We all know the sound and vibe of Shkoon, but who are the humans and hearts behind it?
We see ourselves as radical humanists, trying to fight hate with love and positivity in this world. In the end, we are just three guys with a lot of love and passion for music.
Can you tell us about how you managed to put all that sonic magic together and reach out to so many in so little time?
We are still wondering how all this happened. As you might imagine there is no master plan, neither for success nor creativity. In our experience the less planned the work is at the beginning, the better our energy flows together. And in the end, we were really lucky in how we were able to reach out to that many people. Mainly two things pushed us forward before we even really started. After we just finished our first few sketches and kinda made a list of our favorite labels we wanted to send them to, Alex from Underyourskin Records, the label on top of our list, contacted us and asked us to release Ala Moj Al Bahr with them. Of course, we didn’t give it a second thought. As a second step, just after we released the first EP the Fusion Festival requested us for one of our first gigs ever.
Since you two have crossed roads your work has been hypnotizing the world. What was the first obstacle that you faced given the fact that you come from different cultures?
We believe that all of us, no matter where you are from, have more in common than many think.
Can you walk us through your creative process in the studio? How do you go about creating your compositions?
There is no standard process for anything we do in the studio. It is always about trying, recording sketches and deleting everything again to start over.
Many great artists remixed your tracks. Do you have any favorites? And how do they usually approach you with their ideas?
That’s a pretty mean question, let’s skip this and go to the next one. 😉
The heritage in your music is distinctive. If you somehow fell into a time machine, how would explain your sound to your ancestors?
We would probably thank them for their cultural achievements and tell them that in the future life got much faster and more complicated. As a result of that, people started taking small parts of their rhythms and melodies and repeating them all night long.
Whenever you play, your music radiates depth and introspection. Is there a secret combination of musical euphoria or how does it come to life?
We feel really honored being asked this question. Still, we find ourselves exploring the world of music and feeling pretty small within it. If you look at this from a scientific point of view, people have been trying to find the answer to this question for a long time already without any outcome yet.
Although you’ve been playing for 2 years, you’re growing at an exponential rate. How big are your dreams, where are you headed?
It’s a big privilege to be in the situation we are in right now. We are always still surprised by all the support we get and feel really blessed. But when it comes to dreams, it’s not about growing big, it’s more about gaining knowledge in our craft and that comes with time.
What advice would you give to upcoming producers trying to make their way in the existing cluster?
We think that trying to be part of something is the wrong approach. We believe that authenticity is the most important thing. Get out of your everyday bubble, meet and be open to new people, try, fail, repeat and stay true to who you are.