Nacho Lovers
13 May 2009 23:26:00
Nacho Lovers

The Nacho Lovers are two twenty-something year old producers from the land of a Thousand Lakes - Canada aye! Obsessed by the classic analog sounds of Detroit techno and Chicago house, these 909 loving beat bandits recently signed their first '12 to A-Traks label and found time to talk to us amongst a hefty touring schedule:

Ok, lets start at the very beginning…. when and what was your introduction to house music?  Was it a gradual process or have you always wanted to be a part of it?

Well there was this television program in Toronto in the 80s and 90s called Electric Circus. They would play it in the evening on weekends but early enough for kids to watch. You can check clips of it on youtube... It would just be people dancing to House, Rap or R&B. As kids that was probably our introduction to it. I (Scott) used to record the tracks I liked on TV with a microphone into a little boombox. I’d play them back later over and over. Two big tracks I recall were Hithouse “Jack to the sound of the underground” and Inner City’s “Good Life”

I have to ask… what is the name ‘Nacho Lovers’ all about.  Iis there some cryptic meaning?

Yes if you tile the letters in the correct angle it will create a Fibonacci sequence which will suck you into a realm of blissful oblivion

What made you guys decide to start making music together and not individually?

We work really well together and the sum is definitely greater than the parts!

What or who would you say are the key inspirations to ‘Nacho Lovers’ approach to producing?  Do you have differing inspirations or is this something you have in common?

Inspiration comes from many places but I guess production wise we get a lot inspiration from the to-the-point productions styles of legends like MK, Mike Dunn, Murk, etc. Really though our inspiration comes from so many things. Disco producers like Patrick Adams, classic electronic production like Harmonia or Kraftwerk. Hip Hop producers like Paul C. This question is broad and difficult to answer I think!

It didn’t take long for you boys to make it this far. Are you surprised at the attention your music is attracting? Do you attribute this success to anything in particular?

We don’t really feel like we’ve even cracked the surface yet! So many things too do... We’ve barely begun...

The sound you guys are throwing out is likened to that of old school acid and Detroit House. Did you set out to make a certain style of music or is the Nacho Lovers soun something you unintentionally ended up with?

I think in the beginning when we first met and vibed off music we were just excited to share that love for House. So we really wore it on our sleeve at first because we were just happy to be able do so. The past few months however have been great for finding our own sound, and perhaps not being so outright in our pulling from our inspirations.  

DJ’s often get categorised, but disagree with how their work is described.  How would you describe the vibe of your productions?

Somebody called our DJ style “groovy” and I kind of like that because it might imply us building on an overall groove. We try to plan things in our mind from beginning to end when we DJ but often without actually planning to play anything specifically. I think this probably translates to our production style. We get an idea of what we want overall before we ever try to put it to sound. I’d say over the past year we’ve become a lot better at translating the idea to sound too. Describing the vibe of music in words is a pain though. What did Zappa say? “dancing about architecture”?

By now you guys should be starting to become used to the travelling side of the industry. Do you have a favourite place to play yet? Anywhere you could play over and over.

We haven’t actually travelled that much yet but NYC is always a blast. Our friends and Fool’s Gold fam are there and it always feels like home when we visit.

Do you prefer to be in the studio cooking up new tracks or is a night out behind the decks more your style?

It changes from week to week! I’m a studio rat first but the more we DJ the more I can see doing it for the rest of my life.

Got a favourite piece of equipment at the moment?  Anything you couldn’t work without?

not really. Just our brains I guess. Our studio is in need of an upgrade.

When you guys are putting together a set what qualities do you look for in the tracks you choose

909s?
    
Seewhale once said, “Every person making blog house should listen to Adonis’ ‘No Way Back’ instead of Justices’ ‘D.A.N.C.E’.  What’s the reasoning behind that?

Thats about the dumbest thing I’ve said in a couple years. Thank goodness someone was there to write it down and put it in an interview. 

And lastly, what have we got to look forward to this year.  Any special projects we should look out for?

