musical mischief together again!
📷 Gaudi @ Dakini Festival by Psyonic
Q: What’s next for each of you? What music are you listening to now and possibly inspiring you?
GAUDI: Producing reggae band Steel Pulse’s new album IN DUB and Havana Meets Kingston’s album IN DUB, both vinyls out very soon. Working now with Don Letts, Hollie Cook, Prince Fatty, African Head Charge, Adrian Sherwood, Horace Andy, Creation Rebel. Remixing Groove Armada, The Orb, Ace Ventura & Astrix, Captain Hook, DUB FX.
Compiling the volume 2 of my series SUB SIGNALS, out on double vinyl, featuring: Shpongle, The Orb, Cosmic Trigger, Deadbeat, Groove Armada, Bill Laswell, Dennis Bovell, Dub FX, Pitch Black, to name but a few.
GROUCH: Since finishing the album my musical fire has been back in full force, I am working on a bunch of new music including albums of Grouch and Grouch in dub with tracks ranging from Cinematic to world music and psychedelic bass and some techno psychedelic and progressive grouchie stuff!
I am also working on soundtracks for movies and computer games and will be setting up a service for mastering and mixing of other peoples music along with tutorials and classes to teach people music production. Very exciting times indeed!
Don’t miss our previous interview with Vini Vici : https://trancentral.tv/2020/12/vini-vici-life-is-a-remix-interview/