1. Thank you for taking the time to do this interview with TranceSound.net. First of all, congratulations on the release of your album, "Morph!" How did you two come about producing this project?
I Awake & Aiora: Thanks a lot! Well, we both performed separately at the Aurora Festival where we first met in 2008. After hanging out a couple of days a good friendship developed and Thomas decided shortly after to visit Dimitris in Crete, where he lived at the time, to hang out and to make music together. The idea of producing a whole album came naturally after our first collaboration with the track Yialiskari Dreams. Since we really like to work together and the fact that we produce similar music anyway made the decision easy to go full out.
2. Ever since first hearing the album, it has been on my sleep playlist. Was it sort of a goal to create an almost meditative production?
I Awake & Aiora: Actually there was no plan for the overall album since it consists of separately produced tracks at different occasions. Of course we had a down-tempo style in mind all the time though. When we selected what tracks from our collaborated production to include, we chose the ones that felt natural and homogeneous to mix together.
3. There is a lot of variety in the album including world influence. Was this a way to represent your backgrounds and the places you’ve travelled to?
I Awake & Aiora: Since the album has been produced over a period of two years the diversity comes from different set of minds at the various occasions the tracks were made.
4. Could you describe the meaning of the title, Morph?
I Awake & Aiora: Morphing is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes (or morphs) one image into another through a seamless transition. We would like to think that the tracks we made for this album emotionally does the same for the listener.
5. Is there any particular tracks that hold a certain meaning?
I Awake & Aiora: "Yialiskari Dreams" for sure has a lot of the land and ocean spirit hid inside of it, as well as the track "Thalassa" (it means the word sea in Greek) that was built next to the sea so the vibration of the song came naturally straight to notes. Pharos (lighthouse) has a movement that in our option consists of what a light beam can show to our inner self.
6. Are there any specific artists, that you admire, that have helped you envision Morph?
I Awake & Aiora: Actually not. We were mostly inspired of the present moment for each and every track we made for this album. They have all developed organically without any pre-destined plans.
7. Would you mind explaining the I Awake & Aiora aliases?
I Awake & Aiora: Aiora it is the general name for a collection of closely connected air appliances. The all-acrobatic hammocks are horizontal traverse bars used by short acrobats (more concretely, “aerialists”). Aerialists have to be awake if they want to stay in an aerial situation! I Awake came from the fact that Thomas’ whole view on life one day changed due to a lot of different insights, new perspectives and experiences. The name reminds him all the time to stay I Awake.
8. Will there be any future I Awake & Aiora projects including touring?
I Awake & Aiora: We are working on some tour plans as we speak together with our label Existence Records. We are both well prepared to perform live as much as possible since we have combined a lot of material that we want to share with the world.
9. Again, thank you for taking the time to be apart of this interview. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
I Awake & Aiora: First of all we would like to thank Paul Kwitek at Existence Records for enthusiastically releasing our album and also for his crew’s efforts in spreading the word, producing ground breaking videos and building websites etc. Also we would like to thank the listeners for supporting our act so we can continue our work! Finally we would like to take the opportunity to tell all organizers of musical happenings such as festivals, lounges and clubs to check out our act in order to book us so we can serve deep audio-neural sendings live as often as possible. ;-)
Interview made by Abigail Duran aka VeraNationGirl (TranceSound.net Head of PR)
Links:
I Awake & Aiora official website
I Awake & Aiora @ MySpace
Abigail Duran @ MySpace
