LAMP Weekly Mix #90 feat. Graff (100 Minute Mix Special)

It's only fitting that we celebrate our 90th edition of the LAMP Weekly Mix with one of our favorite duos, Graff! We've been big fans of their mixes and love watching them in action on the decks. We we're super excited when they asked us to help them promote the 4th installment of their 100 Minutes Mix series. It's been our pleasure at LAMP to produce the ‪#‎weeklymix‬ series for all of our fans and friends. We love the effort each of our guests put into their mixes; everyone always goes the extra mile for us! Hop on and let your worries, stresses and pains float away.

LAMP Weekly Mix #90 feat. Graff (100 Minute Mix Special)

MR PUZL got the chance to ask the duo a few questions about their consistently dope mixes, a bit of their thought process when making tracks and more. Check out the Q&A below:MR PUZL: What first sparked the idea for this mix series? Why did you choose a run time of 100 minutes?Graff: I think we were both traveling a fair amount around this time and inspired by various non-urban environments we were coming across and the resulting escapism feeling. We were listening to less clubby electronic music, and were more interested in compiling music for people that provided a bit of escapism rather than planting them in the middle of the dance floor. Our longtime logo has been the hot air balloon... so the story goes that "our balloon" traverses the seasons of the year and landscapes of the world while the music is reflective of the various stages of that journey. The 100 minute length just felt right and worked for the series concept. We always wanted for the mixes to flow together when you line them up in order. The plan is for the series to finish at 600 minutes, leaving a full ten hour continuos mix.MP: The curation process of tracks for each mix you put out seems carefully measured. Is that always the case or are there moments where a series of songs just seem to fit together nicely on their own during a session?Graff: Yeah, we probably nerd out on these things way too much. Honestly it’s kind of like putting together a puzzle. There is always sort of an existing mix file where we have put together a million different mixed track clusters, half of them sort of "realized" when doing gigs. The mix file has ridiculous saved name like "100MIX997DRAFTclip44demo" because it’s been sketched on so many times. It’s kind of about fitting those various ideas together to create an overall feeling of a journey that reflects a mood. We obviously end up focusing on a certain mood more when we are in reality feeling that mood more and most excited about the tunes we have that reflect that. For instance, during the making of the 300 minute mix, it was summer and hot outside, sunny weather, people gathering a lot outdoors regularly, so I was drawn to piece together the ideas that reflected that feeling the most.MP: Your mixes, especially within this latest series carry some sort of storyline. Tell us a little bit about a few of the tracks you woven together and what kind of narrative they embody.Graff: Yeah it’s basically what we said above --- the idea is for the balloon to float year round across all seasons… we try to have the landscape in our mixtape artwork reflect that season... And the music to match that, or at least what that imagery makes us feel. It’s a more fun concept as a story, it adds to the overall escapism goal. We won’t get into many specifics here because it’s more fun to let people find their own narrative, but for instance we feel like the little section of DJ Qu, Marvin & Guy, and Dude Energy tunes certainly launches the balloon into a sort of "distant" place and the mix sort of spirals outward from there.MP: Perception is a fickle thing. How do you traverse the line of what you put out musically versus how you perform to your audience? Do you feel that this serves to give people a broader perspective on Graff as a whole?Graff: We will always want to be able to play the music we write, and likewise our deejaying is influenced to some degree to be able to function alongside our own music. We aim to be good deejays for all kinds of settings though as well, which works the other way and then results in us writing more broadly. Overall, I feel like we find a way to do "our thing" in most gig settings, and that "thing" can be traced back in one way or another to what we are doing in our original music. Also, the mixes we have been putting out lately are made to be more relaxed and "listening" friendly rather than "dance floor" friendly, and that also serves to widen the Graff perspective as well.MP: We were big fans of your Lindstrøm remix, and as you mentioned it reflected the mood you were in during the creation of the first 100 Minute Mix. Do you often find your process of creating music to be situational or are there moments where it becomes more premeditated and removed from current context?Graff: We are both pretty much always surrounded by music, whether we are making it or involved in some other way, and that will inevitably spillover into the creative process, so I think it’s impossible for anything to really be removed from "current context", but I see what you are getting at here. I think it’s situational most of the time, and the moment when it crosses over into more "premeditated" is more often then not when you have been toying with an idea for too long and have sort of lost the grip on where you were when the idea was born, and you can’t connect with the idea as much anymore.MP: As trends in DJing performances adapt to ever evolving tastes of their respective audiences new techniques and tools inherently emerge. More specifically, the incorporation of more live elements and instruments are playing more of a role. How do you see this landscapes progressing? At what point does the performance become more of a live act vs DJing? Have you considered adding elements to your own sets in this manner?Graff: Well, haha, maybe you would be surprised to know that Graff started out as a project that involved live performance. It used to be Latane deejaying other people’s tunes while Antone played live piano alongside every track. Both of us had floor toms on stage and little racks of tom toms and cowbells and we had rehearsed percussion patterns etc. Here’s an old video from 5 years ago :

We still have an old duffle bag full of cowbells in Antone’s garage. I think we have a gong there too. Anyway, after awhile we realized we were spending more time rehearsing our live show than learning to produce our own music, so we simplified to a DJ project and donated much more time to producing. I think there will always be DJ/producers who dominantly care about keeping a certain kind of room energy, and those will likely remain more focused on deejaying. The people that care more about showcasing their original material will end up focusing their performance to be more live. With it being easier to enter the production game, I bet we will see an increasing amount of live electronic artists. I don’t think you will see Antone and I pulling the duffle bag out of the garage soon though haha.MP: As a duo are there specific roles each of you tend to find yourselves in? How do you go about collaborating on projects being in different time zones? Do you use any collaborative pieces of software like Splice?Graff: We’d like to leave a little mystery here… but to put it nautically, Antone is steering the ship more on the production whereas Latane is manning the helm more on collection side... compiling music, making the mixtapes more deejaying, etc... We have been playing music together in various forms for the last 13 years though, so we are always working together on everything really. We don’t use Splice or anything like that, and it’s been tougher now being on opposite coasts, but we’re finding a way to work together creatively still on everything. The internet helps. We are pretty used to the distance I guess. It stems all the way back to when we were in a punk band and no one had a ride to eachother’s houses so we would like bang out song ideas on the family landline until we get could a ride or borrow a car or something. Those were the days :)

Tracklist

1. Andhim - Rollercoaster2. Chamboche - Feverish (The Revenge remix)3. Ticon - Retreat to Retro4. Igor Vicente - The Knight (Electric Jones remix)5. A1 Bassline - Odd Soulz6. DJ Qu - Untitled (Hi-Life)7. Marvin & Guy - Dancenergy8. Dude Energy - Renee Running9. Black Loops - No Questions10. Bazar - Hard to Find (Maceo Plex Funk Drop)11. Andre Lodemann - Coming Your Way12. Dave DK, Piper Davis - Whitehill13. Roman Flugel - Wilkie14. Audiojack - Winding the Box15. Roland Tings - Observatory16. Mano Le Tough - Even Now17. Turkish Prison - Overboard18. Tom Trago - Only You19. Unknown - Machine (John Talabot synth edit)20. Light Year - Slow Burn21. Max Cooper - Woven Ancestry (Lusine remix)22. Clarian - Dystopia23. Mind Fair - c.e.r.e.m.o.n.y. (Velvet Season & Hearts of Gold remix)24. Nebraska - Little Chan25. Ara Koufax - BrendaHere's the full collection of 100 Minute Mixes for your enjoyment:Enjoy,LAMP