Interviews

This interview is a peek into the weird and wonderful world of Lakeshouse, the bonkers band from Norway who are back on leftfield UK label Paper Recordings with a second taster of future disco from their forthcoming album. ‘Renate’s Dans’ is a track that is strictly for the brave. Classical, disco, house at its finest remixed by Hot Today and Gouldian Finch. Mediocre players need to apply. Not every DJ can find a place for it, but if they do, boy does it go off!

Thank you for taking the time to talk. Where are you this moment and how are you spending the today?

Thank you for having us! I am currently at the airport on my way to Bergen for my holiday. I will be hiking along the west coast with my girlfriend. The other guys have fatherly duties and are enjoying the magic of newly created life.

Can you introduce yourselves to our readers?

We are Lakeshouse, because we love lakes and house. Our love of lakes and house lead us to creating house for our journeys to our favorite lakes.

Where are you all based?

We're based in Norway. Sometimes we venture into Oslo when we're not in the forest or by a lake.

What is it you love most about the place in which you live?

To us it's mainly easy access to a large, wonderful forest and its many lakes.

How is the health of the music scene where you are?

Spending all that time among trees and lakes we are not the best at keeping up with the scene, but from afar it does appear to be doing well.

Of course there's a lot of good club music going on, but there's a whole lot more than that too. There are many talented people bubbling around in the underground, acts like Billy Meyer, Vedkommende, Nothing Personal, the singer Ada Risberg (Who you’ll hear on our upcoming album), Ultraflex, and our friend and occasional trombone-player, Andreas Rotevatn.

How is the health of the music scene generally in your opinion?

Globally? Well, it has its many challenges, what with the devaluation of music since streaming took over, and now AI is lurking around the corner which will definitely add to the problem. But people are people, and people need culture. It doesn’t matter how many money-hungry people try to get in the way, there will always be those who make music for the love of music, and music fans that love what they do.

It could definitely be a lot better, if wiser people were in charge, but despite all of the massive challenges of our surreal modern age, there’s so much good music being made out there that we’re not worried. It might even prove to be a good overall, as music is part of human nature, and people might start to realize they want more of it.

Who are the icons who have inspired the music that you guys make?

That’s gonna be hard to answer succinctly, but we can try. We grew up as musical omnivores, with music interested parents and older siblings, so we are very eclectic in our tastes. As far as Lakeshouse goes, which isn’t our only project, it’s no secret that we took a lot of inspiration from the Norwegian scene from the late 90s to around the 2010s. People like Bjørn Torske, Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, Todd Terje, Røyksopp, and many many more.

But we strive to push the envelope, and we find ourselves constantly finding new sources of inspiration to draw from. In Sweden you have the whole Studio Barnhus-crowd, that are just incredible. Hyperpop made a big impact on us, with SOPHIE and PC Music and Charli XCX, which perhaps paved the way for Jockstrap, Two Shell, Mietze Conte and a whole bunch of other people. Can’t name them all! It might come as a surprise to someone checking out our music, but there’s a definite influence there. Going back in time, we grew up on The Prodigy, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, The Beastie Boys, Faithless, Primal Scream, The Avalanches, Air, Cassius… The US, the UK and France have all played a huge role looking back to our childhoods. Our early 20s were very much defined by the British cosmic dancing, balearic scene, and Daniel Donnachie’s (DJ Zeit) mixtapes were very important as we started taking music production more seriously.

That was a very long answer, and it doesn’t even cover half of it, but we’ll leave it there.

How did you come to meet Ben Davis and the Paper crew?

I think we just emailed him a track. There was also a gig we did (A different project called b0ka) that they happened to catch in Oslo, but the timeline is a bit fuzzy. We had been enjoying their output for some time and figured they’d probably like our stuff. They are very open minded and have similarly eclectic tastes as us. Ever since they put out our first track, which was actually a b0ka song, they’ve supported us all the way. They were instrumental in us starting Lakeshouse to facilitate a more dance-oriented project, which we were really itching to do.

Give us an overview of your new release.

The new single is called Renates Dans, which is a nordic-space-italo-disco type track. Endre actually dreamt the melody and got up and wrote it down in the middle of the night, and months later realized it was basically Mozart! But there was a very New York disco kind of vibe to it, and it just evolved from there. It’s an odd one, but for the right people it’s a proper tune.

