As we started planning this month-long spotlight on Danish producer Galimatias, we were anxiously awaiting this portion of his Residency. Knowing that we would soon enter a selective group of very few publications who have had a chance to talk with this quickly rising star, we relished in the opportunity. The only drawback to this exclusive chat was how difficult it would soon be to narrow our questions down to a reasonable amount. In all honesty, we could have dialed up at least twenty-five, but that would have been a tremendously long read. Instead, we went with what you’ll find below.
TMN: First off, thank you so much for being a part of our Residency program. It’s an absolute pleasure to have you. You’ve just come off tour and a wildly successful EP. Did you take a moment to breathe, or have you jumped right back into the studio?
Thank you, it’s been a while since I’ve had time, so yeah, I’ve been excited to get back to making music. It was a pretty short tour run, but being the very first live shows for me and Alina both, we had a lot to learn going into it. So, it was still a big process.
TMN: Speaking of the tour, we have to imagine that you had a few “Holy shit!” moments. Was there any particular show or fan interaction that made you step back in disbelief?
Oh yeah, the first show in Santa Ana was for sure the craziest experience. It was so packed that some people couldn’t fit into the room and were standing in the hallway. The energy was so raw and positive. It’s one thing to see the numbers on the internet, but getting out there and feeling the people behind it is a whole new world. Once Alina started singing, everybody was singing along. My proudest moment was when Nas shook my hand after the show and said he was down with it. He was one of the artists I grew up listening to.
TMN Let’s touch on Urban Flora. It’s safe to say that this whole project started from a simple Soundcloud message, correct?
Back when Alina was just starting to write, which is only about 2 years ago, she was looking for instrumentals and came across a track of mine. So she wrote what would become “Drift” and sent it to me on Soundcloud. I was blown away and we started talking about music. Already then, I knew she was very different it was apparent not just in her songwriting, but also in the way she presented it. She is the most beautiful girl, but used this pitch black square as her picture across all social media and I remember asking her why. But, that’s how she connected with the right people and built a fanbase that fell in love with her art and not her face. I don’t know who would make that compromise and not just utilize everything they have. It was very intriguing to me. That’s when I knew this girl is 100% about her music. She sent me some acapellas of songs she had recorded. With two acapellas, I would make what became “Make You Feel” and “Pretty Thoughts”. This was late 2013. We released all those 3 tracks on Soundcloud. I didn’t look elsewhere for people to collaborate with after that. I was so set on us making a project together. From then we would just send back and forth ideas until we had created the 8 tracks of the EP.
