There’s a story behind every track. Or at least the good ones. Listening Room is a regular feature devoted to discovering new House Music and learning the story behind the tracks from their creators.
Aiby, known in some parts as half of Aiby & The Noise, has a hot new solo record out on Colour & Pitch. Can’t Make You Happy moves from warm, uplifting techno to Aiby’s take on ’80s-style Electro – a challenge, apparently, to “make a track more Electro-sounding but not to use the typical 808 sounds.” The two track EP is available now as an exclusive on Beatport.
Stream it with us above and let’s talk about this with Aiby starting now:
I believe this is the first record I’ve heard from you solo, without The Noise. For the benefit of my readers, can you tell me a bit about your background and previous records?
Actually this is my third release without “The Noise”, first one was in 2013. Last year I released “A Matter of Time” on Your Only Friend Recordings and now “Can’t Make You Happy” on Colour and Pitch.
I also did a few remixes in the past including a track for Maurice Aymard and Gui Boratto on Galaktika Records last year and my very first remix for Justified Cause in 2010 for Da Funk.
As for my background I come from Barcelona, and have been DJing for 8 years. I got heavy into synthesis and producing a few years ago, thanks to good friends like Tres Manos and my parter Garcynoise (aka “The Noise”). It was hanging out with GarcyNoise that really sparked my interest in synthesizers. Shortly after we started buying a few kits and building synths together. That was the beginning anyways…
“Can’t Make You Happy” made me think of Shake Shakir’s “The Life of a Planet Raider” (yeah I had to pull out my ‘90s rave comps to place that). What can you tell me about it? Every time I thought this was going to zig in the direction of being a kind of predictable one of a million tech house mediocrity, it zagged into this peculiar, opposite direction.
[quote align=”right” color=”#999999″] “The stories behind them are so opposite to each other and they mean so many different things to me, in the sense that one was about loss and the other is about making a comeback from that. Together they just seem to tell the full story.” [/quote]
I made “Can’t Make You Happy” at the end of an important period of my life. At the time I was quite sad, a bit heart broken and really needed an outlet to get those feelings off my chest. The process was really cathartic and I can now admit that it really helped me a lot to get through the situation.
I think I had a lot of pent-up feelings, so I took advantage of the machines I had around me to get out all the sadness and the drama of that moment.
In terms of production I thought the song needed a deeper sound so I used some of my more classic and analog synths such as the DX100, Akai AX73 and a Critter & Guitari Bolsa Bass.
So was early Detroit techno/house sort of a conscious influence?
Well I can’t deny that some of my favorite artists come from that background, so I guess that even if we try to be “ourselves” when making music, those influences are still there… So no matter what we do, the things we love, we feel, or we experience tend to come out with a bit of that flavor.
“Guess Who’s Back” was a curious track to back it with — like Italo, ‘80s Electro and New Wave shoved into a blender and then poured over ice, no chaser. Being a huge fan of Italo and ’80s electronic music, I actually liked it more than the title track. It really just has such a great musicality to it. Did you find it hard NOT to add lyrics to this and make it a more straight-ahead track?
To be honest I didn’t find it hard at all. “Guess Who’s Back” is the result and a mix of a lot of things and different genres I really like, as you well pointed out. What I wanted was to make a track more Electro sounding but tried not to use the typical 808 sounds. I used a Tr 505 in this case, which allowed me to experience more and be more creative. But in the end, I just really wanted to enjoy myself while making it.
The contrast of these two tracks is one of the reasons I put them together. The stories behind them are so opposite to each other and they mean so many different things to me, in the sense that one was about loss and the other is about making a comeback from that. Together they just seem to tell the full story.
This is a really eclectic EP, extremely different from what I’d heard of you before and I’m curious in what direction you’re going to go next?
All directions! I just want to make music. Not too worried about genres to be honest.
However, recently GarcyNoise and I have been dreaming of composing music for a film. We really talk about that a lot, lately.
As Aiby and The Noise, we are working on our live set, and getting excited about some new material that we’re putting out soon on Cyclo and I have a new solo release coming out soon on Justified Cause.
On my own, as Aiby… I just want to constantly work on new tracks… So let’s see where that takes me.
Aiby’s Can’t Make You Happy is available now on Beatport from Colour and Pitch. You can follow Aiby on Facebook and Soundcloud.
