In the lead up to the release of their album Serpentine, Russian electronic collective D-Pulse – comprised ofAnton Kochnev, Semyon Perevoshikov, Klim Sukhanov, and Sam Konyakhin – was on fire. Their track “All I Have” (see: below) ft. Danielle Moore received rave reviews, and they had a lot of buzz swirling around the album itself. So it came to us as a surprise that amidst all the madness, they have even a few moments to speak with us about it all. Check out the interview below, then stick around for the ultimate Friday Night Mix curated by D-Pulse exclusively for Impose!
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What was the first song or album you remember listening to, and who introduced it to you?
A childhood memory, It was a vinyl audiobook “The Three Musketeers”
Soviet version of famous historical novel, which contained pieces of music.
Some kind of mixture of krautrock ballads and psychedelic funk. Which obviously blew my mind.
Was there a defining moment when you realized you wanted to pursue music in your life?
It evolved naturally when we grew up during school years.
Everyone around wanted to be cosmonauts while we wanted to form a band.
What is the official origin story of D-Pulse?
It also came from school times, a shorten of Deep Pulse.
Deep rhythms of you hearts and music of our feelings – yes we were that romantic and naive.
You guys are from Russia. How do you think being from Russia has influenced your sound, and what’s the music scene like where you’re from?
It has definitely influenced our sound and perception of music. Everything is 10 times harder here.
Try to put Elon Musk in Russia, there would be no Tesla. But that’s the challenge. And it always been a challenge for us.
Lots of inspiration comes from a phrase “How do they do that?”
And the independent music scene here is very young and fast growing and it’s great to be a part of it.
The first single for your upcoming album Serpentine is “All I Have”, which features Danielle Moore. How did you get in cahoots with her to create this track?
Previously we collaborated with her Crazy P band mates Chris Todd aka Hot Toddy and Jim Baron aka Ron Basejam. They did amazing remixes for us. We’ve always been big fans of Danielle’s voice , so decided to take a chance and invite her as guest artist. She came up with lyrics and melody very quickly and after that we totally changed the track to fit her vocals in less housey way but more in live-jam kind of way.
What’s your writing process like? Are you all involved in the whole process, or are there bits you each specialize in?
Of cause, individually we are more specialised in our instruments but in terms of arrangement, tonal balance we are all involved in the decision-taking process.
Now that Serpentine is just about here, how do you feel?
It’s always a great feeling when the piece is no longer belongs only to you but to everyone who listened to it.
The album starts to live its own life and it feels like when you’re sitting in the room with a person whom you want to share music with, and suddenly you start to hear the track from a different angle, like you’re experiencing it through his prism. And most of the time its like “We shouldn’t have done that with drums” or “We should have record it another way” but its great that the record is finished the way it is.
How have you grown as a band since your first album release?
We’d love to think so. But learning and self-improvement process is very important and we always find ourselves as beginners with no experience in many different areas of music production processes. So we are keep growing.
Who would you collaborate with if you could, and what would you create together?
Oh, that’s a long list. As vocalists: Dev Hynes, Nick Murphy, Sade, Feist, Kings of Convenience and Jose Gonzalez, that would be a grammy album.
What’s your favorite beverage?
Hard coffee.
What’s down the funnel for you guys in 2017?
Finish remixes album, record some new stuff and hit the road to test it on live shows.
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1. Skygaze – Darjeeling (feat. Abrigo De Pelos)
One of current favourites. Fresh abstract hiphop and futurejazz, great LP.
2. Can – Safe
Pure classic, a cornerstone of our krautrock influences and endless source of inspiration.
3. Blood Orange – Uncle ACE (Kindness remix feat. Robert Owens)
Explosive collaboration! Pure bliss of laid back funk evolving from very intimate to uplifting, how do they do that?
4. Chemical Brothers – Lost in K-Hole
A chemical reaction in body and goosebumps dancing funk – that was our first impression hearing this track. And it still works!
5. Studio – Life’s A Beach!
We are big fans of Dan Lissvik production, and his “Studio” alias is most strong after Young Galaxy’s “Shapeshifting” album.
6. Duke Hugh – 2005
A solid album “Canvas” out on Rhythm Section INTL. Stuff that we really love to play in dj sets.
7. Bogdan Irkuk – My Weakness
Not leaving our record bag since 2011. Such an emotional atmosphere and vocoder workout.
8. Toro Y Moi – Campo
Recently discovered this old song by Chaz, nice drum line and classic Toro Y Moi vibe.
9. Jimi Jules – Sirup
Zurich based growing producer with amazing debut album titled “Equinox”, the whole record is worth listening.
10. An-2 – The Gift
A classic downtempo hymn from our mentor Andrei Zakharov aka AN-2.
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Serpentine is available now. Keep up with D-Pulse here.
