Five Minutes With Hoodlem

Experimental-pop purveyors Hoodlem have just unveiled their new, self-titled EP, featuring a unique blend of glitchy beats, wonky bass lines and provocative vocals. We thought we'd celebrate by having a quick chat to the duo about the release, and what's instore for us from them in 2016 and beyond:

Conceptually, how would you describe your debut EP?

It’s a snapshot of the songs we’ve written over the past two years, picking the best including some from the beginning and some more recent.

What’s the story behind the formation of Hoodlem, an ‘anonymous project’ as you refer to yourself?

Hoodlem came to be after a random jam one day, it grew from there. We caught after a gig that we had been to at the Evelyn. The project came to be anonymous because we wanted to release the pressure from doing photoshoots, attaching ourselves to it and let the music speak for itself and create its own image and vibe. As it started to do that we felt more comfortable about being in the photos.

How has your music changed from Firing Line and Through, tracks that came out two years ago, to songs like 4 Real that were only recently released?

I feel like there isn’t really a formula or time, whatever we want to make we make, we still work on that spontaneously through boundary-less jams and experimentation. Through and Firing Line could easily have been written more recently as we work to where the jams take us. We don’t go by any rules.

If you could collaborate with another artist, who would it be and why?

Kaytranada – he’d give you such a great formation for a song and you could build something with heaps of vibe and bass.

What was the recording process like?

Pretty LOL - We liked to all record in the shed, it gave us this really rough sound and let us be in the environment, we’d record with the door of the shed open so that it had the vibe of being outside. If it was windy we’d keep the wind in the mix or if the dog was barking, that would stay in there. We like using shitty gear and went through a process of a lot of trial and experimentation to achieve what we wanted to achieve.

As an up and coming electronic act in a time where electronic music is blowing up and readily accessible, what do you think sets you apart?

That you don’t know who we are ;)

Who would you say influences your music the most?

We listen to such a varied range of music from electronic, R&B, soul, funk... I think we take parts of all of these genres, we put them all together in an amalgamation of noise and start laying it out a song.

How have you found the process of spreading your sound and building a fanbase?

I’ve focused on the music and hoped that the music speaks for itself and people find out about Hoodlem from their friends or word of mouth.

What’s next for Hoodlem?

Heading over to the states and Canada next month, writing and collabs, a couple of collabs getting ready to release ;) putting the final touches on the next EP.

Follow Hoodlem: FACEBOOK / TWITTER