Interview by Gosia Mrugala

Neon Knights is the dynamic rock/electro duo of talented drummer Kane G and rocking guitarist Sean L – both noteworthy producers and DJs. Watching them live is wild beyond words. To call the pair unique performers would be an understatement: they mix DJing with live instruments in a rock-grimy style, creating a powerful vibe between themselves and the crowd that’s a rare pleasure to witness. They’re going to be rocking The Hoxton in Toronto this Friday June 29. I can’t think of a better venue for these guys, so consider the show STRONGLY recommended. Look forward to seeing you on the dancefloor!

IAMMUZYKA: What’s the story behind the alias “Neon Knights”?

SEAN: The name Neon Knights came from our background in rock music with the song “Neon Knights” by Black Sabbath. We thought this would be the perfect name for us, as we incorporate our rock influence with EDM and bring neon colours with our live instruments. Kane’s Glo kit is what really helped drive this name home for us. We hope to one day have futuristic knight suits that glow and tie into our neon theme.

IAMMUZYKA: Where did you meet and how did you guys start working together?

SEAN: We met in our first year at Ryerson in one of our business classes. We got along real well, had very similar musical interests and one day just decided to form Neon Knights. We haven’t looked back since!

IAMMUZYKA: Who are your biggest inspirations and what have you learned from them?

KANE: My biggest inspirations have to be drummers like Travis Barker, Neil Peart and Daniel Adair. These are the guys who inspired me to learn how to drum in the first place and I will always look up to them for the great musicians and role models they are. Through my high school days I would spend hours and hours improving my drum skills and it’s amazing to see where it has taken me today. Sean and I both look up to and respect Matt Jones and Pat Doody from the Sour DJs. They’ve helped us so much and we’re so happy they have taken us under their wing in the EDM scene.

SEAN: My biggest inspiration of all is Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. He’s the reason I learned to play the guitar. The list could go on and on, but here are some more of my inspirations just to name a few: Angus Young, Jack White, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Metallica. Artists like these inspired me to want to learn guitar, which I would practice for hours and hours. I used to stay home Friday and Saturday nights in high school to study and master the craft of guitar. I wanted to learn everything from shredding, classical, riffs, etc. Music inspires and motivates us, and if it wasn’t for my inspirations I would not be where I am today.

IAMMUZYKA: How would you describe the sound of Neon Knights?

KANE: Neon Knights’ sound can be summed up in a few words: aggressive, heavy riffed, high-energy, in-your-face music. We thrive off the high energy at every show and transfer that into the music we make.

IAMMUZYKA: Which producing software do you prefer and why?

SEAN: We use Logic for producing as Kane has been using it in the past for rock music and drum cover. We’ve been learning it more and more as time went on and it is the main software we use. We hope to learn how to use Ableton as well so we have a few programs we can use when creating music.

IAMMUZYKA: DJing or producing?

SEAN: We feel there must be a solid balance of both DJing and producing. There is nothing like DJing to an insane crowd where you can feel crazy energy in the room. You also need that time in the studio grinding out hours on end finding that perfect sound and producing an awesome track.

IAMMUZYKA: Top three tracks at the moment?

KANE: 1.Hirshee – Bang This 2. Horny Sanchez – Caliburn (The Sour DJs Remix) 3. Nero – Must Be The Feeling (Delta Heavy Remix)

SEAN: 1. Topher Jones – Brohammer 2. Tiësto & Swanky Tunes – Make Some Noise 3. Laidback Luke – 1234 feat. Chuckie & Martin Solveig

IAMMUZYKA: In your own words, what does EDM represent?

KANE: To me, EDM represents a culture in which electronic music is what brings everyone together. It doesn’t matter the style of dance music you like, whether it be acid house or dubstep — the appreciation and love of dance music is what ties everyone together. The love I see when I walk out in front of an audience of 5,000 people or 50 people is always the same. People are there for the love of the music and that is why we do what we do.

SEAN: EDM is simply any dance music that is electronic. There are so many styles, which makes it difficult to simply define EDM. To me the EDM scene is like a family in which whenever I meet someone that is into the EDM scene there is an instant bond. EDM is my life.

IAMMUZYKA: What are some projects you guys are currently working on that we can look forward to?

