The Brvtalist: Tell us a bit about “Caleidoscopic Anthem“. How was the creative process/workflow? What’s your source of inspiration?
Fanstrom&Looper: How difficult to try and summarize this question! First it is important to understand that currently we’re thousands of kilometers away from each other, yet there is a very tight musical connection between us. We’re 2 people who forged a basically virtual relationship while nurturing each other over the years, sharing music, opinions, reflections and having extensive talks about anything related. We eventually discovered that we shared specific aspects such as distortion, deep melodies and “dirty” textured sounds, and upon this realization we decided that we had to channel this into a collaborative work.
With these aspects in mind, we began working individually on our own tracks, as always sending them back and forth to craft the concept and perfect it together. The collab track came after Looper had an idea in the works and sent it to me (Fanstrom), which was an incredible inspiration. I sort of remixed the track keeping certain elements and after some tries, it came to light. The final touch of it was the amazing video done by Mauro Contreras (@mpcxlii), who works entirely with analog vintage equipment. Truly unique! We invite you to check out his work.
To sum it up, we like to think of this EP as a sort of coronation of a relationship based on profound mutual respect and shared visions. It truly makes us very happy!
The Brvtalist: Tell us about the Argentinian scene. How does the political situation affect it? And if you could change something about your local scene, what would that be?
Fanstrom&Looper: A really amazing thing that happens in Argentina is the great amount of underground crews and cycles that, with incredible effort, drive projects forward… These include labels and parties. Within most of them there is a strong mutual support and collaboration, which in the end creates a very nice unity. Also there are super talented producers all around the country, and they seem to pop up day after day. The quality of the music you sometimes come across is outstanding! The same when it comes to DJs. The common factor between them all? Definitely an incredible amount of love and passion.
At the same time it can be very difficult… The economic situation of the country is pretty bad all the time, so it is quite hard to come up with the means to do the parties we dream of… it takes up a lot of effort. There is also a notable lack of venues in which to do these parties, or better said, quality venues that support emerging cycles and artists. Sometimes it’s hard too to compete with American or European labels when it comes to reach.
The Brvtalist: How has the pandemic affected you? Were you able to find a silver lining perhaps?
Fanstrom: Well… At the beginning everything was so blurry and uncertain that it was a bit hard to cope with. Something really positive that happened on a personal level is that I managed to slow down my anxiety and exigence. The world, and life as we knew it, came to a sort of standstill, something I think about as a ‘parenthesis’. This somehow helped me pause and find a tranquility within my relationship with music which I hadn’t had in a long time, since before my mind was extremely pushy and judgemental on itself. It was a trigger for me to re-evaluate this relationship and to understand it better, from a different perspective, exploring how to move forward and asking myself what I want, and what is really important, out of it.
Looper: It was tough and weird; at the beginning I had a lot of doubts with what was happening with the world, seeing a lot of people suffering the pandemic effects makes me so sad. I didn't know what I was going to do with my future but I tried to concentrate on my music and I feel like I was able to take advantage of the situation, leaving those feelings behind. I made progress with my career and my personal life too.
The Brvtalist: What’s coming up next for you?
Fanstrom: Personally in early next year I’ll have a single and an EP released on a very nice label from Buenos Aires, something I’ve been looking forward to for some time. On another hand, our label T4F Records is closing the release agenda for 2021 with international guests for a couple of EPs and VAs, excited to keep growing this project! And, of course, I’d love to collaborate again with Looper, let’s hope we find the space :) .
Looper: I've been working on 2 new EPs for the next year, they will be released on ALK Recordings and Dancefloor Impact Research, also I have a proposal from a very nice label but I can't say too much for now. Besides this I have an audiovisual project with a very good friend of mine and we're preparing some stuff for the next few months. On the other hand I expect that we could return to the dancefloors and feel the connection with the people again, I wish that with all my heart...
