Q&A: Rotterdam-based Moods Learns to Embrace the Chaos on New Album “Music Ruined My Life”
The opening moments of Music Ruined My Life, the latest album from the electronic soul project, Moods, are, forgive the pun, moody. Sporadic percussion plays under sampled sounds of rain. You can thunder in the distance as a keyboard layer creeps in. The rain eventually dissipates, handing the spotlight over to a sharp bassline and a silky saxophone. The opening track, “Deeper Waters,” is an easy highlight, but it’s also just a taste of the musical ground covered by the adventurous instrumental release.
Almost as dynamic as the music itself was the process Rotterdam-based producer, Nick Lubbersen, the mastermind behind the Moods project, took to create it. With a full band at his side and only a loose concept and small set of demos to work with, Lubbersen stepped away from his production comfort zone and let the music guide itself freely. The result is a wonderfully diverse set of tracks that are also still remarkably cohesive.
Read about how Moods learned to embrace the chaos below.
LUNA: Tell us about the new release, Music Saved My Life. I know you had a unique process of putting it together.
MOODS: It started with just a simple idea; what if I could bring a band together in one space and have the demos that I made replayed live. The whole idea of this record is that we should do a live album, get a band together and see what happens.
LUNA: Like a traditional live album, just without the crowd?
MOODS: We had eight songs, and we had four takes maximum for each song. We played every song, it depends on how it went, two to four times and that was it. I was scared at some points because I felt like, ‘man, what if it goes wrong,’ you know? There’s so much that can go wrong but I think it worked out in the end. It was just a good time for this. Everybody was at home because of the lockdown.
LUNA: Sounds like you got the band back together. Who’s in the band?
MOODS: So I basically connected all my music friends, like Yasper [Molle] who plays guitar, Lennard [Vink] who plays the keys and then Rik [Kraak] who plays the bass and Joris [Feiertag] who plays the drums. They all had time because everybody was at home, so I was like ok, four days in the studio. Let's record all this stuff and see what happens.
LUNA: Was this approach to making an album new for you?
MOODS: Yeah, I’ve never done it like this before. Usually I just make the stuff at home and I’m pretty much in control of how it’s going to sound and how it’s played of course. I wasn’t doubting the guys of course because they all are super talented individuals, but it was interesting to see how they translated my ideas to something really new. They made my ideas even better to say it that way. It was really fun.
LUNA: Hearing all that put’s the release in a new light, since it very much has that fluid, improv-esque vibe that you can only get from a live band.
MOODS: Yeah! It flows really well, and there are definitely some parts [where] you cannot produce it if you make the stuff at home. So all these little moments that we recorded you can hear how the different chemistry in the room led to new ideas.
LUNA: What are your influences?
MOODS: I listen to a lot of music, from ambient to house and everything in between. But for this record I wanted to make, because I come from hip-hop [and] hips-hop is a lot of sampled music from old records from the 70s and 80s, and with this album I wanted to make it sound like it could be from that era.
LUNA: A personal highlight of the album is the opening track, “Deeper Waters.” It’s dark and moody with lots of samples.
MOODS: I think for an intro you can really go extra [and] keep it super mysterious. When people put on the album I want them to think to themselves “woah, what is this, where is this going?” It’s funny because I didn’t have a demo for this one, I just told the band “ok, let’s make a soundscape, and there's no rules. You guys just play and create the weirdest shit and we’ll record it.” I think we did about five takes, and each take was completely different, and in each take there was an element I could use for “Deeper Waters.”
LUNA: How does it feel to gather a set of musical parts without a clear direction of what to do with them?
MOODS: Honestly it’s a bit scary because I always try to be in control of what I do, but for this record it was clearly not happening. So I just put my trust in the guys who were playing. I have experience in music production, I’ve been doing it for 18 years, so I really knew I could make something out of anything, I just have to spend time on it. Worst case scenario would be I’d have to put in a lot of time to make it sound good, but for this it came together pretty naturally.
LUNA: Another highlight was the track, “Music Saved My Life,” which you released as a single in September. Was the recording process any different for it?
MOODS: Basically the whole album was already done, so we were at this point where we had to choose singles and with “Music Saved My Life” I thought it [was] a good single because it’s a part of the concept of this record, so I thought of that one for sure. And I feel like it’s one of the more catchy, feel good tracks, and it feels like an important track to me as well. So that was definitely the one I wanted to have for sure.
LUNA: Do you have plans to perform the album live?
MOODS: No. I kinda just wanted to get the band together, play this record and that’s just it. Because all these people that were involved never played together. So it was basically a non-existent band, but all the guys had just enough talent to make it work. So this whole idea was let’s get this group together, record this thing and that’s it.
LUNA: Are you planning another album in this similar style?
MOODS: I feel with albums that I want to move forward. [Music Ruined My Life] compared to the Zoom Out album I did in 2018 are very different, and maybe for the next one it’ll be something different again. But I think the whole idea of doing stuff with a band, that’s very appealing to me now because I know how to do it now, and I know what could be the result. So it’s definitely going to happen again, but I don’t know in what form or what shape or setting. I’ll figure that out.
CONNECT WITH MOODS
SPOTIFY
-
weekly tunes playlist has been updated! new tracks from @furtradeband, @pecqband, @garryfool & more! check it out! https://t.co/ToFU0R6YGo -
-
RT @oliviaborch: new @LunaCollective out todayyy shot by @alltookev ✨ @P1H_official editorial design by me ! https://t.co/cvSCKsWB5D
-
RT @rlyblonde: @AnnieDirusso for @LunaCollective shot by me #35mm #portra800 https://t.co/0UUJSCBGcH