SEAN: We are currently in the works of releasing the Limp Bizkit -Breakstuff bootleg that we are a part of with The Sour DJs. There will be a video made shortly for Sol Republic headphones that will feature this track. Also, our first release on Beatport is coming up. We are featured on The Sour DJs’ new single titled “Your Mum,” which has remixes done by Donald Glaude, FTampa, Andy’s iLL, Obsidian and Unit 42. We are very excited for these releases!!

IAMMUZYKA: Where do you see Neon Knights in the next five years?

KANE: We hope to see ourselves on bigger stages, bigger festivals, bigger events and all around hope to take our music to the next level. We would like to collaborate with various artist and continue creating progressive music. We will always keep our “Neon Knights” sound and look forward to whatever the future brings.

Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Posted by Gosia Mrugala

When listening to and watching CYBERPUNKERS in action, it’s The Bloody Beetroots that come first to mind. Like the Beetroots, this Italian duo has an impressively vociferous production style. And, like the Beetroots, they wear masks — in their case, the kind you’d expect to find on the fields of a paintball battle. In the EDM scene, it seems, putting on a mask or a costume (or a giant cartoon mouse head) allows you to play a role that, in “reality,” you’re too scared to become: freed from all boundaries, openly rebellious against the music scene’s rules or judgement. I’d love to attend an EDM masquerade and see what might happen — that would make for one hell of a crazy musical wonderland.

The CYBERPUNKERS track that first caught my ear was “I Needed To Go.” I heard the first 10 seconds and was hooked. This crazed duo have a raw, sexual temerity, and the kind of good, grimy basslines that drive me absolutely crazy. I pressed replay a few times on this one, and fell into their musical grasp.

The beginning of their track “Epic” is a tease to the senses, but at the 1:07 mark the unsuspecting listener gets clobbered hard in the face with some heavy-duty bass and a unique, smashing rhythm. The music video is … interesting, to say the least. I recommend just pressing play, sitting back and opening your eyes and ears to a truly insane track.

I may be a melomaniac, but I don’t swoon like pre-teen Justin Bieber fan for every hot act that comes along. Where CYBERPUNKERS are concerned, however, I thrall myself willingly to their sound. They push the sonic boundaries and deliver truly mind-blowing tracks. I strongly recommend you check them out for yourself; follow them on Facebook HERE, and on SoundCloud HERE.

Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Posted by Gosia Mrugala

Toronto’s City Night Club hasn’t been a major force on the city’s EDM scene until now. Its wayback-playback, mainstream and top 40 sounds definitely have their appeal — but not so much with electronic dance music partisans. But there’s a hint of change in the air.

PLUR. It’s a word that’s been dancing from lip to lip and ear to ear throughout the EDM community: Peace Love Unity Respect. And now Toronto party production company Vivid Dream Productions is trying to create a little PLUR of its own by bringing EDM to the City dance floor. Vivid Dream’s PLUR event this Saturday May 26 will mark the grand opening of City’s new “half” club, Caramel Lounge.

It’s no small task to try to create a new home for EDM in Toronto . Let’s turn out on Saturday to see check out the fruit of Vivid Dream’s labours, and to see what we can bring to the dance floors of the Caramel Lounge. Dress in white — the colour of a fresh, new beginning. See you there!

For more info, CLICK HERE.

Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Posted by Gosia Mrugala

CONSUMER WARNING: The bass on this album has been clinically proven to cause full and debilitating mind-and-body addiction to electro.

Go for it!!!!!!!!

(What? Do you wan to live forever or something?)

Finnish electro-house artist Huoratron (a.k.a. Aku Raski) has no restraint when it comes to his productions. He goes for it — and boy, does this guy deliver. There’s a raw underground feel to much of his stuff, and this albums is absolutely awash in it. It’s a rare and refreshing quality nowadays, as EDM colonizes the mainstream. Cryptocracy is an electrifying pastiche, melding electro and underground with a scorching, rock-styled sound: a stalwart, forceful work. After playing the album through and looking up a few videos of him spinning, I’ve made it a priority to catch him live at the earliest opportunity. This is one performer I am very eager to see behind the decks.

Check out the videos and tell me if you don’t agree …

On to the album. Here’s a track-by-track rundown:

1. Cryptocracy – An amazing start to the album, opening the minds of his listeners and luring them into uncharted corners of his musical labyrinth. Check out the video for this track; turn up the volume, give in to the sound and let Huoratron take full control of your mind. It’s a mental ride you won’t forget.

