Releasing via her label I/AM/ME, Maya Jane Coles teases Take Flight, her forthcoming album, with the Won’t Let You Down EP. Enjoying mainstream recognition with Drake and Nicki Minaj’s “Truffle Butter,” Maya Jane Coles continues to forge her own path as an independent artist, producer, engineer, and label boss. The title track from Won’t Let You Down has been remixed by Catz 'N Dogz, and has also received a powerful rework by London based Paride Saraceni.
Paride Saraceni discovered dance music through video games and perceives “music as an atmospheric and environmental element, something that shall (actively or passively) contribute to an existing environment or situation.”
This attention to connecting sound and situation is clear on his remix. The track is driving, punchy, and melancholic. It also features an in depth play on spatial relationship, as sounds morph in both placement and intensity throughout the eight minute track. Check the premiere below, as well as an interview with Paride Saraceni.
What elements of the original did you use to craft the remix? I have been a big fan of the original since the day Maya sent it to me, I was captured by the deep chords, stabs and vocals, they had a very rich spatial quality and gloomy feel to them which I absolutely had to preserve in my rework. I have used all of the samples Maya sent me, yet you may find some of them being twisted and reinterpreted into new melodies, for instance the main piano notes have been expanded into a new set of harmonics, enhancing the melancholic feel the original portrayed.
How did you discover dance music? Funnily enough I discovered dance music through video games, particularly the GTA series. I was never a big fan of music somehow when I was a kid, but video games managed to make me see it from a new, different perspective, where it acted more as an atmosphere creator, rather than the result of instruments played by a band or a musician.
When I was 8, I was playing bass guitar and I always related music to boring theatres, music halls, concerts and the smell of my neon-lit music school, but never to forests, open sea, bunkers or other both natural or artificial settings. And this is why with video games I was able to see that new connection, where music was colouring the locations I would find myself into with CJ or Tommy Vercetti for instance, which made me fall in love with music as an architectural and environmental element more than as music itself. I think I still feel very much that way. Indeed GTA San Andreas opened the doors for me to House Music, thanks to the pseudo-radio station SFUR. Looking back, it is surprising how something so artificial and 'staged' could have such an impact on reality! And I am slowly starting to appreciate this flow of inspiration and the intricate and ironic discourses between digital and physical worlds.
Paride Saraceni
Why are you passionate about dance? I am actually not passionate about dance at all! I mean I do like dancing and clubbing situations and seeing people dance but as I said in my previous answer, I perceive music as an atmospheric and environmental element, something that shall (actively or passively) contribute to an existing environment or situation. I find fascinating how music can be so "material", especially in Techno and Tech House Music. The spatiality of sounds is very important in order to represent a certain mood and hint out imaginary glimpses of a specific setting or location. I try to do that a lot through my works, via the use of reverbs on synthetic elements that recall real-life materials. I find fascinating how then certain frequencies can stimulate certain parts of the body to move, while others can have deeper effects on the mind, and it is in the balance between these elements and their frequencies that you may find an ideal composition for a great and rich dance track.
What influences your style? Anything from spaces, abandoned warehouses, gears, chains and the way light shines through gaps and surfaces. Movies can be a great source of inspiration, especially when watched without sound, and of course a party can be a movie in its own right, where a scene is filmed by our own mind, (similarly to the way Sergei Eisenstein describes the promenade through the ruins of the Acropolis in Athens as "the perfect example of one of the most ancient films")[1], allowing us to witness a dynamic moment of life with all of its energy, charm and mystery which once back in my studio I try to re-represent and to seal its memory within a new track.
What is a track of yours that is a good first introduction? Paride Saraceni - Bushido [Monique Speciale]
I am very happy about this work, which I made in 2012, and which unfortunately did not win as much recognition as I wished it would, but I think it is one of the works that I am surprisingly very happy with, both technically and content-wise and that I realised I never get tired of listening to, (which is quite rare!). It is quite cinematic in its structure and rich in sounds in a Japanese-flavoured style. Yes, I guess it could be a good first introduction, why not. :)
Maya Jane Coles Tour Dates Paride Saraceni Tour Dates