Chaos Chaos dropping a new music video just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Chaos Chaos dropping a new music video just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Chaos Chaos, the rad sister band I interviewed a fews months back announced the release of their new EP today. Committed To The Crime will be released on October 7th. The track listing is:
1. Love
2. Breaker (which you can currently listen to on soundcloud)
3. Do You Feel It?
4. West Side
5. Monsters
6. Better
They are incredibly talented and I am very much looking forward to this release. Check them out in my Musician Q&A section!
HAIM, First Aid Kit, Tegan and Sara… sister acts are becoming a driving force in the modern day music scene and Brooklyn based duo Chaos Chaos is no exception. Sisters Asy and Chloe are currently working on a new EP, one that is sure to be comprised of unique electronic and indie pop rhythms, accompanied by underlying acoustic patterns. One of the most captivating things about the band is their capability to take music and lyrics, and combine them in a way that is professional and catchy, yet entirely unique, raw and individualistic. As the band continues to work on their EP this summer and hit a few tour stops, Chloe was able to answer a few questions about the past, present, and future of Chaos Chaos. Certainly a band to keep an eye on!
Prior to the formation of Chaos Chaos, you and your sisters were in the band Smoosh. How do you feel your music differs now from the earlier music you created with Smoosh?
It has gone in a lot of different directions over the years. We go through fazes where we think we have discovered “the right” way to do music and then a year later completely overthrow that idea with a new one. Now we’re really into writing pop songs and adding accoutrements to make them weirder but I can guarantee our style will always be changing. I like oxymoron music like weird pop, experimental classical, minimalist music with maximal vocals etc.
Your previous EP, as well as the EP you are recording now, came about after successful Kickstarter campaigns. How did you decide to try Kickstarter and what was the experience like?
Kickstarter is a great platform to interact and have a personal exchange with your fans. If you are an independent artist it’s great because if you have fans willing to pay for your product then that’s all you need. A label may try to tell you that you need to change this or that to have a sellable product but sometimes they’re wrong. Amanda Palmer for example, kickstarter allows her to do music her way without having a label to work around.
What can fans expect from the new EP you’re recording?
Pop, sarcasm, stories and fun. We allowed ourselves to be young and sort of naive with these songs. We wanted to capture who we are now and not worry about how we will be perceived or what us 5 years from now will think.
The music of Chaos Chaos presents a neat blend of real instrumental backing and electronic musical accompaniment. What is the process like combining these two elements to create one, unified sound?
It’s awesome! Programming drums has definitely influenced my acoustic drumming. I like to combine acoustic sounds and samples with hip hop and trap drums to bring the electronic sounds to life. We have a song with soda can lids being played and trap influenced electronic drums. We’ve definitely moved in a more electronic direction, but we like to use unusual electronic sounds/effects combined with imperfect vocals so that the song still sounds human. The worst is stale perfect pop music, that’s death.
The song “Across the Map” is much edgier than other songs on the S EP. How did this song come about?
Maybe it’s because across the map was a very personal song that we really connected to and knew how to portray through music too. It’s about moving to sweden and leaving our lives behind/starting over. It was a big deal when we were navigating our teen years to be stripped of everything we had to define ourselves, so we had a lot of bottled up anger at the time. (Everything is very dramatic when you’re a teenager). We wanted the drums to resemble a warrior sound and the songs vocals to be changing in very emotional ways, like in the last chorus it’s like the end of an argument or war when Asy is yelling and the drums are thumping.
What is it like working together in a band as sisters?
It’s interesting, good and bad. We definitely have a weird sisterly telepathic way of conversing through music. When we’re writing a song we usually know what to do next intuitively. A lot of times we’ll both have the exact same vocal idea and sing it at the same time. Pretty funny actually. Our experiences working with other musicians are much lengthier, because it takes so much longer to describe your ideas and to get on the same page. Also being in a sister band, we don’t have to be weary of each others egos or feelings. We just tell each other what we think. I’ll say, “um Asy that part sounds like Britney Spears on crack” and we’ll both laugh and Asy told me the other day In the studio that my drum idea sounded like a baby beating drums. We’re really harsh with each other and our producer Fraser McCulloch laughs at us. We decided to write an insult wall: we list all the insults each person says.
Check out their EP S here!
Songs on repeat lately:
“I’ll Try Anything Once”- The Strokes, “Milk”-Kings of Leon, “River”- Joni Mitchell, “Never Wanna Know”- MØ, “Unguarded”- Rae Morris, “Bird On A Wire”- Leonard Cohen, “Let Me Go”- HAIM, “Follow Me”- Chaos Chaos, “I Follow Rivers”- Lykke Li ( my goodness I have listened to I Follow Rivers like a fiend), “Money Power Glory”- Lana Del Rey, && “Spooky”- Dusty Springfield.
The soundtrack of my summer. (Cue Boys Like Girls song “Summer” lol memories).