2. New Wave of Mutilation – Mu-ti-late: to deprive a person of a limb or other essential part. This track will deprive you of all senses other than hearing — in the nicest possible way. My recommendation? Don’t fight it … not that you could. Just give in and let the new wave take total control.

3. A699F – Listen at the 0:30 mark and you’ll get a distinct “Happy Violence” vibe. This one left me eager to press repeat repeat repeat — but with eight more tracks still to go, we soldier on.

4. Bug Party – Frenzied. My body absolutely refused to stay still for this one. The farther I follow Huoratron on this wild sonic journey, the more I get the “bug” to see him live!

5. Dungeons & Dungeons – Here, Huoratron pulls the listener into the dungeon of his musical mind and unpacks the instruments of euphoric torment. And it hurts so good.

6. Sea of Meat – And here a fashionable dubstep feel takes over: electro wobble wobble dub. Not a personal favourite of mine, but still an ear-pleaser.

7. Top 1% – “Do it again.” And again. And again. Huoratron keeps finding peaks and depths you didn’t even know existed. With this one, he made me an official convert to the electro chiptune sound.

8. Force Majeure – Here, things take on a nightmarish tone, sucking you into dark realms of the unknown on the scariest roller coaster you’ve ever ridden. This track left me utterly speechless.

9. Transcendence – Homestretch now. Throughout “Transcendence” you hear alarms, as if warning you about the presence of dangerously powerful bass. And with good reason: I was sitting in a friend’s car listening to this track while she dashed into a store and — no word of a lie! — it triggered the alarm on a parked car nearby. The power of this track can only be fully appreciated on good speakers or headphones. It’s like an endorphin overdose surging through your whole system, till it feels like your head may explode. When it comes to a raw, underground hard bass sound, you’ll find no superior example.

10. Unblinking Eyes – At first I felt as though this track ought to have been the album opener: it has a great build to it and really hypes up the listener. But Huoratron knows what he’s doing. It’s genius to make this the album’s finishing touch, because it just leaves you craving more. A masterpiece.

 Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Posted by Gosia Mrugala

Released just two weeks ago on Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak label, Datsik‘s album Vitamin D is the banger his followers were primed for. The B.C. artist has described dubstep as “totally the punk rock of electronic music,” and on this debut LP he explores his limits, merging a wide range of musical inspirations — most notably Wu-Tang Clan and its MVPs RZA and Method Man. The album definitely captures something of the spirit of Wu-Tang, with its ominous, futuristic sound and gangster vibe.

My personal favourite here has to be “Complete Control” — but the whole of the album is a dark, euphonious mental roller coaster ride. Let’s break it down:

1. “Annihilate” – Definitely a track to entice the listener into playing the entire album. A perfect introduction to Vitamin D’s diversity of dark and captivating sounds.

2. “Fully Blown” (feat. Snak the Ripper) – Here, Datsik displays his affinity for hip-hop. He wastes no time on this one, jumping right in, without any buildup at all, and enlisting Snak The Ripper to provide some heavy-duty rap vocals.

3. “Syndrome” (with Downlink) – This track starts off with a classical vibe, then drops in some overwhelming bass. For me, it’s a standout for merging two such seemingly incompatible genres with surprising artfulness.

4. “Bonafide Hustler” – It’s almost like a biographical anthem for Datsik, the quintessential dubstep hustler. The sound is grimy yet cutting edge, pretty much ensuring that this will be a “bonafide” banger in the clubs and on the airwaves.

5. “Evilution” (with Infected Mushrooms & Jonathan Davis) – A collaboration with trip-hop duo Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani (a.k.a. Infected Mushroom) and Korn lead vocalist Jonathan Davis results in psychedelic/trance/electronic rock track that opens the darkest corners of the musical mind. I pressed replay more than a few times — as will you. It’s one of those tracks that invades the mind and refuses to leave.

6. “Need You” – This one sounds a bit like a mash-up of music and sound effects from old arcade games. It creates a certain musical clutter in the mind (a bit of everything all over the place) — but isn’t that what dubstep is? Mashed-up, unpredictable and a bit cluttered (in a good way)?

7. “Don’t Feel Right” – Here he starts with a playful electronic rhythm, then shifts into memorable sample from Shakedown‘s 2002 hit “At Night,” and from there into an overpoweringly grimy sound. Quite the mash-up, but definitely worth a replay or two.

