Since the Brookes Brothers released their 2017 epic LP Orange Lane, it seems their release tactic has changed a bit, and it’s definitely different from how other producers are releasing lately. Rather than focusing on EPs or even another LP, the brothers Brookes have released a rash of remixes of Orange Lane tracks, and now their intention is to release another rash of originals themselves over the course of the rest of 2018.
“Every Minute” is the first such track in this upcoming series. With many of the tracks on Orange Lane being so unconventional, this new track is a return to form for the Brookes boys with its dancefloor-friendly liquid DnB sensibilities. It’s also a return to the Drum&BassArena label and indee their first free-floating single on the label after doing a couple of compilations.
With the fun and soulful end of summer vibes of “Every Minute” and a curiosity about where the Brookes Brothers will go next, Your EDM caught up with the fraternal duo to find out where they get the inspiration for such chill vibes and what’s next both in their string of upcoming singles and in their career.
It’s been a minute between the release of this track and the Orange Lane LP, with a few other tracks in between. Is this a preview single for more work to come?
We wouldn’t call it a preview as such but it’s the first of a bunch of new tracks that we are planning to put out over the next 12 months. Our main focus now is putting together a steady stream of singles – writing albums can take a while and we want more constant music coming out, so we’re focusing on singles and EPs for now.
How did you decide on the style for this track? How do you see your overall style evolving since Orange Lane?
We see our albums as opportunities to experiment and push our sound in different directions…for ‘Orange Lane’ we put that club mentality on the backburner and wanted to make something that could work equally well listening at home. We felt really happy with what we achieved, but after such a challenging album-writing cycle it felt right to go back to our natural sound, so this was a return to a sort-of comfort zone for us and what people know us best for.
Why did you decide to release “Every Minute” on D&BA rather than Viper?
We have a longstanding relationship with the guys over at D&BA. They’ve always been proper scene stalwarts and very passionate about the music. We were working on a few different ideas when Risky at DNBA heard an early version of “Every Minute” and loved it. From then on it’s been one of the smoothest releases we’ve been involved in, and an absolute pleasure to work with those guys.
You guys are known for your melodies and vocal pairings. What spoke to you about this vocal sample? Did you build the musical melody around the vox or was it the other way around?
Sometimes a vocal hook just catches our attention and we’ll go straight in and use it as the centerpiece for the track. It was like that with “Every Minute”. We built the track around the vocal. It often works the other way round but we felt this vocal hook was screaming out for us to work around.
Were there any other tracks or artist you can say that inspired this track?
We listen to a wide range of artists and a lot of influences creep in. We’re always inspired by soul music and the vocals from the Motown era. The intro on “Every Minute” combines a 1960s vocal hook with some 80’s tine piano sounds, then the more modern DnB vibes kick in – we love to combine the flavors of different musical periods to create something unique and fresh.
What kinds of artists and sounds normally inspire your work, if you had to pick a few?
We love all sorts of music, it’s hard to pick one sound or style as we enjoy so much different stuff. We take a load of influence from gospel, R&B, jazz and soul music, mixed with general electronic music influences, specifically DnB of course. Melodically one of our major influences is Stephen Sondheim.
You just played here in the US at Innovation in LA. How did you find that experience? What did you like about the US scene and how was is different from the UK and Europe?
We love playing the States and always feel a lot of love from our fans there. The US scene is like one big spread-out family which is a lovely thing. Here in the UK it can feel quite fractured as you have your different camps and labels doing different things. We’re not particularly cliquey ourselves so we like the all-embracing vibe of the US DnB scene. Having said that the UK scene is where we grew up and we got a lot of love for the people working in the UK DnB community. We’ve pretty much grown up with a lot of them!
What other festivals and shows are you touring at the season comes to a close?
The season’s just finishing now, we’re doing Pierjam in Hastings next weekend with Chase & Status – after that it’s back to the clubs for another year.
What other new projects do you have coming out? Any collabs?
We have some collabs in the works, we’re doing a few more collabs again at the moment. Don’t want to give too much away but you’ll hear more details soon! Our next release is in September reuniting with Breakbeat Kaos…DJ Fresh has revived the label to celebrate its 15 year anniversary. We have two tracks on there, “New Wave” feat. Georgie Allen and “Headlock.” Following that, the plan is to continue to roll out singles for a little while until our next album adventure!
“Every Minute” is out now on Drum&BassArena and can be purchased on Beatport. Keep an eye out for more single releases from the Brookes Brothers coming up soon.
