Q:I was impressed how you seamlessly blended real and synthetic instruments throughout “Let Go.” This is a quite difficult feat to achieve. How did you find that perfect sweet spot?
TANOKI: First off, thank you! This was quite a difficult mix overall, and I think a lot of that time was just working on that right blend really. One thing that helped, though, is that even though there’s a decent amount of Synthetic stuff in there, they all come from live playing which I felt gave that organic sound.
Q:You are also a visual artist, and I really enjoyed the video’s color palette. Was this intentional, and if so, can you tell us more?
TANOKI: It wasn’t initially actually, but during the edit I began to remove a whole heap of other darker footage and decided to use them for another song, and kept this one night and bright and airy.
Q:Farah’s vocal performance is very emotive and frankly, just lovely. How did you both collaborate to capture this wonderful performance?
TANOKI: Farahs just a legend really!… She’s beyond talented. This was actually the first song we worked on, and from her jamming away on Piano over my initial demo to talking space and time over a box of lyrics I felt like everything was just clicking into place for us.
Q: You previously made music under “Geppetto.” How does Tanoki differ from your Geppetto work?
TANOKI: The biggest difference is that I’m now producing fully, which has led me to even more experimental places as well, I think the Tanoki sound is much more upbeat.
Q: You have a long resume. Which direction are you hoping to take Tanoki?
TANOKI: Well, other than getting the album out there’s not much of a planned out future for it all other than to keep having fun with it. Which I really have been, I’ve got enough demos for another album already, so just looking for colabs at the moment.
I have been getting a few “Are you going to play live” questions at me now as well, so I’ll have to work on a building a live set I suppose.
Interviewed by Sarah Scott