8. “Light The Fuse” – A track with a very catchy, bob-your-head-along kind of kick to it. Dubstep usually conjures a dirty, borderline-rebellious feeling for me, but this one put me on a playground playing hopscotch — at least until it reached the 1:09 mark and it took on a different spin: grimy, anarchic and overpowering.

9. “Complete Control” – A fitting title for this superlative banger.  With everything from intriguing build-ups to filthy drops, it takes you on a dark, fantastical. I put this one on repeat, letting Datsik take “complete control” of my mind.

10. “Punisher” (with Downlink) – Okay, the build-up was a little irritating, but the drop won back my attention. A daring, musically capricious piece of production that I can see entrancing listeners, whether on the dancefloor or chilling with headphones in the “grimy” comfort of one’s home.

11 “Napalm” (feat. Masinian) – The opening recalls the start of Skrillex‘s “First Year of (Equinox),” until the rap vocals swoop in and ambush the listener. Can’t say I was a big fan of this track or came away from it feeling the urge to press replay. But it does offer a unique sound.

12. “Double Trouble” (with DJ Z-Trip) – “We came here tonight to get started.” Except it kinda felt like it was taking a bit long to start. Still, once it revs up, this one repays your patience. A suitably filthy track from one of Canada’s brightest young bass music stars, this does what every good album-closer should: leaves the listener eager for more.

 Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Review and Video Posted by Gosia Mrugala

Heartik @ TIME, Toronto – April 13, 2012

It’s about time Canadian audiences got a look at Heartik. The young Italian has been refining his production skills since 2008, and last Friday night he brought his impressive sound to the dancefloor of Toronto’s TIME nightclub.. This is a venue with a lot to offer, including a rock-solid sound setup for EDM performers, and though it’s a wee bit small it offers a pleasingly intimate atmosphere.

Can’t say I was impressed with the turnout for the event, but the shortage of warm bodies didn’t slow up the headline performer. He kicked off his set with a funky crowd-pleaser, before slipping into some comfortable tech-house. Heartik has mind-bogglingly brilliant taste when it comes to music selection – indicative, I’d say, of his potential to rock much larger crowds. Couple that with his powerfully appealing stage presence and positive energy, and you’ve got a DJ/producer worth watching — and listening — for.

Heartik has posted his full set from TIME Toronto on SoundCloud. LISTEN AND DOWNLOAD HERE

 Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Posted by Gosia Mrugala

Sydney Blu @ The Hoxton, Toronto – April 7.2012

As a performer, Ottawa-born/Miami-based Sydney Blu is truly hellacious: she projects so much positive energy, and vibes off the audience brilliantly. From the minute she took the stage at The Hoxton, her musical charisma enraptured the crowd. (Among them was fellow Canadian Deadmau5, who turned up to show his support.) It was an accomplished performance that kept the room in a frenzy from the first beat to the final track. This was my first chance to see Sydney Blu in person, and I can attest confidently now to her gifts, both as a producer and a performer. If you haven’t been lucky enough to catch her live on the decks, I’d recommend that you bookmark her tour dates page and make a point of turning out the next time she’s in your geographic vicinity. It’s an experience I promise you won’t forget.

Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Posted by Gosia Mrugala

Born in Vermont and now based in L.A., MORGAN PAGE has been making electronic music from the age of 12. It’s fair to say he’s come a long way. His crowd-pleasing, mellisonant originals and remixes are evidence of a talent that has evolved successfully. Page’s new album In The Air (showcased recently here at bpmtv.com) has its listless patches, but nevertheless offers some rapturous tracks that should satisfy the craving for stellar progressive house, whether in the comfort of your home or car, or wheeling around the dance floor. Let’s break it down.

1.”In The Air” – Hands-down, my favourite track on the album. Angela McCluskey‘s soothing susurrus of a voice dances evocatively to the beat Page lays down. A great way to start things off.

2. “Where Did You Go” – A more upbeat approach. Definitely made to get the crowd moving at the club. If anything, it’s maybe a bit too dance-y for my tastes. But no denying the strength of the rhythm.

3. “Body Work” – I have to say, I absolutely love Tegan and Sara‘s voices here. An upbeat track, this is definitely going on my playlist for the gym. Perfect for dancing your ass off, “Body Work” has been floating around since last year, but has gained well deserved popularity thanks to Page’s own club mix and reworks by Lazy Rich and Richard Dinsdale.

4. “Carry Me” – I don’t think I know anyone who can say they aren’t entranced with Nadia Ali’s voice; small wonder she graces tracks by so many different DJs.The melding of voice and rhythm here is most grazioso. Press play and let it “carry” you to a state of musical euphoria.

