As an 8-year-old kid, I would dance to my dad’s Michael Jackson records and force my parents and brother to watch it. I was obsessed with music ever since I was young. TMN: Before we head into a few random questions, can you fill us in on what your musical upbringing was like? Did your parents stress this when you were a kid, or was it something you were naturally drawn to? So, with that in mind, I decided that instead of trying to outdo the original in this kind of vibe, I’ll do something completely different. It wasn’t just a generic pop song I was remixing. It’s one of those songs that people develop a special relationship with, the kind of song that will represent a time or a certain moment in their life cause it’s so visual. Around summer time I gave up, but then he asked if I wanted to try another one of the tracks and I picked “Sea of Voices.” I was thinking a lot of the approach, cause the original is so cinematic and beautiful. I remember making a cool section, but then I was just stuck with it for months. This was in early 2015, I picked “Fresh Static Snow” at the time because that song inspired me the most. On Twitter, he asked me if I wanted to remix a track from his album. From then we would just send back and forth ideas until we had created the 8 tracks of the EP. I was so set on us making a project together. I didn’t look elsewhere for people to collaborate with after that. We released all those 3 tracks on Soundcloud. With two acapellas, I would make what became “Make You Feel” and “Pretty Thoughts”.
She sent me some acapellas of songs she had recorded.
That’s when I knew this girl is 100% about her music. I don’t know who would make that compromise and not just utilize everything they have. But, that’s how she connected with the right people and built a fanbase that fell in love with her art and not her face. She is the most beautiful girl, but used this pitch black square as her picture across all social media and I remember asking her why. Already then, I knew she was very different it was apparent not just in her songwriting, but also in the way she presented it. I was blown away and we started talking about music. So she wrote what would become “Drift” and sent it to me on Soundcloud. It’s safe to say that this whole project started from a simple Soundcloud message, correct?īack when Alina was just starting to write, which is only about 2 years ago, she was looking for instrumentals and came across a track of mine. He was one of the artists I grew up listening to. My proudest moment was when Nas shook my hand after the show and said he was down with it. Once Alina started singing, everybody was singing along. It’s one thing to see the numbers on the internet, but getting out there and feeling the people behind it is a whole new world. It was so packed that some people couldn’t fit into the room and were standing in the hallway. Oh yeah, the first show in Santa Ana was for sure the craziest experience. Was there any particular show or fan interaction that made you step back in disbelief? TMN: Speaking of the tour, we have to imagine that you had a few “Holy shit!” moments. It was a pretty short tour run, but being the very first live shows for me and Alina both, we had a lot to learn going into it. Thank you, it’s been a while since I’ve had time, so yeah, I’ve been excited to get back to making music. Did you take a moment to breathe, or have you jumped right back into the studio? You’ve just come off tour and a wildly successful EP. TMN: First off, thank you so much for being a part of our Residency program.
Instead, we went with what you’ll find below. In all honesty, we could have dialed up at least twenty-five, but that would have been a tremendously long read. The only drawback to this exclusive chat was how difficult it would soon be to narrow our questions down to a reasonable amount. Knowing that we would soon enter a selective group of very few publications who have had a chance to talk with this quickly rising star, we relished in the opportunity. As we started planning this month-long spotlight on Danish producer Galimatias, we were anxiously awaiting this portion of his Residency.