For the second interview, we asked a few questions to the Belgian band Montevideo. They recently released the album “Personal Space”, which was produced by Joakim Bouaziz. I highly suggest to purchase it, you won’t regret it! It’s the kind of album that I appreciate more and more with each listen, discovering each track and its atmosphere.
First question, how and when did you start the band?
Montevideo rose up from the ashes of a student ska band we were in, it was basically the same setup as today (except for a different bass player). Jean was playing guitar and trumpet, but one day he took the mic and we had a revelation. We changed the name of the band and the style of the music and Montevideo was born…
How would you describe your music?
Alternative new krautpop? 😉
You recorded your single “Horses” at the DFA studios in New York in 2011, how was this experience? Why didn’t you release your album on this label?
It was just amazing to make this track in those studios, we are all big DFA fans, this label had been a major influence on the past decade. Doing that was like a dream coming true… And we were very pleased with the result. Unfortunately, we didn’t make the rest of the album there because of an timing issue, we didn’t want to wait and the studio didn’t have enough free days so we changed our plans and made it with Joakim in Paris instead, which was a choice we never regretted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vttdxaRgxHE
Your new album “Personal Space” sounds very different from your previous one. What influenced you to compose this album?
It’s very different indeed, we wanted to make an album that you can enjoy listening to at home, or in your car, more than in a party surrounded by other people. It just came naturally, we listen to a lot of different styles of music, so we just can’t imagine making the same style of music again and again on different albums.
French producer Joakim Bouaziz, from the label Tigersushi, produced this album. Why did you decide to work with him?
He’s a producer we have been following for a long time, we have always been huge fans of his electronic/dance productions. He has a very organic sound, he knows everything in music and isn’t stuck in any one style, all of this led us to him.
I’ve read that the album was recorded in only 15 days. What allowed you to complete it in such a short time? Did you find the time to sleep between the recording sessions?
Don’t worry, we found the time to sleep 🙂
In fact, we’ve spent a lot of time before we went to Paris, composing and rehearsing the tracks, so we knew exactly what to do when we arrived at his studio. The recording session was really fast and easy, we wanted to make something very spontaneous, which is impossible if you stay too long in a studio…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jymp2-dfhdU
The Belgian music scene is very active, with artists such as Aeroplane, Mickey, A.N.D.Y., and many others… Would you like to collaborate with some of them?
Maybe one day, why not? We are always open to collaborations, there’s a track on the album, ‘Fate & Glory’ that we made with a great singer, Lara Chedraoui. That worked very well, her voice is definitively a plus for the album…
https://youtu.be/y-532qGQRAY
What are your plans for the future?
To release the album worldwide, to play as many gigs as we can (we are basically more a live than a studio band), and we are already working on the next opus…
Can you recommend us 5 songs you like at the moment?
Zombie Zombie – Rocket n°9 (Joakim remix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2CubBLRv1U
Barbara Carlotti – Nuit sans lune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDw3NEaL5-k
Hot Chip – End of the earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTJ9NmA2yjI
Alt-J – tesselate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPH89HIBLiw
Paradis – Je m’ennuie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-8cZ6Vf2WY
Would you like to add something to conclude this interview?
It’s a very nice blog you have here, thanks for posting our track 🙂
Thanks to Montevideo for answering our questions! We’d also like to thank John Power, from the agency Best In Show.
To learn more about Montevideo, you can check out their website, Facebook page, and Soundcloud page.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5snioMpxWPE]
And finally, here are some freebies from them. Enjoy and don’t forget to check out their album!
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/52608450″ iframe=”true” /]
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/63884854″ iframe=”true” /]