5. “The Only One” – A mellifluous love song that creates a mellow, halcyon mood. Best enjoyed at home with headphone — I don’t see this moving the dance floor, unless there’s club-tempo remix in the works (which: not a bad idea).

6. “S.O.S.” – A unique trance spin on The Police‘s 1979 classic “Message In A Bottle” about a desert island castaway in search of love. A surprisingly successful remake — definitely worthy of a listen.

7. “The Actor” – I do like the lyrics to this track, but the rhythm isn’t satisfying my musical senses. All in all, an OK track, but a bit insipid compared to some of the other material on the album. Can’t say I would personally press replay for this one.

8. “Missing” – Nothing “missing” on this track. An aberrant yet interesting start, a warm, flowing melody and a catchy rhythm that won’t let you stay perfectly still.

9. “Light Years” - I’m a big fan, personally, of adding real instruments (like the piano in this track) to lend a “classical” touch to a track. This is a soothing, almost pianissimo trance track, with impressive lyrics. Have to admit, I pressed replay on this one more than once or twice.

10. “Love Mistaken” - I can’t say this one really left a lasting imprint in my musical memory the way some of the others did. It’s a decent enough trance track but a bit of an oblivion for me, frankly.

11. “Gimme Plenty” – A funky sound to this track, with Shana Halligan’s vocals lending a welcome touch of soul. Seductive!

12. “Video” - Again, the great voices of Tegan and Sara. The addictive vocal hook with its “electro” sound lends the perfect kick to this track’s captivating trance rhythm. I pressed repeat — so will you.

13. “Addicted” - Greg Laswell’s vocals mesh ideally with the calm yet surprisingly “addictive” beat that Page has worked up for this one. It borders on the mellow, but still has enough of a kick that it can be enjoyed on the dancefloor.

Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Posted by Gosia Mrugala

BINGO PLAYERS @ THE HOXTON, TORONTO – MARCH 8, 2012

Another incredible night at The Hoxton — and if you weren’t present, you most definitely missed out on a crazy party!

Sad admit it, but this was the first time I’d ever seen Simon Jain behind the decks. I can confidently say that he absolutely rocked that dance floor. His interaction with the crowd was exceptional, too. Definitely the perfect musical aperitif for the Bingo Players.

Once the Dutch duo took the stage an ecstatic vibe surged through the crowd. Their musical selection was impressively diverse: everything from “Feel So Close” to the Skrillex remix of Benny Benassi’s “Cinema.” They even took “Warp” for a spin.

Their music is very capriccioso, and watching them live is an unalloyed pleasure. When they let “Rattle” blast through the speaker I felt my body — and every body around me — go into an absolute frenzy. That track is a pure blast of adrenaline rushing through body and mind. Girls crawled onto guys’ shoulders just to get close to the Bingo Players level.

Audio specialist Paul Bäumer and graphic designer Maarten Hoogstraten have proven themselves masterful producers, crafting a succession with brilliant tracks in their Enschede atelier. I’m eager to see what they deliver in the future, and when they return to Canada I am most definitely going to be there. Take my recommendation and do the same.

A special thanks goes out to Embrace Presents for making this night possible.

Photo by Gosia Mrugala (IAMMUZYKA)

Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.

Interview by Gosia Mrugala (IAMMUZYKA)

Toronto-based Russian DJ duo Kotov & Andre Wilde are impressive producers as well as performers. In the way each brings something entirely different to the table, they embody the Asian philosophical concept of yin and yang – an idea that describes  ”how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn.” Diverse talents, they create together a perfect musical balance.

The musical bond that they share is deeply esoteric, and watching them live perform live is a pleasure. It can be awe-inspiring to see two artists with wildly different styles come together as a team to realize such enrapturing tracks for the audience. Their names are becoming deservedly better known; I recommend keeping your eyes and ears on Kotov & Andre Wilde — and I definitely recommend seeing them live.

I had the opportunity to sit down with the duo recently. Here’s what we talked about:

IAMMUZYKA: How would you describe Toronto’s EDM scene/community?

KOTOV: Toronto is like a university for EDM. With such amounts of DJs and producers, only the best make it — and only the best make the difference. Look at the world, there’s plenty of talent that we supply!

