Montreal-based duo HOKI steal the spotlight this month with the release of their debut single ‘Almost Home’ on The Young Proprietor imprint. The collaborative project brings together the talents of experienced producer Varti Deuchoghlian and supreme Australian vocalist Brent McCormick.
‘Almost Home’ begins with a soothing intro that builds into a steady deep beat, slowly rising and falling with gorgeous guitar tones. The tough nuances of love are the focus of McCormick’s endearing vocals, which melt with the melody to create a beautiful, emotional ballad. Joining the twosome on the release in a remix capacity is none other than Kompakt and Turbo Recordings artist Clarian, putting his own dance floor twist to the original.
We connected with HOKI to get an insight into their creative process and their upcoming album ‘Strangest Of Us All’.
EG: Hey guys thanks for your time today. The HOKI sound blends an array of engaging styles, it’s almost live a new wave of deep, indie electronic music. How would you describe it?
Brent McCormick: Thanks for the invite. Tough question! We never really sat down together and decided on a music style to write. Varti creates the music, sends it to me, I do vocals and the melody then we work on the structure and give it the ‘treatment’ together. That’s a very basic breakdown of how we work. We are both into a deeper vibe and music that makes us feel something. We knew we were doing something different. We just didn’t know what it was. I’ve always found it hard to place our music in a genre. I guess I’d describe it as HOKI.
Varti Deuchoghlian: When I initially started this project last summer, my intent was to write mainly instrumentals with a couple of vocal tracks. Things just happened with Brent. I was loving all his vocal compositions and we are here now. We know it’s electronic, maybe indie, some deep house elements in there but not really? We don’t know. It was all about producing music without giving a fuck what it would be tagged as.
EG: Can you tell us a little bit about the first time you met?
Brent McCormick: We met in a boxing gym in downtown Montreal. I hadn’t long been in the country so I was training, doing a boxing class, saw this guy and thought who is this guy?! He kinda knows what he is doing but I didn’t think much of him, short weird looking bloke. I recalled pairing up together in the class, we didn’t chat about music until the second time we met a few weeks later. He told me he was an electronic music producer, I instantly thought I could sing on that style and being always looking for opportunities I saw one. He was different but so am I, so it worked. We started training together and going for runs in the mornings and found we had a lot in common. Now we’re best mates. Well, I think so. He kinda just puts up with me being a clown all the time.
Varti Deuchoghlian: A couple of weeks of knowing each other, he tells his mom how he found his best friend he’s been looking for all his life. I was like ‘this guy is weird’ but I like him!
EG: How have your previous experiences in music influenced the project?
Varti Deuchoghlian: Coming from Metal where it was all about the melodic leads and solos, I transitioned into the electronic dance world about 10 years ago where the landscape is completely different. I was part of an electronic progressive duo with another friend, there was a big learning curve in the electronic world. I just felt that this new project HOKI would need to have a rawness to it from nature recordings to not overly processing the tracks. I guess it’s all the years of having fun with different genres that led to all this.
Brent McCormick: We both have been in the music industry for a long time and learnt a lot. That helps in knowing what we want. We have a great working relationship and this comes from our past experiences, that’s not to say our past experiences are bad, it just means we are clear in our goals and direction also learning and knowing what works and doesn’t, this comes with time and experience. Moving here, I wasn’t going to start another project unless it was easy for me, because this gig as beautiful as it is, it’s a hard road. But with Varti and HOKI, it’s easy work. We respect each other’s experience and ideas. We make decisions and move forward. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We respect each other’s experience and ideas. We make decisions and move forward. I wouldn’t have it any other way”
EG: Has Montreal played a role in inspiring your creative output?
Brent McCormick: Yes, 100% for me, it’s a new world to discover. I get inspired by everything, it all has a story. I like to think of Montreal as beautifully broken. Much like me but not as beautiful. It’s vibrant, charming, messed up in a lot of ways. Such a beautiful spot to be an artist.
