Cinema Heaven

We both attended a monthly producer meetup in Tokyo called Music Producer Conference. From there we ended up making a lot of mutual friends and DJing together a lot at different clubs around the city. After a while we noticed our common taste for records with great chord progressions combined with strong vocals. This made it very natural for us to join our forces to create a music project that incorporates our favorite musical elements and aesthetics.

Flo: I grew up listening to a lot of hip hop, both German and American. Once I turned 18 and started exploring the club scene in Germany. The music I was listening to quickly became mostly the electronic music that was playing at the clubs. At the time I was very much into French house music and was listening to artists like Daft Punk, the early David Guetta, Joachim Garraud, Fedde le Grand etc. However the artist that inspired me the most to actually start producing my own music was Deadmau5. I was a hardcore fan and I was also a computer geek so around the age of 19 I figured out how to be able to create my own songs on the computer. I bought my first DAW which was Fruity Loops (now FL Studio) and I have been using it ever since. 

Josh: I’ve been into music my whole life. I started playing drums, piano and guitar when I was a kid. Then I started recording guitar, vocals and drums mainly on pro tools when I was in high school and really got into the production side of things. That progressed to making electronic music on Ableton using samples and virtual synths. Once I realised how fun and quick it is to produce on my laptop rather than recording a whole band it quickly took up most of my songwriting bandwidth.

Flo: Our music is based around having each individual element of the record to be a strong pole to the song on its own, while focusing on the melodic and vocal variety to be most prominent. I have been playing the piano since the age of 6, which influenced my production in the way that I usually begin to write a chord progression as a base and then start to build the song around it. I was the lead singer in aMetalcore band called “I Promised Once” which gave me experience writing melodies and toplines as well as recording vocals.

Josh: We both love melody and great chords and I think that the combination of those elements with unique sound design and drums patterns is the key to our sound. We’re starting to work with great vocalists now so that has had an impact on our music. We both have a very diverse taste in music which creates a challenge of choosing which genre of songs to release!

Josh: I’ve been back in Australia on the coast during the ‘rona’ situation. I hadn’t been back for 3 years so it’s great to see family and friends and just chill at the beach and go surfing. There’s been a lot of reverse culture shock! For the last couple of months we’ve been working like crazy to finish our new EP. 

Flo: During the last few months I have been mostly confined to my house in Tokyo. Being forced to stay home helps alot to write new music and is in that sense a great way to use the critical situation for a good opportunity. I was able to write on this EP a lot and we managed to finally finish and release it. As for the outbreak in Japan, it is small compared to the rest of the world and the Japanese have proven yet again their highly disciplined and health conscious way of living, which is in my opinion the main contributing factor to the situation being rather calm here. Therefore I believe I can count myself lucky to be in Tokyo during these times.

Our last EP “Midnight Movies” was a new direction for us. For this EP we’ve continued on that path of more pop oriented songs with chill uplifting vibes. We worked with a singer in LA on the first track “Let Me”. The whole process has involved a lot of video calls and messages!

Flo: Separation has been a big theme this year, both in the minds of the public and in my own life. So that was a big influence on the sound of this EP. They say out of lovesickness emerge someof the most creative ideas, which I think this EP proves. It incorporates a lot of the feelings I was having while creating the sound.