Norway electronic duo Trulz & Robin have been key players within the Scandinavian music scene and have worked on multiple albums together. We caught up with them to discuss their upcoming album on Snick Snack Music and more.
Trulz & Robin - Interview
Hey Trulz and Robin, welcome to Minimal Mag!
Thank you so much for having us : )
What’s good and bad in your worlds?
Well, it’s summer time now and after a long winter up here in Norway, it’s an amazing time with everything blossoming and people are coming out of their winter hibernation. Best time of the year for us.
Nothing that bad in our worlds now. It’s really exciting to release a new album together and we feel so blessed to have been able to work with so many talented people on the album.
You are certainly no strangers to the production scene with four albums under your belt and a fifth on the way. How did you get into music and how did your partnership begin?
This is actually our 7th album because we make music under different pseudonyms (KSMISK, Robomatic, DanceMusicTherapy, Trulz & Robin) : )
We both discovered electronic music at an early age (12/13 years) through some older friends and it blew us both away. There was no turning back and the love and passion for the music just grew stronger as we got older.
We met at the electronic music record store called Music Maestro where I (Trulz) worked. This was the one and only pure electronic music store in Oslo at the time.
Robin was in Norway to work for the summer as a carpenter and he came into the shop to buy records. We quickly found out that we had the same passion for music and loved the same records and artists. And during that summer, we became good friends and instead of Robin going back to Sweden he moved in with me (Trulz) in my big flat, and we started djing together and building a studio, sharing the same dream of creating music and parties.
What can you tell us about your new album, ‘Out Of Sync’? Does it differ from your previous ones?
With “Out of Sync”, we wanted to go back to our roots and capture the rawness and innocence we felt in a lot of the music in the early days. Not to polish so much and perfect everything but to let the feeling, groove and atmosphere be the essence.
We wanted to try to bring in vocals and text with a deeper meaning and purpose on this album. We haven’t done that in that way before. So we contacted artists and friends we love and admire to hear if they wanted to work with us on the album, such as Robert Owens, Kate Pendry, Baseman, Chuc Frazier etc.
It’s been a really amazing journey and experience to work with them all and they all contributed so much to bringing the message and feeling we wanted on this album.
Could you take us through your production process? Any hardware or plug-ins that are crucial in the studio?
We always start by creating what we feel in the moment, a simple groove, bassline, melody etc. When we have a base of a new track we feel this is something we love and want to take further we record either just a stereo recording of a jam or as a multitrack.
Then we maybe do some cuts here and there to tighten the arrangement and then we add FX, melodies, vocals etc. on the track if that is what feels right. We like to keep it simple and try to capture the magic and essence of the track in the 1. Recording.
Regarding equipment, we love hardware, analog drum machines, synths etc. The Roland 606 drum machine we absolutely love and it’s been a big part of the album. The same with Roland – 101 synth, 909 drum machine, Pearl syncussion, The new Erica synths – Perkons. We use Ableton live for recording and editing and we have lots of plugins from a big package from pluginalliance that we love.
You work with the vocal talents of house legend Robert Owens, Kate Pendry, Baseman and more. How did you come to work with all these musicians? How important are vocals in dance music?
Kate Pendry, Baseman and Chuc Frazier are old friends of ours we have worked together with many times before. They are true artists of their craft, which we really love and we wanted them to bring their magic, message and feeling into the music. Robert Owens, we have been a big fan of for a long time, but we didn’t know him from before. Robin reached out to him on Instagram and we started working together. So amazing! We are so happy that he wanted to be a part of the album.
We love both dance music with and without vocals. They both are really important to us . But with vocals of course you can get a clearer message out to the listener and it brings in the human element into electronic music which can be really beautiful and it can also be easier for some people to really let go into the music with vocals.
Is there a track on the LP that has a special meaning to you?
They all feel special for us but if we are going to choose 1 we would say “Inside of Me” with Robert Owens. We were so blown away when he wanted to work with us and the depth and meaning in the vocals and text he made to the track is really special for us.
Have you got any gigs coming up?
Yes. We are having a release party for the album in Oslo in late June. Secret location so far 😉
We will also be playing an all-nighter here in Oslo from 4-8 on the 24/25th June. There is a festival in Tromsø we will be playing in September and we are having a Snick Snack Music party in Amsterdam in October during the Amsterdam Dance Event.
Thanks so much for joining us today, guys! Lastly, what more can we expect from Trulz and Robin in 2023?
Thank you so much for having us 🙂 We will be releasing 2 remix EPs of the album after the summer with remixes by amazing artists and friends: Prins Thomas, Bjørn Torske, Andre Bratten, Max Reich, VLR, Ost & Kjex, FreedomB and Doc L. Junior.
We also have 2-3 more albums we are working on that we will release when they are finished and also a EP with remix by Kirk Degiorgio.
Trulz & Robin - Links
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