Author: peach.tinted

In September of 2019 Louis started his master’s degree in Paris and we did not have the opportunity to work together in the studio anymore. Therefore, we organized a trip in winter 2019/20 to Almeria in the Spanish region of Andalusia. Over there it’s warm and sunny even in winter, something impossible for Vienna or Paris. We stayed there for a total of 2 weeks before moving on to an even smaller town called La Herradura. We absolutely fell in love with Almeria, a wonderful mid-sized town at the coast, full of friendly people, affordable cuisine and great nightlife. During this time we worked intensely on EP1 (“Cinematic Youth”) and EP2 (“Peach Tinted”) – Yes, EP2 was already written back then, 16 months before its release. EP1 was inspired by the time before the trip, full of melancholy and dark feelings, while EP2 was more of a result of the fun trip. Again, our equipment was very minimalistic on this trip, a 150$ guitar, an interface, a few cheap pedals and a Roland Cube were all we brought (however, that was enough to record the lead melody of Roller Coaster!)

La Herradura is a summer vacation hot spot on the Mediterranean coast that was almost completely empty when we went there in winter. The lines are getting a bit blurry because of the pandemic leaving places empty as well, but I’m pretty sure there was no pandemic back then.

Also, Europe’s only desert is located just behind Almeria. We went there to take some pics but didn’t actually end up finding the spot lol. We got some shots on a random hill close by though. Here’s not one of them:

Even though we’ve worked together on a few different music projects (never to be revealed) from 2017 onward, we did not take it seriously until mid 2018. Back then, both Emil and I went through chaotic times, not knowing what to do in our lives and hopping from one personal low to another. Additionally, both of us experienced some pretty bad heartbreak / toxic relationships that year, not making the situation any easier. Something had to change and therefore we bundled our energy to focus on something we loved, creating music. Our budget was low and our equipment was basic, not allowing for the best possible production quality. Additionally, we were not the most experienced in mixing and mastering, skills we’d still need to acquire in the following months and years. Consequently, we had to think strategically about how we could develop these skills while also gaining some traction; after all, we’ve been studying at the same time and appreciated any extra revenue we could make – tutoring gigs or allowance money are not a sustainable source of revenue and we wanted to be independent.

As a result, we focused on making instrumental lofi beats, a niche genre that experienced great growth at that time. In no time we wrote and recorded a few lofi songs, Taro La being the first one. Fun fact: Taro La doesn’t really mean anything, the name is derived from a YouTube video called “The Art of Landscape”. However, mixing and mastering took wayyyy longer than expected and we did not manage to release Taro La on Spotify before June 2019. Partially this was due to the fact that we did not work together on the task as Emil traveled around Los Angeles and the United States’ west coast while Louis was doing an internship in Manila. 

We were incredibly stoked when we finally released our first lofi beats on streaming services. Within a short amount of time we received amazing support from some wonderful people, including twitch streamer Klean. Less than two months in we had more than 20’000 monthly listeners on Spotify, something we would have never imagined before. Driven by this excitement we released 14 lofi beats in total until December 2019 before we felt like it was time to move on and work in the genre we truly identify with.

We met in high school at the age of 10 (yes, high school starts that early in Austria) and were classmates for 8 consecutive years. The school we went to is a rather strict catholic institution in the heart of Vienna, full of tradition and conservative values. We often felt like we did not belong there. In fact, Emil and I were not the closest friends in school, even though we happened to play in the same blues rock band for a while before Louis left the band due to quarrels with the other guitar player.

Our friendship did not develop further until the age of 18 when both of us started mandatory community service at a local ambulance service. Austria is still quite old fashioned and all boys have to serve the country for six (military) to nine (community service) months after graduating from high school. We did not enjoy this time a lot and our mutual aversion connected us. After these nine months, Emil started studying at the local university of technology while Louis started his degree in business administration and went abroad.