EG: ‘Almost Home’ is an incredibly emotive track. Is there a story behind the composition?
Brent McCormick: There is a story in everything. I returned home for the first time in two years, the song was in my ‘tracks to work on’, Varti having just sent it through to me. I was walking to the gym listening to it, what had happened before, I left my parent’s home where I got my inspiration from. It made me reflect on my life growing up, so much love from my family yet so extremely difficult too in a lot of ways. Families are not perfect, and most if not all have skeletons in their closet. Almost Home is about a few of ours.
Varti Deuchoghlian: In the early stages of the composition, I wanted to make the listener feels a bit uncomfortable with the chords and the soundscape used. Uncomfortable but something to want to go back to. Brent’s lyrics just followed through with that vibe without me having to tell him anything about my initial intentions. That’s what makes it so good. We just work good together!
EG: Your debut album ‘Strangest Of Us All’ is coming later his year, what can we expect from that?
Varti Deuchoghlian: There’s so much color to this album. It was important to me while writing the music that I try to capture a lot of different emotions which made the album such a good story. Brent’s vocals/lyrics lifted the music to a whole new level.
Brent McCormick: I feel our record is an experience. Even as a creator, it takes me places. I get lost in Quiet Minds, it has a hypnotic feel to it. Midnight Pattern takes me to a dark and unforgiving place and Yesterday Giants gives me a sense of hope yet I have to be cautious.
EG: What was the biggest influence to start work on an LP?
Varti Deuchoghlian: I was part of my previous project last summer and I felt I needed my individual voice which didn’t really fit with what I was doing in the past several years. As a side project, I started to produce several tracks with the hope of having two 4 tracks EP completed by the end of the year. My initial influence on this project was to stay in the realm of electronic/lower tempo vibe while not caring much about what the rules are in terms of what labels looked for. The biggest influence guiding the artistry/composition was always the complexity of the human mind. I enjoy composing with imaginary visuals in mind so I always made sure to try to capture the simple but complex beauty of different human emotions throughout this process. I simply wanted a couple of tracks with vocals, especially after having left my other project, I wanted something that was purely mine, where I had full artistic control of the productions. The involvement of Brent took to tracks/project to a whole new level and in his own way, he stayed true to what I was trying to convey. All these tracks have a very specific meaning to me, Brent’s lyrics even though a bit different still made complete sense with the vision. Everything happened so simply and that’s because we work great together. Everything evolved fast and the 2 EP ideas turned into an album.
Brent McCormick: Varti and I, we were just writing music together it was fun, easy. Varti had left his last project, he was still writing music and sending it through to me. We had no intention of releasing an LP, we were just writing music we loved knowing we would release it but not knowing where or when. This is kinda why I believe the album is special too. No timeline, no restrictions, freedom. Then, we met Dermot and his team and put the album as we know it together.
EG: Were there any albums in the electronic or indie domains that stood out for you beforehand as ideal examples of quality LPs?
Brent McCormick: LP wise not really, I haven’t bought an album for a while, but quality LPs, man there are too many, a lot of really cool music out there at the moment. I will say a friend of mine back home is doing some cool stuff lately, he has a project called Switchkicker I’m really loving his last three releases.
Varti Deuchoghlian: Cubicolor’s ‘Brainsugar’ album was really cool. But I’d say the Anjunadeep 09 compilation was a big influence in the process of making the album.
EG: What do the next few months hold for HOKI?
Brent McCormick: The release of the singles plus the album is going to be a big milestone for us. We are rehearsing the material for the live set as well, we are bringing HOKI to the live stage. But before the Album drops in November, at the end of August we have a week booked at a chalet in Quebec to start writing Album Number 2, no wifi, no phone reception. Just in the mountains of Quebec to create. Amazing times!
Varti Deuchoghlian: Everything’s just been happening the way we wanted and better. Kinda scary and we’re loving it!
HOKI’s debut single ‘Almost Home’ is now available on The Young Proprietor. Stream and buy here.
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