Ichinen is the brainchild of Roberto Bosco and Kiny, two established producers who have joined forces and moved away from the confines of more dancefloor-focused music. The duo are using their new project to concentrate on a more experimental and at times ethereal sound, their imprint Last Drop Records is also a platform for them to release music they feels fits their ethos. The forthcoming release from Stavrogin is a perfect example. For this edition of the Monument podcast Ichinen have recorded an hour of atmospheric, dreamy electronic music with broken beats and almost jazz like percussion. We sat down with the pair to discuss their methods.
You’re both established solo artists, what made you decide to team up and start the Ichinen project?
Roberto: Well, what unites us, beyond the friendship, is an unconditional love for music. After a long period of time we tried making music together, without any kind of musical constraints, but just to express our feeling. And so Ichinen was born.
Kiny: At the beginning we used to meet to spend some time together, either listening to music or just having fun. Then the feeling that we belonged to the same emotional environment became stronger, and eventually found in our musical collaboration its natural prosecution.
How do you approach making music as Ichinen differently from working solo?
Roberto: I’ve always made techno so I mainly make music for the dance floor. Ichinen gives me more freedom – it allows me to wander between the genres and often I discover entirely new sounds which are different from what I usually make. So when we meet to make music, some pretty interesting things come out, also because we have really different moods and personalities that mix together and create very unique and deep stuff.
Kiny: Personally I like to make music that is detached from my interior landscapes and mould them into electronic and experimental sonority, creating atmospheres which then become part of the Ichinen project too.
The Ichinen project deals with more experimental, ambient sounds. Are there any particular influences behind the music?
Kiny: Yes, there are a lot of musical influences, like Arvo Part, Vladislav Delay, Brian Eno, Moritz Von Oswald and many more. But for sure what spurs us to make music are our feelings and sensations; it’s just a way to enjoy the moment and express what we’ve got inside us. So basically any experiences or even daily life, these are also inspirations for creating something new with music.
With techno today there seems to be a resurgence of harder and faster sounds, do you feel it’s important for the scene to have music that focuses on the other end of the spectrum?
Roberto: At the moment as Ichinen we are more into this deep electronic music which is able to send us something more. Our mix for Monument reflects this thought. So yes it is important for us, also because people are different and have different musical tastes and we believe that the electronic music industry has to reflect this diversity and be able to offer any types of music.
Are there any plans to tour as Ichinen?
Kiny: At the moment there aren’t any plans for a tour, but for sure we would love to do this one day.
Finally, can you tell us about this mix and how it was recorded?
Roberto: The mix was recorded with two Technics 1210 and CDJ-2000 and an Ecler NUO 2.0.
The idea was to make something different from our past podcasts, which were mostly live performances or just selections of ambient stuff, so we wanted to create a non-typical dancefloor mix. I have to say that we had a lot of fun making it.
Big thanks to Ichinen for the fantastic mix and interview, check out these links for more:
https://www.facebook.com/ichinenlastdrop/
https://www.facebook.com/lastdroprecords/