Lots of new original productions coming! We can’t wait to share them. We’ll be sharing a couple out on the road!

Renae Smith

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08.02.10 Australian Recordings Post First Gain Since 2003...
Perhaps this is just a numbers game, but Australian record sales actually managed to improve in 2009.  According to figures shared by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), wholesale recording revenues gained 4.8 percent last year.  That represents the first improvement since 2003, and offers a glimmer of hope for another troubled market.

But was 2008 a bottom?  Both a-la-carte and digital album sales remain high-growth, and digital as a category gained 46 percent to $79.2 million Australian ($68.4 million US) last year.   More hopeful projections - for Australia and other countries - call for digital to eventually reverse broader declines.  Of course, the majors would like nothing better, though a healthy bit of caution is being applied.

And, like other countries, the Australian recording business is stumping for ISP-level monitoring and enforcement.  "We remain hopeful that the ISPs will work with us to address this pressing problem and help the growth of the legitimate market, something that will, of course, also be to their benefit," said ARIA chairman and president Ed St. John.
04.02.10 The Grammy Bounceback: It's Bigger Than TV...
The Grammy Awards staged a nice recovery this year, reaching audience levels not felt since 2004.  That represents a serious bump from last year, and more importantly, another step away from a bottom-scraping 2006.

The recent telecast scored an audience of 26.6 million, up 35 percent from 2009.  In 2006, that total was 15.1 million, an audience eclipsed by American Idol.

A number of factors probably contributed to the recent upswing, including a collection of younger winners.  But the Recording Academy also triggered a number of online initiatives to coincide with the showcase.  That includes everything from an iPhone app to a Twitter account to a YouTube channel, a serious shift that makes year-to-year comparisons more difficult.

Indeed, many of these categories hardly existed in previous years.  The online stats for 2010, according to the Recording Academy:

*125,760 Facebook fans.

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Beyond email, photos, ebooks, Google maps, YouTube, an address book, a calendar, and apps, Jobs also displayed music-related functionality.  That essentially boils down to iTunes, and the audio and video content that comes with it.

The presence of the complete iTunes application opens more possibilities for iTunes LP, a more comprehensive, album-like format.  Whether that stirs a broader album renaissance remains unclear, though the first chapters are just being written on the next-gen bundle.

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25.01.10 Midem 2010: If You Could Just Monetize This, That Would Be Great...
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Great idea, though the takeaways were mixed.  Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett offered plenty of turnaround gusto and cowboy irreverence, though the reality is that Kodak is seriously struggling in a post-film world.  Getty Images CEO Jonathan Klein outlined success strategies in the easily-pirated images environment, and digital guru Gerd Leonhard offered lucrative examples from virtual worlds and book publishing.

Other examples flowed.  YouTube executive Patrick Walker announced that more than one billion videos - per week - are now being monetized by the video giant.  On the music side, Daniel Ek of Spotify announced a paid subscriber total of 250,000, though American label executives remain unconvinced.  Elsewhere, Shazam pointed to 300,000 paid downloads per day, according to a Music Ally report.

But the broader question is whether a serious and substantial recording and music industry can exist in the 2000s.  One perspective is that attempts to monetize the recording - at least in the wild B2C context - are mostly impossible.  The reason is that music and media assets are now abundant and infinitely replicated, a complete shift from the relatively high scarcity of the 90s.  Indeed, over the past ten years, most attempts to create scarcity in the digital context have faltered.

That is a difficult interpretation for anyone whose fate is tied to the recording.  But this business is bigger than the recording, and attendees talked of more controlled channels like B2B licensing, merchandising, touring, publishing, and gaming.  Dialing back decades, Midem was built as a music licensing exchange, and the trade floor remains a musical UN today.  But even that component is facing disruption, thanks to a global licensing marketplace that is increasingly moving online.

In the meantime, this is an industry still searching for solutions, breakthroughs and viable business models.  Right now, Midem is the forum for that discussion, a traditionally huge, over-the-top event.  But this is an industry that may need to shrink before it can grow again, and Midem may need to shift accordingly.