BLENDE ;.

The UK is well known for breeding top class acts
from genre's of all kinds; you can never go wrong
with the English touch.

From the top, down, left or right.

Blende is a name that has been making many brains
vibrate in between headphones as of late, and as time
goes on more and more people come to recognize the
name that is:


First off,



I (Johan) have been making music under the name Blende for a few years now, being born and raised in Stockholm but currently based in London. A few years back after having moved here I met Ben, who has his past in the more downtempo/broken beat scene. We were originally not working together under the name Blende as it use to be only me, but earlier this year we decided to try and write an album together as I have always wanted to work together with him. So I thought it would be interesting to maybe stick with the project I had had for a few years rather than introducing a new thing and see where we could both take it, so Ben is now more or less the official second member of the former one man band! As of yet it's only me though dj-ing, but we have plans to set up some sort of live show, as Ben is really a proper musician rather than a dj.


How did Blende come about?

Just a mixture of interest in music and the fact that I would rather be spending my life creating something rather than working with something that someone else has set up for me to do. The name doesn't really mean anything, it's just the least dodgy sounding name I could think of at the time when I came up with it, together with a friend of mine back in 2003.

What has influenced your electro touch?

It's just some sort of natural progression I guess, Ben was always into downtempo electronic music, which was my thing as well back in the early 2000s, and before then I used to listen to techno a lot as a kid, Dave Clarke, Adam Beyer and Jeff Mills, that kind of stuff. But I'm not sure I'd think of it as electro really, the electro I know is not so much a straight house beat and that's pretty much what we have on most of our songs.


Are you currently under any label?
Who is in charge of the producing?

I have an EP coming out during the summer on a german label called Tigerbass which is run by this guy called kid 606, but that EP is only written by me really..

Other than that we are in between labels at the moment, but in talks with a couple. We don't want to rush anything as the most important thing is to focus on the album to get that done and not jump into anything we don't feel is right for where we would like to take it. I feel very confident though with the new material, it will be an album where more or less every track could work as a single, which has generally been the idea anyway, so remains to be seen if we can succeed, we have set the aim quite high in any case, haha.


We've both been very into italo and disco lately as well as the old french house sound, which will possibly reflect upon the album, so I am hopeful that we can create something new and interesting.

When it comes to production I'd say it's pretty much me who does most whereas Ben comes up with a lot of the nice ideas and melodies, haha. Or maybe not completely like that, we work a lot on our own at the moment as Ben is currently living up in Manchester, but we still manage to get things done together somehow whenever we don't meet up to work.. One of the good things about internet I guess.

What prompted you to remix such tracks such as.. Adrian Lux - Strawberry? What do you need to hear in a particular track that makes you want to turn it into your own?

Adrian is a friend of mine from Sweden, he asked me if I'd like to do a remix for his first single as a solo artist and I kind of liked the vocals on it so thought I'd give it a try.
And I guess that kind of answers the latter question too, it's all about if there's some sort of vocal on a track that someone wants me to remix nowadays, I am so fucking sick of always having to make a new song completely if there's nothing to use from an original that doesn't even have vocals.. so many times I have ended up using more or less a hi-hat or something from an original as I just don't really know what else to do with it, and even though that's ok too I really don't see the point in doing that unless it pays really well. If there are vocals at least you can always make it sound interesting somehow, although if even the vocals are shit I don't think I'd be too keen to take it on either..

Where's the next next gig you're spinning at?

At the moment we don't have anything booked in as we want to finish this album as soon as possible before going out dj-ing again. having said that though I do have some shows during the summer but I'm not sure if they're confirmed yet so would rather not say too much about it haha

Where do you hope this musical journey leads you?

I'm just happy to keep on going, I've always felt that things have progressed onwards & upwards so I try and not to think too much about what may or may not happen, as long as it feels fun working with music I shall keep on doing it till I find something else that I'd rather do. Which I doubt will ever happen.

It's nice to have a second person on board now too, as it's to me a lot more inspiring. Some of the ideas Ben comes up with amazes me completely and I feel the excitement of writing new material has come back big time, so hopefully it can stay that way for quite some time.

Where would you like to possibly see
yourselves by the end of this year?

It would be nice to have the album done and out in the shops before the end of the year, but I know that's not how the industry works so we'd be lucky to have it out next year I'd say, haha. Also it's obviously up to ourselves to get it done as soon as possible in order to find the right home for it.

Hopefully though we can get some hype built up before next year so that we can start planning our live shows as well as for me keep on djing even if the album is not out for a while.
We have a few remixes lined up as well for this year and there are usually a couple coming in that feels relevant to take on every year, so that always helps out too in order to survive.


& that sums it all up.
Johan is a very interesting character, definitely someone who's at the controls of the ship.

Find him on myspace here
&
Check out these tunes !

Strawberry (Blende Remix) - Adrian Lux

Call Me (Blende Remix) - Bodysnatchers

Dance Division - Blende Remix

Special: Blende Promo Mix