It’s in part a tribute to Wilden Renate in Berlin, where you could easily hear italo or house or industrial noise or wonderful ambient, all spread across their many rooms. Kind of a lowkey, easy going club that doesn’t take itself too seriously like some of the other Berlin clubs. And then there are the remixes, of course.

Tell us about any other artists involved in the release. Like the Hot Toddy remix.

Toddy really hit it out of the ballpark and did a proper DJ-friendly remix that will probably do very well. He boiled it down to a more streamlined, sensible mix, and a proper tune at that. Been listening to him for years, especially a track called -Floatation Tank”. Tod’s a master at his craft.

We also somehow managed to get Martin Horntveth to do a Gouldian Finch-mix, which is a real treat! He’s been part of Jaga Jazzist for many years as a composer and drummer, and is just a living legend in Norway’s music scene. We actually met him for the first time at a jazz festival when we were fourteen, which was really exciting for us. His mix takes Renates Dans to a very different place, sort of a near bad acid-trip with wonderful twists and turns. Gonna be super fun to mix that over some dark techno and really freak people out!

How long did it take to come together? Did it flow easily for you, or did it take some time to perfect?

Renate came together quickly in the demo-stages, and when we finally got strings on it the rest just fell into place. It might come as a surprise to some but we did have to kill some darlings in order to finish it, even though the result is still packed with different ideas and sounds. It was made more as an album-track than a dance-floor single, so we kept most of the musical ideas in, even though it was made with DJs in mind. But they’d have to be brave DJs. But brave DJs are often the best ones, no?

Do you take some time - after you have made a track – to leave it alone for a while to evaluate?

Yeah, since we do everything ourselves, including the mix, it’s key that we have some time to let it rest. Mixing stuff you did yourself is tricky, as your brain gets accustomed to how it sounds and you have to reset your brain and ears somehow. And it was made alongside the rest of the album, so as the other songs evolved, this song had to change to fit in with the rest. But some tracks just fall into place quickly, like the previous single, Ubegrensa Harmoni. That one was close to done in an evening or two, we just added some vocals to it to give it some conceptual context for the album.

Do you find the feedback of others is important to you guys in the production process?

It's very healthy to get someone else's perspective on your own work because it´s super easy to get lost in the process. We tend to be each other’s advisors, and sometimes we ask Paper or someone else for a second opinion.

What are some of the challenges in putting out music currently?

We make music for the fulfillment of the process, so it can be difficult sometimes to strike a good balance between our artistic needs and listener expectations. We enjoy playing around with those expectations and it is part of our process, but it’s also a somewhat dangerous game to play as far as marketability goes.

We couldn’t help but giggle a bit when we got word that another producer described Renates Dans as like a theme from a comedy starring Reg Varney. We never know how people are going to respond to our releases, and that’s both a really enjoyable part of it, and a sign that we are quite bonkers for some.

What drives you to create music do you think?

We have been doing music since we were thirteen and we’ve always been fascinated with sound. When we hear something peculiar and strange we start pitching ideas to each other for new tracks. It’s probably due to years and years of being music lovers, and really feeling like the artists we loved growing up were our heroes. It somehow sparked a deep seated need to make music. If we don’t get to make wild tunes of every sort, we get depressed. No amount of vibing at lakes can cure that depression, only music can. And since we spend so much time at said lakes, we need some tunes to accompany our hikes.

What other artists do you think are making great music right now?

Koji Kondo is a genius. We love the music in Zelda games. Mietze Conte has been a big source of inspiration lately, as well as Jockstrap, Two Shell and Mr. Tophat. The vibes are strange these days.

What was the last record you purchased?

Can’t remember. We buy a lot of second hand vinyl where we try to find rare records we can sample without getting into trouble. So mostly what we buy are just weird and cheap vinyl records that we do a quick and easy record-skipping sample-sesh with, and sometimes use the cover art and whatever information is on the sleeve as inspiration for songs and lyrics.

What has been a highlight of the last year for youguys?

Becoming dads!

What can we expect next from Lakeshouse?

Currently we’re working on an album, but don’t tell anybody.

Check out the latest release from Lakeshouse.