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What is your name and role within Fossa?
Hey guys, thanks for having us! I’m Nick, and I play the role of composer / producer for Fossa, and perform synths for the live show.
Where are you currently based and what is the music scene like there?
We’re based in Leeds, England, having all met at the music college here back in 2011. The music scene is incredible here – there are tonnes of independent venues, playing everything you could imagine. There’s a particularly thriving guitar, and underground electronic music scene as well, which is how we got into making the music we do today!
How did you first start playing music?
I’m actually predominantly a saxophonist, having studied jazz performance as my undergraduate. I was brought up listening to jazz 24/7, and was playing with bands from a young age, ranging from metal groups to big band work! Since graduating, a bunch of my friendship group started to explore other sonic realms, and slowly started to expose ourselves to electronic music, which is where my interest in learning to produce came from.
What’s been happening recently?
Me and Tom (drummer in Fossa) have recently starting composing together more regularly which has been really fun. I found myself hitting a bit of a wall a few months back, and was struggling to come up with song ideas I was really digging. But now we can bounce ideas off of each other, write more interesting drum grooves, and have found a bit of a new sound we’re settling on. We’re hoping to keep this going and work on the debut Fossa album.
Your new single ‘Evolve’ will be out on the 13th of March, what influenced the sound and songwriting for this track?
There’s been such an incredible amount of electronic music being released recently, and every artist I’ve heard has influenced it in some way, but if I had to pinpoint a few, it’d have to be the latest Floating Points record, Bonobo’s recent singles and Four Tet. I think I was also binge watching Stranger Things at the time, which looking back on, seems to have had some sort of influence as well!
How did you go about writing Evolve?
Evolve was one of those rare occasions when I opened Ableton, and it all just happened within a day. I spent a few hours, as I usually do, messing about with some synths until I hit a soun
d that felt right, and took it from there! Tracks definitely usually take a lot longer, and lot more frustration is involved, but this time was very smooth – hence the title.
d that felt right, and took it from there! Tracks definitely usually take a lot longer, and lot more frustration is involved, but this time was very smooth – hence the title.
Where and when did you record/produce and who with?
When it was fully ready, we took it to a fantastic studio in Leeds called the Nave in October last year, and worked alongside our good friend Tom Orrell, who helped to record the drums for it, and also did our final mix. We took an interesting approach with this one, sampling live drums, so that we could maintain the metronomic drum style required for this type of music, but still maintaining a human feel to it. We were super happy with the results!
What programs/instruments did you use?
Writing the music always happens in Ableton, and we also use this software to perform live as well, alongside Moog and Dave Smith hardware synths, and always live drums.
What do you like to do away from music?
I love to travel (although haven’t had much opportunity recently) as much as possible. I’m also getting very into photography, and cooking has been a long time passion of mine as well!
Who are you listening to at the moment?
Despite the type of music we’re putting out, I’m really into guitar music at the moment; bands like DIIV, Parquet Courts, and Real Estate are topping my Spotify plays at the minute! Electronic music always has it’s place however, and am really into a local artist called Jinjé currently. Rival Consoles and Four Ten are definitely up there as well!
What’s planned for 2020?
We’ve got two more singles to put out which we’re really excited about, and am in the throws of writing our first full length album as well! And as always, trying to play as many shows as possible! (any promoters out there, hit us up!!)
Favourite food and place to hangout?
Mexican and Indian food top my list! Walking about Leeds’ independent venues such as The Brudenell and Hyde Park Book Club are always good stops as well for a drink and chill!
