Peres [Interview]

Since first emerging in 2009 Polish artist Peres has spent the majority of his near twelve year career on long standing labels LuPS Records and Mistique Music, where his old school sound has flourished. This week sees Peres releasing his debut album 'Presence' via his primary home in LuPS Records. 

Progressive Astronaut caught up with Peres to learn more about the release of  ‘Presence’, his studio process, background, future plans, and more. Enjoy.

Hi Peres, thanks for joining us. What is your current mood and what was the last piece of music you listened to?

Welcome. Well, my mood right now is a mix of excitement and happiness. I'll secretly admit that this is my first interview abroad, so I feel a little intimidated. Generally I feel happy. Recently I listened to U2 "Ultra Violet"

How was your summer? And what are your plans for the coming week?

The summer was very successful for me. Unlike most artists who play at summer festivals, I spent my summer surfing and vacationing with my family - unlike what you might expect.

Do you consider yourself a DJ or producer first? And which do you enjoy more and why?

Nowadays, I consider myself more of a producer for a simple reason. I don't DJ currently. I played for 20 years and gave up on it some time ago. so I count myself among the ex DJs. However, I am strongly thinking about returning to the stage as a liveact artist. I think if I went back to playing live it would be as exciting as producing music.

Can you name five tracks that were important in your musical development and why they are so significant for you?

Infusion- Legacy – Junkie XL Remix
This is a remix that showed me that electronic music does not have to be purely synth. It has a lot of space and shows how to use autotune better.

Sigur Ros – Seaglopur
If anyone can put emotions into music, it's Sigur. seemingly minimalist arrangements and showed me that leading a melodic line can contain a lot of emotions

The Chemical Brothers – The Test
It was a number and a video that when I saw it for the first time I said to myself - playing is one thing, but creating music is that. Again, the emotions in the music decided that the more progressive sound delighted me

UNKLE Ian Brown – Be There
There are songs that fit our lifestyle like no other, well this is the song that perfectly carries a certain emotional charge expressed in the melody and arrangement that perfectly fits my perception of music.

Moderat – Rusty Nails
This is probably the highest level for me and probably unrivaled when it comes to electronic music. Unique sound, amazing arrangements and the message contained in the music. Yes, Moderat and this number are an important number in my consciousness as a producer

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your production work and more, please.

On a daily basis, I professionally deals with returning to sports after knee injuries, helping athletes get back on the field.The time for production is rather my free time in the evenings when I can focus on my passion. I am also a father and a husband so I lead a 100% normal life. So my life is a bit crazy and far from the stereotype of a producer or a musician who is involved in production 100% Trying to balance and make time for a normal family life and being a musician is probably the biggest challenge

Talk to us about growing up and living in the Poland, how has it affected your musical taste and the music you make?

Life in Poland at a time when communism was falling and I was born in the 1970s, so my adult life began amidst the greatest changes in Central Europe, was and is fascinating. I was in an environment for which discovering new musical trends was something natural. I was a pioneer of the progressive house scene in Poland, playing as a DJ. This certainly had an impact on greater openness to new sounds, but also on entire cultural trends, such as the emerging club scene in Poland at that time. Our natural desire to be ideologically new people grouping around the electronic music scene led us to develop on many levels of artistry. Today I see my friends who are great musicians, graphic designers, painters and graffiti artists coming from the times of our “ reve” parties.

What are some of your best memories from first going to clubs? Were there specific nights or sets that really made you feel you wanted to pursue electronic music?

Once upon a time, and I know it sounds like a grandfather telling his grandchildren a bedtime story - but there was a time when there was no Internet. There were the first clubs and you went to them to hear music. Music mattered, music was unique, you couldn't have her right away. It couldn't be copied or found on the Internet - and the guy who played her became our idol almost immediately. Back then, going to clubs was a unique experience. I remember the first sets of John Digweed and Sasha. Then I thought that this is what I want to do - play like them.

