Spanish producers Alerstorm and Ice Stereo have both steadily been building their reputations as promising producers over the years, appearing on the radar of many discerning listeners all over the world.
With their popularity and appreciation growing at a steady rate, they’ve now clashed heads to form Gradual; a duo with a big sound and a potentially big future.
We caught up with the pair to discover more about them ahead of their debut release on Technique Recordings.
Hello! Congratulations on signing to Technique Recordings. How does it feel being on the verge of releasing your music to the masses?
This is huge for us – we’re very pleased to have this opportunity to release music on a label that we consider to be the elite of drum & bass. But we’re also quite nervous waiting for the response from listeners, as we care a lot how the public accepts each of our releases, and the response from those listeners is what gives us strength and enthusiasm to continue.
To people who haven’t heard your stuff yet, how would you describe your sound?
Our sound is aggressive, dark and hard. We like the powerful rhythms and destructive reece basslines. Listeners will be able to recognise our direct sound quite easily following this release on Technique.
Sounds pretty good! Why else should people be excited about you guys?
Because we are two friends who respect and appreciate each other’s skills and tastes. We have joined together to develop a great deal of work, ideas and melodies. Uniting together has been one of the best choices we have ever made, and we hope people can hear that in our music.
What’s up your sleeve after this release?
We have lots of projects with Technique lined up; songs, podcasts and numerous other releases that we hope we can soon share with the rest of the world.
Do you think you’re going to encourage more Spaniards to produce drum & bass? What’s the scene like in your country right now?
We want to unite the entire European scene, not simply just Spain! Here in our country there are a lot of drum & bass groups and artists and many festivals featuring lots of good drum & bass. We can honestly say that right now here in Spain, the drum & bass scene is more alive than ever before and we want to develop that as much as possible.
Who have you guys drawn inspiration from? What other producers do you particularly respect?
Many producers have inspired us over the years; Noisia, Mefjus, Black Sun Empire and Phace in particular are artists who fill us with energy, ideas and the desire to keep making this style of music. They’re the vanguard of producers who understand the intricacies of complex sound design and they’ve really helped us with our production.
What’s your current set-up and what’s the advantage of being a duo?
At the moment we’re emailing tracks back and forth, but in September we’ll be living together in the same city where we’re going to form a studio to unleash our ideas together. We’re really looking forward to being able to write music in the same room! The advantage of being a duo is that when one person is not always at their best, the other person can continue a track and so on.
Are you guys playing any big shows over summer?
We hope that after the first release on Technique, people will want us to play at lots of big events in the future. Let It Roll, Dreambeach and Noisia Invites are all festivals we’d love to do especially.
And finally… Do you prefer playing in a club DJing or sitting in a studio producing a tune?
Ooh, difficult question! We enjoy both equally but for different reasons; playing a set is great as it gives us the chance to fill everyone inside the club with emotion, but on the other hand, there are also very strong emotions in the studio. Music is our way of life and our way of understanding everything around us, so we love both playing it and producing it.
Check out Gradual’s Technique podcast right here:
Follow Gradual: Twitter / Soundcloud / Facebook