Both the duo Metropolitan Soul Museum (MSM), and Herzel are artists that are well known for their fluency in creating bubbly deep house tracks; their now not so recent collaboration on Polymath – Fairlight House EP – brought a wonderful fusion of their sounds, which married both Herzel’s deep ephemeral touch, with MSM’s melodic leanings, in a very unique way.
We were lucky enough to catch up with them!
Hey! Can you both give us a quick introduction about yourselves for those who are unaware?
Herzel: Hello, My name is Aleksandar Grozdanovski and I’m releasing music under the Herzel moniker for quite some time now. I’ve released records on labels such as Hivern Discs, Uncanny Valley, Compost and more. Music is my lifelong passion and I feel honoured to have this opportunity to work and live from my artistic output.
MSM: We are Filippo and Nick, one from Italy the other from Scotland. We have been making music together for nearly 8 years and have released on labels like Normals Welcome, Rawax, Public Release, Step Recordings and more. We have also just released a track on Herzel’s BRAN and one coming soon on the very first release of our Kulture Galerie label.
Where is home for you?
Herzel: Bitola and Berlin!
MSM: London!
Can you walk us through the path’s you have taken to get where you are today?
Herzel: It is a road with many uncertainties on the one hand, but on the other hand, it is filled with pleasure and enjoyable moments I will always remember. Definitely a life experience that is rewarding for me as a person. I’ve started dj-ing in the mid nineties, when I was still in high school, and naturally that passion slowly evolved into music production. I am here because of the burning flame, it never goes out.
Nick: Ive been a musician since I was 15 years old. I played keyboards and toured with bands until I moved from Glasgow to London where I set up a professional recording studio in Fulham and recorded bands like Pop Will Eat Itself, Big Audio Dynamite, Sly Dunbar and Fine Young Cannibals amongst many others and in 1990 I went back to writing and producing electronic music. I have written and produced Hardcore, Gabba, House. Deep House, Hard House, Acid House, Progressive, Techno and Electronica and many other styles of house and electronic music. I was / am one half of Shimmon & Woolfson, Sounds From The Ground, Mock & Toof, Red 7 and of course Metropolitan Soul Museum and have owned and run various record labels including Jamm, Tiny Sticks/M&T Inc, Teng and Upstream.
Filippo: in 2011 I found Teng Records online and fell in love with Akra’s ‘Sonnox’. I emailed the label and Nick replied. We began a friendship now longer than 10 years and Nick taught me a lot about music, business but also life. He’s definitely my mentor and I wouldn’t want to share this ‘journey’ with anyone else.
How did the collaboration for the Fairlight House EP come about?
Herzel: We started communicating a lot and we realized that we are gravitating towards similar musical ideas. The collaboration was a natural progression of the intensive communication during the major lockdown last year. I must say that Filippo was the driving force for this release to see the light of day.
Fil: We have been wanting to make music together for a while and Lockdown was a good opportunity for us to work at projects that were not going to see the light otherwise. I would love to give a shout out to Joseph Third Son who supported us and released the EP on his Polymath!
What is your usual processes when making music?
Herzel: Usually I do hardware little jams in my studio and record everything in my DAW. Almost every track I’m working on is based mainly on rhythmical structure and from there the melody and different key elements evolve. The arrangements are done in my DAW, which is Ableton Live.
Nick: Today I work mainly on Ableton Live and MacBook pro. I usually start with some chords or sounds to find a vibe and then program bass and drums and then I like manipulating the audio to create something random and play around until I find something interesting and inspiring. I will then arrange the ideas and see if the track needs any additional music. Often its good to leave a track for a while and come back to it when I can listen to it with more objectivity and decide if its good or not.
Sometimes a track comes together really quickly and you just know its great and other times its a slog but you get there in the end.
Fil: I like to program the drums and the bass when I am in studio with Nick otherwise I will send him some ideas I do on Logic or other softwares and he re-elaborates. He’s the genious behind the music making!!!
You have your own Labels? For those who don’t know, can you walk us through your labels and any particular sounds you may be trying to lean towards with your labels? You’re also both putting out music on each other’s labels if I’m right in thinking? Can you tell us some more about these releases?
Herzel: Yeah, me and my partner Andrej run a label called BRAN. The idea behind the label is to utilize Macedonian jazz, funk and pop music from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s in today’s context of electronic music. And not only with local artists. To broaden this idea on the international scale, we invite artists from all over the globe to work on editing the original music. So far the artists that worked on these two releases are Eddie C, Daniela La Luz, Uabos, Metropolitan Soul Museum, Flute Power and Herzel. At the moment our second release is out, distributed by Bordello A Parigi and you can find it in every good record store.
Fil: In 2021 we started running a mix series called Kulture Galerie, inviting artists from all over the world to play non dance music. The idea was to create like almost like a gallerie full of different influences, and music and cultures (hence the name). Because all the people we have invited and we will invite are producers as well I thought we should run a series of yearly Vas called Kulture Galerie Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 etc and put it out on CD (thanks Lobster Distribution to support us!). This first year you will find Aleksander, Adam Stromsted, Timo from Echocentric, Aspetuck and Exo Man aka KDallas!!
Are there any other labels you’d recommend? Some go to favourites for you guys when digging?
Herzel: There are many good labels around, especially smaller independent labels run by your favorite artists. In these mad times a lot of these labels are struggling to present their music vision. I would like to say supporting them and the quality music it is essential in times like this.
MSM: I echo what Aleksander said, always support your friends’ labels – especially when they are super talented human beings like Owain K and his Innate, Timo and Echocentric, Giamma and Emi and their super eclectic Taste Rec, Adam and his wonderful Lyssna (we did one of our favourite EPs there)
On a similar thread, who are the artists who have kept you going through these last 2 strange years?
Herzel : The artistic output especially in these two pandemic years was immense. Some names that stuck in my mind are: Anthony Naples, Massimiliano Pagliara, Iron Curtis, Johannes Albert, Timothy J. Fairplay, Franz Scala, Credit 00, Fort Romeau, DC Salas, Alessandro Cortini, Autechre, Caterina Barbieri and many more.
Fil: Priori, Joseph Shabason, Bullion, Anthony Naples with his amazing new LP, Leif, Patricia and more!
What plans to you all have for the near future? Anything for us to keep a lookout for?
Currently working on my new live set with a hope that I will get the chance to perform it live in a club environment soon. I have to mention also that my long anticipated record “Bitter Tears EP ” for Massimilano Pagliara’s label Funnuvojere is coming out next month and I’m really excited about it.
Fil: the first volume of our Kulture Galerie release drops in March digitally and on CD and then we are releasing on the 28th of Jan a 4 tracks EP on Public Release and after that a single on Polymath!
Thanks so much for taking the time!
Thank you!