If you were a tour-guide for nightlife in Warsaw (or Poland), what would be the clubs you’d take the people to see and what local DJs do they need to hear?

Warsaw is currently quite a good-looking club city. There are many well-performing clubs that gather audiences every weekend. Smolna, Prague Centrum, Solar Plexus are just a few names. Lets go there for a one shot and dance…

If you are not DJing or socializing at clubs, where do we find you? And doing what?

Definitely in the studio making music or on the pump track with my son skateboarding

When you were first getting started in production did you have someone help you or are you completely self-taught? And what would you recommend new producers do to help with the learning curve of production?

At the very beginning, I was helped by my now deceased friend Petersky, with whom we recorded our first EP, released years ago on Arium Records. This EP was a breakthrough for us - at that time, the song “Hello Ladies” was played by Tiesto, Subsky, Holden or Digweed. He taught me how to use the DAW. Everything else is my persistence and trial and error method. Music production is, in a sense, mathematics, but I never wanted it to be heard like that , so my advice to producers is the same - create according to your own pattern. Never let yourself be told that something is not cool if for you it is what you wanted to express as an artist.

Your debut album ‘Presence’ was just released via LuPS Records, please tell us about the release and how these tracks showcase your sound.

I'm glad that this was LuPS that released my album. In Past LuPS was label that reached out to me first and said we would like your music to be part of our catalogue. Currently, I am fascinated by the sound of techno music combined with the soft analog sound of synthesizers and this album accurately reflects such combinations. There are no sophisticated arrangements, the melodic lines are quite simple, but I think they are perfect for dark underground clubs.

Tell us how it began to take shape? Was there an initial goal of writing an album or did this happen organically in a way?

My goal was not to write an entire album. A year ago, during the period of illness I was going through, it turned out that I had more free time and was able to devote it to producing music. There is a period in my life when I feel more inspired to create, and that was it. the period when it turned out that I had collected more similar music within half a year was born spontaneously. So I will surprise you and I will not tell you any touching or fascinating story about the fact that the album is the result of my deep experiences after the hermit's journey, rather it is a collection of very similar sounds that have been in my head for a long time and which I imagined would look good in the underground. club

The album is comprised mostly of club tracks with a couple of slower electronica pieces, so we’re curious which tracks have you been playing at your gigs? And how do they fit in your style and programming?

To be honest, I haven't had the opportunity to test these songs live yet, but I hope to see other artists playing my productions test them during their performances in the near future. This was the idea of my album to be dominated by songs with a very underground club character.

Having heard the album a few times I have to say there is a lot of depth and colour throughout which makes for a great listen. There’s moments of emotion and atmosphere to more groovy or esoteric cuts. Tell us why it was important for you to express your thoughts, ideas and feelings in this style of a long player.

Thank you very much for liking this album, I didn't expect such a nice review in this question, well for me, progressive music has always been something that emotionally suited me very well, so the combination of techno with long progressive arrangements was something very natural.

You’ve worked with a few labels over the years and you chose LuPS as the spot for your debut album, what was it about the label which made it the right home for this project?

I can't imagine any other cooperation than this label, LuPS reached out to me when I was just starting out in production, my musical excursions were still at a very unsatisfying level for me, that's when Jacco head of LuPS believed in me and said “it's good, I would like to release it”. That is why I believe that it is worth taking care of lasting relationships, and after all, the music industry, apart from music, is also about certain principles of values and relationships, and that is why I am very grateful Jacco was guided by these principles. That's why this label was my natural choice

How did you end up with the final track selection? And how difficult was it deciding on the flow from a listener’s perspective?

For me it would be too difficult to choose because there were many more songs. And I believed in the reports and experience of people who work at the label. I think that the final selection of the track list is a very good consensus that we managed to achieve. I am also happy because I, as an artist, have the feeling that what I will do in two days is not as good as I thought when I finished working on a given production, so if it weren't for the stubbornness of the production company, it would never have happened because I would probably change my mind all the time.

