Classixx Don't Feel Connected To Current EDM Culture

Hanging Gardens, out locally through Future Classic, has been a long time coming, Classixx discussing the project three years ago. There's even a celebratory new single, All You're Waiting For, featuring DFA Records affiliate Nancy Whang. Switch has remixed it. Tyler describes its release as not merely an achievement, but also “a big relief”. “It took us forever to make it. I think, when we started, we both expected to finish it a lot sooner than it took.” But, then, few artists wrap an album in the timeframe they predict – aside from Rihanna, who outsources the production. 

Blake and David were childhood friends, attending the same suburban high school in Los Angeles and gigging in teenage bands (though David originates from Johannesburg). Later, Blake, a pianist, headed off to study at Boston's prestigious Berklee School of Music, but dropped out. David played guitar in a 'serious' band. Along the way, they'd both embrace (indie) dance music – and the turntables. 

When Classixx began DJing nu-disco around 2006, initially under the handle Young Americans, they struggled to score gigs in LA. “At first nobody wanted to book us!,” Blake says. However, as blog faves, they'd soon jet off to New York, Canada and Australia, punters singing along to their remixes. Classixx issued an eponymous EP on DJ Dan's In Stereo as early as 2008. Their breakthrough hit was 2009's I'll Get You, performed by former Junior Senior frontman Jeppe Laursen, on Kitsuné. Classixx have since produced Mayer Hawthorne's No Strings (off How Do You Do) and remixed pop acts – among them Groove Armada, Ladyhawke and Lana Del Rey (the ace Blue Velvet). Yet Blake nominates their take on Versailles alt-rockers Phoenix's Lisztomania as his pick. “The Phoenix [remix] is the one that's been the most important for us, just because, first of all, for us personally Phoenix has been one of our favourite bands,” he says. “We both discovered Phoenix when we were in high school, when we were 15-years-old – before they were really even a popular band. I remember they had this song on this old Astralwerks compilation and Mike and I discovered it together. They were one of our favourite bands in the world for five years before we even got asked to do that remix. So, when we got asked to do it, we thought it was the coolest thing of all time.” Classixx still play their Lisztomania in DJ sets.

Growing up, Blake and David cherished LPs – and so they were determined that Classixx cut one. “We had the idea for a long time of making a record because we've always been into the idea of the album format – even though it's kind of fading in dance music.” Nevertheless, the process was daunting. “At first it was hard because we were touring – 'cause we'd quit our jobs,” Blake explains. “So we had to tour to be able to make a living, which made it hard to find the time to actually finish the songs.” Eventually Classixx pulled back on DJing. But they then had to schedule in their guest vocalists: Whang, Active Child (whose own Hanging On Ellie Goulding covered on Halcyon), Superhumanoids' Sarah Chernoff, and Kisses' Jesse Kivel. As such, some of the Hanging Gardens material dates back a couple of years. “We made a lot of songs and then ditched a lot of 'em, because we didn't feel like they would hold up,” Blake admits. “One of the main things of finishing the album is that we wanted to feel like every song on it was something that we wouldn't be embarrassed by or kinda regret including sometime in the future.” Luckily, Classixx are “in sync” in the studio, being old friends. The pair second guess each other. They share the same reference points and so, if one suggests “a New Order drum fill” for a track, the other immediately gets it. “It's not only that we both like that music, but we discovered that music in the same room with headphones plugged into a stereo together,” Blake says.

Hanging Gardens has been well reviewed, receiving praise from Pitchfork (whose writer compared the first single, Holding On, to Discovery-era Daft Punk) and glowing posts on Amazon. Not that Blake sets out to read feedback. “You try not to look at it that much, 'cause it can be discouraging if it's bad. We're both sensitive guys. I think if I did see something [negative], it would maybe bum me out. But people definitely send me stuff that they see – like my mom is very in touch with music and music journalism and she sends me nice reviews and that feels good.”

Today Classixx's LA hometown is America's EDM hotspot but, perhaps understandably, Blake doesn't consider them part of that phenomenon. “It's weird because the whole EDM thing, it's dance music and it's electronic, but a lot of it feels just as far away from our music as hard rock does, or rap music does, 'cause it's very different. I mean, it's cool in the way that years ago, when we first started DJing, anything that was dance music-related at all, that wasn't hip hop, you kind of were turned off by it. Now people are really open to electronic music – which I think is good just for anybody making electronic music... But we don't feel super-connected to that. I don't feel that in touch with the current state of mainstream EDM or dance culture in general.” If anything, Classixx belong to an EDM counterculture. “It's not like we strive to be the alternative to it. I just think naturally that's where our interests lie. I know from hearing people and people tweeting at us that people do say that – and that's cool. I'm into that, if that's what we are.” “Ironically”, Blake says, Classixx are now popular in LA. Mind, they play out only occasionally, so as to keep it “special”.

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