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OC & Verde: “Our inspiration at the moment is just to sound different”

OC & Verde are one of the hottest acts in house right now. The UK duo had a big year in 2016 with some of their tunes really breaking through. Already this year they have been named as ones to watch by the influential Pete Tong and after EP’s on labels like Bedrock and Knee Deep In Sound they are now to release some techno rollers on Viva’s new techno leaning label, iVAV.

Here we speak to them about their working relationship, what each of them brings to the label and about their past year, amongst other things.

Electronic Groove: Hey guys, thanks for the time to chat with us. Introduce yourself for those that don’t know and give us some background info.

OC & Verde: Hello all, we’re DJs and Producers OC & Verde from just outside of Manchester, we have releases on Knee Deep In Sound, Suara, ViVa Music and Bedrock, and earlier this year Pete Tong named us as his ones to watch for 2017.

EG: Tell us what inspired or influenced your new EP on Viva?

OC & Verde: Our inspiration at the moment is just to sound different, we listen to a lot of what Solomun and Tale of Us plays, and that influences us quite a bit but we put our own spin on it. Think we’ve definitely developed our own unique sound now.

EG: What gear did you use? Anything in particular to get your trademark sound?

OC & Verde: We’ve do have quite old or raw sounding drums and this comes from putting most sounds through Maschine and then through vintage compressors that we use. We also tend to use quite a few ethnic sounds in our tracks. Just seems to make them warmer. All the bass sounds come from the Moog and that is a trademark sound in itself really, especially when we play things in similar scales on most tracks.

“We’d usually go into the studio with an idea of what kind of track we’re in the mood to make”

EG: Whats your working process like, where do you start when writing a tune?

OC & Verde: We’d usually go into the studio with an idea of what kind of track we’re in the mood to make and then usually some kind of groove going using Maschine, start hunting for vocals and then go from there. Sometimes though, you just stumble across a vocal on YouTube or somewhere similar and kind of build around it with the leads and chords then the groove comes after. Totally depends from day to day.

EG: Do you have any formal playing skills? Can you play drums or piano say, does or would that help?

OC & Verde: Neither of us have any formal training but having been at it for so long we’ve just learnt along the way. I’d say it would be a huge help but then we’ve seen guys who are amazingly talented musicians but don’t really know what to do with it.

EG: What are some of the key bits of gear in your studio that you love the most?

OC & Verde: I think we’d have to say the Moog Sub 37 and Native Instruments Maschine. We use both on every track we produce. Also a huge fan of the Valhalla and Soundtoys Plugins.

EG: Do you collect gear like you collect records? Are you obsessive about it?

OC & Verde: Probably not as bad as we used to be, we used to buy and sell quite a bit of gear but recently we’ve just stuck with what we have and got to know it inside out. You tend to get better results that way. Although, there is still quite a few dust collecting ornamental pieces around the studio or in storage at the studio. Just can’t quite bring ourselves to sell them just yet.

“We make tunes to play in our own set, that’s the point really”

EG: How do DJing and producing relate to one another? Do you make tunes you want to hear in your own DJ set?

OC & Verde: Definitely we make tunes to play in our own set, that’s the point really, DJing for us is about playing people songs they’ve never heard before so if you’ve produced majority of them that’s half the battle with that.

EG: What’s next for you – what you working on now or later in summer?

OC & Verde: We’ve got a busy touring schedule this summer and are working on collaborations with Eli & Fur and have a new EP in the making with Veerus. Also got a remix coming in August on Yoshitoshi and some pretty big releases we can’t talk about yet coming the back end of summer as well as looking forward to the festival season and more trips to Ibiza.

OC & Verde’s ‘Navajo/Manana’ is available on iVAV Recordings. Grab your copy here.

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