27 April 2020
FIRST is a Belgian electro duo featuring musician Pieter Vochten and singer/musician Jasmin Smolders. They just released their self-titled debut EP. A marvelous four-track journey into an imaginary world of their own. The fusion of cinematic atmospherics (To Long), trippy emo house (Just Now), Björk’s Utopia fantasies (Losing) and dark drum ‘n’
bass bliss (You Lie) turn this emotive electronic tour de force into a spiritual experience with Jasmin‘s spellbinding and spacey voice as the beating heart of this compelling and shadowy odyssey.
It’s a true pleasure to have Jasmin guiding us through
this captivating piece of work, track by track…
JUST NOW
.
“I think ‘Just Now’ was one of the first new songs I wrote. I wanted it a bit louder in terms of sound, so I started with a hard synth in the intro, the polyphony of the voices made the song
a bit more delicate. ‘First’ is very dark and light at the same time, I find it interesting to look for those contrasts.”
LOSING
.
“‘Losing’ was our first single we released. The song does not have much meaning in terms of content, I am also looking for an atmosphere in music rather than a message. Often the songs only get a meaning later on because of the mood of the song. Here we look again for the contrast between the dark basses, industrial beats and lightness in the melodies.”
YOU LIE
.
“The song ‘You Lie’ was created with an echoing vocal line in phonetic English at the
beginning. Then I listen to the sounds and the words slowly gain meaning, and then
later become a completely English text. The intro feels very spacious, here again the
slow ominous vocals contrasted with the faster beats in the chorus.”
TO LONG
.
‘ To with one ‘o’ so the number is indeed about desire. ‘To Long’ is a song that quickly disappeared between all the separate demos that I no longer thought were good enough.
Until one day my love found the MP3 between his files (I probably had forwarded the song once). It was a rediscovery, and we decided to give the song a second chance. It turned out
that ‘To Long’ was also our strongest track in production and in our live set. Suddenly the
song was very close to my heart and I suddenly felt all the feelings behind it.’
EP in full on Spotify…
.
FIRST: Facebook
