After almost a year’s hiatus, Casino Times are back with a new EP, this time on Leeds-based Clandestino. The “Seven, Eight, Zero” EP sees them take a more experimental route following more club-friendly releases on labels such as WOLF and Omena. The EP also features two standout remixes from Dawn Again and Panthera Krause. Today we premiere the A1 on the release, “A Vision of Time”. The bassline driven jam is perhaps the more dancefloor friendly tune of the three originals thanks to its heady groove that is really like a slow-burning chug. The rising arpeggiated leads and atmospheric elements help create the building tension that would work perfectly in a transitionary way on the dancefloor. Come to think of it, we really hear a of similarity in style to some of The Revenge’s work, a compliment for sure.
[soundcloud url=”https://soundcloud.com/boltingbits/premiere-casino-times-a-vision-of-time” /] We also had a little catch-up session with the guys behind the Casino Times moniker where they went a little more in-depth about the process for the EP. Read the mini-interview below and pre-order your copy from the Clandestino Bandcamp.
INTERVIEW
Hey guys, been a little while since we’ve heard new music from you, we’re stoked. Can we ask why there was this fairly long gap between releases?
Hey! We try to give ourselves a bit of time between releases to let our sound develop a bit before we share any new music.
We’re also not the kind of producers who can just knock out a track in one session; it takes us weeks of going back and forth, tinkering with different ideas before we start forming something that we’re happy with.
Our processes and the time we spend on each release, helps us to keep things fresh and ensures each release has a distinctive sound.
Plus we both work fulltime, so have to fit Casino Times around a 9 – 5!
How’d you hook up with Clandestino? We love their tastes and your output so was it fairly natural that a release came to fruition?
Thanks! We also love what Clandestino have been putting out.
Joe (Clandestino) messaged us after hearing the Recoded EP on Omena and wanted us to contribute to their podcast series. After this we got chatting over email and ending up sending him some demos. We had a fair amount of exchanges over email of different tracks and variations of tracks before we settled on a consistent ‘sound’ for the release.
We think our music and the label fit really well together, but we weren’t sure if we were aligning straight away with the sound we both had in mind.
We think the guys wanted more tracks like ‘Voices’ or ‘Simulation Bamboo’, but for us that sound belonged on Decoded / Recoded on Omena as it was almost a concept double release. This meant the tracks we were sharing with Clandestino had little to no reference to what have been releasing in recent years.
Joe has a great vision for the label though and working closely with him really helped us mould our ideas into complete release. This is why we think it took some refinement / time to workout how we could craft an EP that would reflect the direction we wanted to take our music and also fit the style of the label.
Can you tell us a little bit about the direction of this EP vs some of your previously released material? Would you say there were any huge changes for you producing the Seven, Eight, Zero EP?
This one has shifted more towards experimentation with different rhythmic patterns and brings some of our electroacoustic influences to the forefront. We originally bonded over working on electroacoustic production projects at University, so it has been refreshing to revisit.
The approach we’ve had on these tracks won’t guarantee them as certified club weapons (don’t pan the club tracks kids), but certainly makes the music a more unique listening experience and fits with us wanting to take a few more risks.
Are you actively cooking up more material or taking it easy and going with the flow, balancing life, etc?
It’s a work / life balance for sure. But that’s not to say we aren’t constantly tweaking away, digging up samples, or making new recordings.
Like any productive producers we’ll always have a library of music hidden away on a hard drive (or in the cloud if you’re up-to-date like we are), that is waiting for the right moment to fit a release and continue development.
If you are passionate about something you make the time for it in your life, so we always find the time to make music.
Do Casino Times have anything else planned for 2019, perhaps another Casino Edits?
We have some more music in the pipeline for this year that we can’t fully detail yet, but keep your ears to the ground! And we’re definitely continuing the Casino Edits series this year with CASINO005 in the works. Creating the disco arrangements in that chopped up style, is something we love doing and we’re excited about getting the next instalment out this year.
We’re also currently playing at a new residency at Five Miles in London. The nights called Outervisions and it is monthly live session blending electronics and instrumentation. Nick XOA is leading a band of session musicians each month and we’re DJing alongside a few names like Wayward, High Praise and Benito & Miguel E. Come down and say Hi to us if you’re in town.
Igor