Moostatz

MusicElectronicDrum & Bass
Written By Sanjay G

by Mister Mime

12th April 2021

 
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Moustached Sardinian DnB marauder ‘Moostatz’ releases his first two-track EP ‘Dark Sun’ on San Francisco based label Samsara Beats, which also includes halftime mixes of the two tracks. After releasing his first single ‘Reality’ on their compilation earlier this year, the exciting new producer levels up his game to give us two absolute vocal Dnb bangers that will send you into orbit. Effortlessly balancing sensitivity with intensity, ‘Dark Sun’ puts the producer’s career to an astronomical start. We expect big things from him in the future.

 

MM: What is the concept of the EP Dark Sun?

Moostatz: The Dark Sun EP was born in a particular stage of my life, a time when I wasn’t particularly happy, so I tried to put my emotions inside these tracks. Through these melodies and chords I wanted to convey a melancholic, non-verbal message, representing the state of mind I had when I started producing these tracks. I hope these emotions got the listeners.

MM: The music is both sensitive and intense at the same time. A great synergy! How do you balance the gentleness of the vocals with the intensity of the beats? Who did the vocals for the tracks 'Dark Sun' and 'In Your Eyes'?

Moostatz: Keeping this intense and sensitive contrast has been challenging but also fun. I wanted to try a different approach in production and surprise the audience creating something unexpected. The key was to understand how much I could push with the aggressiveness of the basslines keeping the track dynamic and maintaining the softness typical of liquid drum and bass. To achieve this, I often had to change direction while making the tracks. Initially it was frustrating and it was driving me crazy because I didn't understand what I was doing wrong. Once I understood the direction I had to take, everything was easier and I got the result that you hear in the EP. Speaking of vocals, for both “Dark Sun” and “In Your Eyes” I bought the samples in an online platform that has now become a reference point for many producers. For "Dark Sun" I honestly do not know who the voice belongs to, but for "In Your Eyes" the voice is from Zara Taylor. The vocal of "Dark Sun" belongs to a man, and working on the pitch I made it sound more like a woman voice, adapting it to what was the context and harmony of my song. With "In Your Eyes" I did exactly the opposite, even if you can still feel that it’s a woman voice.

MM:  Can you tell us a bit about the artwork?

Moostatz: The artwork was created by Claudia Cardia, the illustrator and graphic designer who takes care of all the graphics of Samsara Beats. Inspired by the title and sounds of this EP, she created an illustration that mixes geometry with phases of a mysterious "Dark Sun".

 
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MM: How has your journey been as a producer, from the time you started to produce music to releasing your first EP now?

Moostatz: It has been a very long journey and of course I still have a lot to learn. I’ve always been fascinated by the DJing & music production world from a very young age, I was very curious about how songs were literally created. Around the age of 14, I put my hands on my first DAW, poking around, trying to understand how it worked, starting my first experiments, all with the help of tutorials on YouTube. Most of what I know today comes from watching long sessions of expert producers working on their projects, peeking at what are their techniques and which plugins were used to achieve a specific result. Once I acquired a certain familiarity, I felt that tutorials were no longer enough for me, so I started taking a production class that helped me to approach the tracks in a more professional way. It helped me sharpen my ear by making me way more critical of my work and not settling for the results I might have had before.

MM: Can you share some of your technical details from your work? What DAW do you use, your favourite plugins, and your general workflow or how you approach writing a track?

Moostatz: The DAW I use is Ableton Live, it is the one that best matches my working method and style. As for my approach to writing a track, I always start by listening to a lot of music for inspiration, not just DnB. Once my ears are warmed up, based on how I am emotionally I start writing notes on the piano roll giving life first of all to the core of the track, the melody. I always keep a high-level track as a reference to keep myself close in terms of loudness and project idea, the goal is not to hear any loudness or quality difference between my own track and the reference track. After I’m happy with the melody and chords I wrote, I start choosing the instruments that will play these notes. Next I create the kick, which is part of the foundation of the track. Then I start the search for the snare and add the various percussions. Between one passage and the next I start mixing the instruments together, creating harmony by also adding various reverbs to create different rooms. For the drums I use a reverb room which will be different from the one I use for the other instruments (I usually create a very large room to create atmosphere and ambience). My favorite plugins for these two types of reverb are the Valhalla Room (for the small rooms, so the one I will use for the drums) and the FabFilter Pro-R (which I use to create the large rooms that will give ambiance in the song) . I have to say that I’m crazy about sound design, I tend to create from scratch the vast majority of the sounds I use, to do this I use Serum. I do pretty much everything with that, from pads to bass and other effects that I add as layers. After the production is complete, it’s mastering time! (I’m still studying the right chain to achieve the loudness I want for my tracks)

MM: Who are your biggest inspirations among D&B artists, all electronic artists and music from any other genres?

