Monitor 66 have played venues in both the London subway system and on top of skyscrapers in Azerbaijan, released two EPs on House of Disco and remixed the likes of Kraak & Smaak, Finnebassen & Kolombo. Now Monitor 66 once again return to Diskoteket. Two years have passed since they first came to play at Diskoteket. Then, back in 2013, they had just emerged as one of the hottest sunset disco-acts around, following their great success of Triscuits. Now, in 2015, they are a well established and highly respected duo and we’re thrilled to have them back in Uppsala. What follows is an interview with these two sunset loving DJ:s.
Hello Hannes & Hannes! Tell us a bit about yourselves and Monitor 66!
Hello! We’re a pair of sunset loving discoheads that aim to bring joy and happiness to the dancefloor.
You guys played at Diskoteket back in 2013, when you were among on of the hottest sunset disco acts around. Could you tell us a little bit of what has happened since?
Well, since then we have done a few gigs all over Europe and worked on producing some more music and trying to develope a more mature sound that we are comfortable with. We haven’t released that much lately and that is mostly why.
Okay. Back to the roots. Talk a little bit of your different musical influences. Do you both come from the same background musical-wise or is Monitor 66 some kind of lucky mixture of different worlds?
Hannes R: In my case the musical influences has come a lot from listening to a broad spectrum of electronic music but also having a background in performing with the trumpet.
Hannes F: The thing we have in common is the electronic stuff, but we both take inspiration from the non electronic music we listen to as well. I am for example a big Fleetwood Mac fan and Rehnström listens to a lot of jazzy piano stuff.
We know that you don’t live in the same city these days. What is it like making music together when you don’t even live in the same city?
It can be very frustrating at times since it’s hard to get instant feedback on the productions but when we we use skype and talk to each other while we’re producing it works out just fine.
And maybe you could go into a bit more detail on how you actually produce your music. What kind of tools do you use? Is there any one specific piece of gear that you just can’t be without?
We use Ableton as our prefered DAW and mostly software based tools such as Kontakt and Reaktor so we don’t really have a piece of gear that we can’t be without. In that case it would be the mighty computer and our shared dropbox.
What is your take on the difference between being producers and djs?
Well, i’m not quite sure but I think it would be that the energy and emotion from a producer is put inside a track and the DJ will bring out those with their own energy.
Last weekend you guys played at Shut the Front Door in London. How was that?
It was a great gig in a cool venue with lots of people and energy. Also great meeting artists like Satin Jackets, Xinobi and Moullinex and see how they perform.
And finally, if there is any one track that we can be certain to hear at Diskoteket on Friday, which track would that be?
We’ve got some staples we’ve been playing in our sets recently, but we’d prefer to keep them a surprise.
Thank you guys for the quick interview and see you on Friday!