Interview: Square Mode

A while ago we had the pleasure to giveaway Square Mode´s track Klezmer – see here if you missed it. The thing is, Square Mode are Anonymity itself. We didn’t really know who precisely we were writing about. As we can’t go on any longer writing about these two guys without knowing anything about the faces behind this project, we’d like to introduce you to them through this short Q&A with Emile Weston, one half of the duo, and give you an opportunity to listen to their new remix for Le Corps Mince de Françoise’s new track Ghandi as well, out the 29th of this month (click here for Andy Weatherall’s take on the track and listen to the original here).

Hey Emile, how are you? Can you please introduce yourself to the readers? Hey, I’m pretty good thanks. Just trying to keep myself busy. Square Mode is a project that started about two months ago with my friend Mayckael. We like house music, but we love producing techy house with old samples in it. We met around three years ago in Paris. At that time we were both started listening to electronic music. We always talked about starting a project together, but it never really happened. Thats when I moved back to Finland and started a Dj-collective with my homies Emperatron (who you should check out now!). Mayckael started two projects, one called Pressure and one called Hej Do. You should check them out aswel (I’m literally an obsessed fan of Pressure, they’re stuff is amazing). Anyway, after a while we started working on some stuff with Mayckael and it was really nice. I left Emperatron after that (on the best terms possible, they are still my bro’s, bro’s who are going to get massive). Now me and Mayckael both live in Paris working on Square Mode non-stop.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you guys work together dynamically? Well, we’re both jewish, which means we’re both selfish. The first song we started to work on was late summer in Paris a day before I got back to Helsinki, it sounded really good at that time and we we’re both pretty stoked on it. If I’d listen to the song now, I’d say “this is horrible”. Mayckael is the ‘geek’ of Square Mode. It’s good to produce music around someone you can learn a lot from!

How did you grow up with music? What are you listening to at the moment? I grew up with my dad listening to the Gipsy Kings and Bob Dylan. At the moment I’m obsessed with Serge Gainsbourg. I even make people call me “Young Serge”.

In your mind, what makes a track perfect? When Mayckael says it is. After that it’s high fives all around!

If you had the choice to work with either Serge Gainsbourg or Johnny Lee Michaels , who would you choose and why? If somebody would offer us to do the sountrack of the Hobbit movie, I would pick Johnny Lee Michaels, since whatever he does sounds really big and epic. Other than that it would definitely be Serge Gainsbourg.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you? Sir Nenis once told me to “curse the bitch out”. I think that was the best advise ever.

Le Corps Mince de Françoise – Gandhi (Square Mode Remix) by Square Mode

Soraya Brouwer

LONDON VIA AMSTERDAM - Soundcloud & Instagram

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