Moostatz: I try to take inspiration from everyone, but if I really have to express a preference, I really like Pola & Brison very much, I am struck by the way in which they manage the pads and create a unique vibe that brings you right into the song. They aren't the only ones I try to get inspiration from, I really like Hybrid Minds too. In short, I try to take a lot from that kind of liquid that knows how to take you to another dimension, the one that knows how to excite you. But there are not only dnb artists who influence my songs. For example I have been following Deadmau5 for a long time, and I really like his style which is recognizable starting from the drums he uses in his songs and also the particularly complex chords. As for the other genres, I listen to a lot of jazz music, in my opinion very underrated by the average audience. Jazz is a genre that can make you relax and unleash at the same time, an unpredictable genre. Let's say that a good producer should listen to everything, because each song has its own particularity and everything can be inspiring. There are tons of producers sampling old records from various genres to bring them to life in a modern, new and fresh track. We must not focus only on one genre, because we tend to take only one path, instead the beauty of music is also experimenting new things, having fun and offering new things to the listeners.

 
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 MM: Outside of music, what do you like to do? And how does your hometown of Sardinia influence your music?

Moostatz: I spend a lot of time with music and I don't have much free time outside of that. It is an outlet, a real passion, I can say it’s a reason for living. When I’m not creating music it’s because of my day job. Currently I work in the morning as a graphic designer in a screen printing company, and in the evening I help the family business with graphics, marketing and communication. The time that remains is not so much, so if I’m not making music, during summer I like going to the beach, (I’m lucky enough to live in an island with the best beaches in the world) and in winter sometimes I go for some mountains excursions. To be honest my hometown or Sardinia in general, don’t have a particular influence on my productions because, musically speaking, I try to be broader. Here many people don’t have a broad concept of music. I have always thought that one day I would move from my homeland to find luck abroad, which certainly can give more opportunities than Sardinia.

MM: How has 2020 been for you and what are your plans for the future?

Moostatz: 2020, as for most people I suppose, hasn’t been a great year so far. Especially for our category, I mean artists and nightlife. However in this 2020 I had my first important achievement, finally releasing 2 tunes that together with the remixes of Clyde Avery and Jonah K gave life to my first EP. It gave me particular satisfaction to see that my tunes were supported and played on numerous podcasts and radio shows. For the future, I definitely want to continue studying and discovering all the secrets behind music production. I already have an almost completed track and I can't wait to let you hear it, I hope as soon as possible. I’d love to turn this passion into my full-time job, to earn a living with music, to join a booking and to travel around the world doing what really makes me happy.

MM: Why did you decide to call yourself Moostatz?

Moostatz: Haha… this is a great question. Let me say that Moostatz wasn’t my first artist name. I used to have another alias, but there were already other artists with the same name so I had to find a new one. I remember I was moving in northern Italy for work, my father was driving me to the airport and we were talking about new artist name ideas. His advice was to use a word in Sardinian language to stand out from the crowd, but I didn’t like the few ideas he came out with. From that day I began to think about name ideas that could represent somehow Sardinia but with an international flavor, also because the goal of this work / passion is to share emotions through music with an audience that is as wide as possible. At the time I was obsessed with mustaches, so I wanted to include somehow the word mustaches in my artist name. I thought back to what my father had suggested to me, and I made up this word: Moostatz. Basically, when you pronounce it, you’re saying mustaches in Sardinian language, but it’s written in a different way. The first thing I did before claiming victory was to search Soundcloud and check the name wasn’t already used. Luckily for me there it was available, so I decided that from the day I would call myself Moostatz.

 
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Sanjay G https://mistermime.world
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