Give our readers a look into your studio? What is your current setup? And what studio tools featured heavily in the writing of ‘Presence’?

My studio currently has a very simple and minimalist approach, of course DAW I'm working on Ableton, plus a lot of plug-ins, although my favorite and I think you can hear it on the album are “diva”, “serum” and “arturia”. Iv got also Moog Minimoog Model D 2022 and Akai APC40 MK2. Plus some monitors and various keys.

Let’s talk about production a bit more for a moment, where does the impulse to create something come from for you? And was there anything in particular which inspired the album?

When it comes to inspiration, there are many factors here, it may be a particular sound, it may be some or it may be a fragment of a song I heard or digging through many samples that sometimes inspire me to create a song. But I am also very often inspired by watching other artists such as Stefan Bodzin or Ben Bohmer , whose music very much inspires me to create my own versions inspired by their work.

I would guess the writing of the album was a long process, now that it’s done what are your thoughts reflecting back on the process?

Honestly, I prefer not to think about this process because I immediately think about what I would do differently to make it sound much better all the time. I'm still shy when it comes to being confident in the music I produce. I think I could write this one or another one. once and better. Creating this album was indeed long, but also very enjoyable - some songs took only a few hours to create, others took much longer

How would you feel about these tracks being remixed? And are there plans for this?

I think that listening to remixes of my own songs is something that is the most fascinating as collaborations between producers I am very open to remixing the whole album and every time I listen to the remix in my productions I am surprised how many artists are incredibly talented and how many of them have an amazing sense of interpretation. And of course I'm looking forward to the opportunity for this album to be interpreted by others

Do you think the digital era changed the way we perceive artist albums? Do they still carry the weight they once did or should? Is this something that perhaps depends on who (record label) is releasing it as well?

A very difficult topic because it is very difficult for me, as a person in my age almost 50, to find my way in this digital reality and I rather come from the era when cassettes and CD records were available. Nowadays, social media rules and it seems to me that they sell more than the music itself. I think this is a time when producers must also be artists performing live because this is the best way to promote their productions. These are difficult times for record labels, but they also provide a lot of new opportunities that were once unattainable. Nowadays, reaching a huge number of recipients is very simple technologically, but very difficult its self. Because so many people have access to the same tools, there is a huge media noise and in order to break through you have to hit the audience trend and it is not that easy when you promote quite a lot of underground music

If you could set up an event with a line-up of five artists of your choice, who would you book, and what set times would you ascribe to the artists?

The basic question would be what kind of event it is, whether it would be an evening in a club, whether it would be a wedding or a funeral, but let's stick to this club version. I think that currently I would definitely like to see some of the artists who inspire me when it comes to live act. So warm up Ben Bohmer than Monolink later Gus Gus and on the End Stephan Bodzin or Moderat.

If you were not a DJ/Producer what do you think you’d be doing with your life?

You can say that I am not 100% DJ and producer, I think that my life is exactly like this question. I am returning to sports after knee injuries specialist , I am very proud of it.

What’s a book you’ve read or film you watched that has left an impact on you, and why?

The last movie I saw was Sound Of Freedom. This is a film that talks about human trafficking, it is an incredibly shocking film that moves and shows us how far real life touches us 100%.

Apart from music, what makes you happiest?

My family and my passions, surfing, snowboarding and music production

What does the remainder of the year hold for you? Anything you can share with us?

We are conducting this interview, there are only three months left until the end of the year, so I can say in detail that I am satisfied with the current year. A very important year in which I was able to release my own Album and I also released a lot of my productions and remixes, so I can be a very happy and fulfilled artist, I am also a fulfilled father, husband and a man who lives his passions, I hope that the next years will be just like that and I wish everyone the same after stay healthy. I hope that the new year will also bring me a meeting with fans as an artist playing live acts, So hope see you soon on world music map.

'Presence' is available now via LuPS Records: https://shorturl.at/iuwNV