WILDE: The EDM scene in Toronto I would say is blooming. We’ve got lots of locals going international; we’ve got Carlo, Flipside, Deadmau5, Manzone & Strong, we’ve even got the The Junkies who just got signed to Dubfire‘s management company. So we’ve got lots of local guys who are going international and that’s really good and nice to see.

IAMMUZYKA: What brought Kotov & Wilde together?

KOTOV: The music and the groove is what brought us together. You have your own personal opinion and feeling, but in the end what essentially brought us together is the mutual goal of bringing something better to the audience that people will feel good about. There are things I do that Andre would never do, and some things Andre would do that I would never do. It’s opposites but it brings us together. The bottom line is that we depend on each other for production, for better production, and we wouldn’t survive without each other in the sense of creating that particularly perfect track that we want to get to.

WILDE: What brought us together was the love for the music. The love for the production and getting our own stuff out there and just getting better at it. One thing is our own production, but the next step is to be able to play our own productions to our audience and fans. Right now we’re at the point where we can play our own stuff and people go nuts, they don’t know the tracks but they go nuts. And that’s what brought us together and will keep us going.

IAMMUZYKA: What are you guys working on at the moment?

KOTOV: We’r'e actually looking into something different. We’re looking at being something that’s not the same as everyone else, and that’s essentially always been our motto: to not be the same as anyone else. And our production has always had a part of our own sound, our own groove, our feeling to it. We would never trade it off for the popular sound — it always has to be real and from the heart, otherwise it doesn’t matter what we do. We might never reach the top or anything close to it, but we can do what we like and it will always be something of our own. Or we could do something everyone else does and get on the same track as everyone else towards the top — but then there would be no internal feeling to it, it wouldn’t be personal or have our own touch to it. Everything we do has our own touch and sound to it, and that’s what we’re all about. We’re about not what everyone does, we only care about what we do and how it reflects on the people who come to listen to us. It’s only about the music and about the feeling.

WILDE: We’re working on a lot of new productions. We’re sort of trying to take the next step but not follow trance — we never really followed trance, even when minimal was out, we did a minimal track but it had our own hook, our own sound, something we put into it it that wouldn’t really follow the trends everybody else was trying to follow. Right now we’ve actually got some stuff with a couple of vocalists that we are trying to work on. We’re working on an album of sort of top 40 stuff. We’re opening the horizons from the regular techno and tech house sound that we usually produce and going into sort of top 40 house, which is a genre all on its own. So that’s what we’re working on right now: the next few tracks that you hear will have a completely new sound. We’ve got something coming out in the next few weeks with Christopher Norman, something that we’ve never done before. Which maybe you’ll never hear from us again, maybe you will. What we love is what we do. Lots of stuff is coming, lots of stuff is done; it’s just a matter of releasing it.

IAMMUZYKA: What can one find playing on your iPod today?

KOTOV: My iPod has stuff that is back to the basics, kind of the beginning of 2000 drum and bass. I listen to stuff I love to dance to, stuff that is completely unpopular, stuff that is overlooked and never really catches anyone’s attention. Stuff you can dance to and just be yourself. You can find three things: Pendulum, Sub Focus and our productions. That’s pretty much the things you would find on my iPod.

WILDE: In all honesty, I don’t have an iPod. You can find me listening to some downtempo, jazz and bossa nova. If you’re looking for artists names, I would say: Prodigy – the first album was one of a kind. You would find TuPac, the Scorpions live album, Sting and quite a bit of Russian stuff. Everything I listen to is an inspiration to me; it can be hip-hop, jazz, electronic music, it can even be pop. I’m all over the map when it comes to music.

IAMMUZYKA: What is next for Kotov & Wilde?

KOTOV & WILDE: Next is opening new horizons: what we can do and what we can achieve. Developing our skills, our sound and bringing something new to the world — bringing our own Kotov & Wilde sound and hopefully making it international. At the end of the day, I think the biggest thing for us is to actually not just be electronic DJs but to be musicians. We would like to develop more as musicians and not just as electronic dance music producers. I think that’s our next step — what we are looking forward to, what we’re working towards. International in the sense of making it bigger. Our sound has become quite international and global, now it’s just about making it so a larger, broader range of people can hear our music and appreciate our sound and be our fans.

Find Kotov & Andre Wilde on FACEBOOK

Listen to Kotov & Andre Wilde on SOUNDCLOUD

Gosia Mrugala is a Toronto-based blogger and reviewer. You can read her blog HERE, and follow her on Twitter HERE.