Already renowned on the London circuit, audio-visual duo Glows continue to make a name for themselves across the whole of the UK having just released their hotly anticipated release and debut mixtape LA, 1620. Consisting of GG skips (Marco Pini) and art director Felix BH, Glows provides an outlet of creative freedom whereby the duo’s talents tessellate through expansive audio structures and forward-thinking multi-media accompaniments.
Having spent the best of six years on their scintillating mixtape, the project splices together and collage audio and visual artefacts from GG and Felix’s young adulthood as they’ve grown from students to accomplished creatives. Photographic collage pieces will be uploaded to www.LA1620.com as a visual representation on the mixtape’s themes of self-sampling, looping and manipulating artefacts with a personal attachment to the duo. In light of their impressive new release LA, 1620, we got to know Glows a little bit more as we introduce them to the Dance Wax readers.
Can you tell us a bit about yourselves and how you first got into music?
We are Glows, a duo from London who make music that mixes elements of postpunk and electronics into soundscapes heavily influenced by music at full intensity – instrumentals, lyrics and soundscapes with a cinematic narrative quality. Originally a solo project of myself (GG Skips), Felix joined recently for this debut mixtape, but we actually met at school in the Artrooms, we’ve been making stuff together ever since. I first got into music by just messing around with samples of records I had to make soundtracks for films I was making at the time, I couldn’t find the exact music I wanted for the films on the internet so I just had to learn how to do it myself. I self taught logic and ended up with a bunch of songs, this new mixtape is the culmination of material ever since that first year making music, Felix helped curate the material into a holistic narrative.
To someone who’s just discovered you, how would you describe Glows and your overall sound/ direction?
We are from a background of constantly making and analysing, so we take influences from a lot of stuff outside of music, mainly cinematic and visual language, as well having an interest into processes that lead to final outcomes of a track. This means theres loads of layers and sounds in our music that overlap, it’s like a big tone of intensity. We like to make music for transient times, so you can plug in your headphones and walk around your environment and let it wash over. By proxy lots of it ends up as electronic music, just because sampling uses technology to create that effect, so its more that the process of making lends itself to an electronic sound. I think overall we are more into ambient and soundtrack stuff, but we did grow up dancing also.
You have a wonderful new album out called LA,1620. Tell us more about the meaning behind the name?
I like how the words look. It was the name of a track I sent Felix in lockdown and he really liked it, originally a simplification of lyrics from our track EASY ‘Love and Alcohol’ and we like how it looks like Los Angeles in 1620 – also weirdly the date that the Mayflower left Britain to occupy America, unintentional coincidence, but thats a pretty huge and heinous historical event. When there’s weird things that stick out like that its hard to put that signal to rest.
What can we expect from the project?
LA, 1620 is a collection of material spanning the last six years. Voice notes, demos and rehearsal recordings resampled and fused together into a kaleidoscopic coming-of-age soundtrack. Pretty much all the tracks that I made that I felt signified points in my life, I think I was shy to release them before, but they’re so important to the Glows sound to me, they are snapshots of memories, more vocal than previous material and vulnerable I would say.
How does it differ from your previous work?
This mixtape was all made through the archive of material we have kept hidden, from the time we shared growing up as a teenager, its a sort of an analytic and retrospective release, using original vocal takes and mixing from a specific collection of demos rather than forming the tracks from scratch. The project was always in the back of my mind, thematically, and had to come out before we move to the next phase of the project, making music as a duo from scratch.
What can we expect from a Glows live show?
It’s very intense. Felix programmed an entire light show that took weeks, it’s a myriad of noise, lights and performance. I try and wlye out on stage with my lyrics, creating an onslaught of visuals and music that we try and make as immersive as possible. Someone once described it as watching people make music in their room live.
What’s on the horizon for you?
Our first proper album will come sometime next year, its already written. We have a publication coming of all the visual materials Felix gathered across the project.
Quickfire questions… “BEST”
Best book you’ve ever read?
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Best venue you’ve played at?
Dingwalls Camden
Best airport in the world?
Hamburg
Best artist name?
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Best album ever released?
Meriweather Post Pavillion – Animal Collective
Best city for food?
Tokyo
Best record shop in the world?
Honest Jons
Best album to chill out to?
Shade – Grouper
Best festival you’ve been to?
SGP circa 2018
Best track to play at a pre-drinks?
Oblivion – Grimes
