Shadows
Electronic music is often at its most fascinating when it pulls from seemingly unlikely influences. San Francisco duo Niteppl, although certainly inspired by genre’s greats, are a perfect example–incorporating disco, 80s-revivalist and even some Beach Boys-era styles in their music. Their 2013 debut, Cult, was a mostly instrumental project that showcased a distinct nu-disco sound, particularly on our favorite track “Transmission”. The latest iteration of Niteppl features two members, Alton and Sawyer, and their upcoming album, Nu Flesh, builds off the style established on the debut project adding a marked emotional depth with Sawyer’s vocals and unique songwriting ability.
We’ve got the premiere of the second single from that upcoming project and it’s one that we haven’t been able to stop playing since we first heard it. “Shadows” features an ominous backing synth melody giving it a neon-80s atmosphere particularly when combined with additional instrumental layering. Paired with Sawyer’s haunting vocals, it’s an enchanting tune that draws you in while proving strangely addicting. See what they had to say about the track below:
Alton: “Shadows” vocally, I think, comes from a really personal place for Sawyer, as do I think all the lyrics on Nu Flesh. This is the third track on the album and it comes after two pretty big, opening tracks. We placed it in a specific way so that it could add a bit of emotional introspection early in the record.
Check out the single above, grab a free download here, and get to know Niteppl a bit better in the rest of our quick Q&A below. Nu Flesh drops on August 18th on Popgang Records.
TMN: What’s your first musical memory?
Sawyer: My mother playing the piano when I was little while I tried to bang on the keys.
Alton: My Dad playing guitar in the forest carrying me on his back as a baby.
TMN: When you first started listening to electronic music, who were the artists that really stuck with you?
Sawyer: I was seriously into Chemical Brothers, Moby, Crystal Method and Massive Attack. Then I broke off from electronic music for awhile and got into indie rock. But Rusko, Bassnectar and Diplo brought me back.
Alton: I’m actually coming from the same place as Sawyer, I think the earliest electronic music I heard was the Matrix Soundtrack. My Dad is a huge sci-fi head and when that movie came out (I think I was 9?) he was blasting that record all the time in his car. After that I went through a pretty serious like Pop Punk phase, but then got really into Benny Benassi and Kaskada (the singer), once Justice came out with Cross though it was pretty much all I listened to until I graduated high school.
TMN: Tell us a bit about the formation and vision behind Niteppl.
Alton: Niteppl has gone through a couple of different iterations and forms throughout the last couple of years, it was originally a project my good friend Gage and I were working on; he ended up having to move to New York to pursue his career as a visual artist and then I was working on the project solo, releasing Cult in 2013 as the debut album. The vision behind Niteppl is for us to be able to make any type of music we want, we’re really inspired aesthetically speaking by other San Francisco based group The M Machine, as well as pretty much everything and everything we like. We try to take influence from everything, and strive to create full length works that have a conceptual idea behind them; we kind of like treating each new album as a standalone auditory product, but also as sequential pieces in a larger narrative.
Sawyer: Alton and I met at a school function for Academy of Art University and we chatted it up about music . I showed him my tunes I was making under my side project Her Favorite Flavor and he immediately sent me “Shout,” track one on Nu Flesh. We figured out we worked together well and were getting each other to write some seriously creative stuff, so Alton brought me on to Niteppl. Now here we are excited for Nu Flesh and what comes next.
TMN: With the addition of vocals and a really distinct sound, “Shadows,” and the whole upcoming LP, definitely feel like a natural progression from Cult. Can you talk a bit about how you guys feel your sound evolved from that project to this one?
Alton: The evolution from Cult to Nu Flesh was actually a really organic one. I think I have just gotten older since I made Cult in 2012; Cult was made almost entirely on laptop speakers, I just simply didn’t have any kind of a setup to work with, which I feel really gave the whole album it’s own sound. In a lot of ways Cult was also a sort of immature album and I say that with a lot of pride because I don’t think I could make Cult again today. I think Cult, as Nu Flesh, is a product of it’s time and is sort of like a time-capsule of my life during that time.
With Nu Flesh, and the addition of Sawyer, I think we’re again dealing with a sonic time capsule of our lives right now, but now we are just simply much more experienced in creating music and writing songs. I also think Sawyer and I both have a lot more to say in terms of the how we relate to one another in the modern age; Nu Flesh as a whole is about the space between us physically, emotionally, and digitally, and how we all get along in 2015. We wanted to explore a lot of feelings and ideas we had regarding the Internet and how our world is spinning right now.
TMN: If an alien came down to earth and asked you what music was, what song would you play them?
Sawyer: Without a doubt, “Return to Innocence” by Enigma.
Alton: I actually have the same answer haha, I can’t think of a better introduction to our planet. Second choice would be “A Milli” by Lil’ Wayne, but the original freestyle version. Damn though, either that or Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B.”
