The time has come! Cancel your appointments, turn off notifications, mute your phone, put on your most comfortable clothes and lock yourself in your room. Close the blinds, do some stretching. Well, now you are ready for the highlight of your week. After years of waiting and two singles to anticipate it, you’re about to witness msft.’s debut EP: Hands.
“I finally felt the need to tell something through a multi-track project. I know I used to release either singles or remixes but now, for the first time, I have my music vision clear and I wanted to deliver a more cohesive project.” This (positive) pressure has then turned into this four-track EP that explores what msft. has defined as his true sound. Hands started with the sophisticated ‘bring/up‘, premiered here on FUXWITHIT back in November, continued with the halftime and melodic ‘won’t stop spinnin‘ and now closes the circle with the addition of ‘oh gao’ and ‘yes I do’. Both the two cuts go extremely hard and dwell on the heavier side of msft. as they bring in some serious filthy sounds. They share similar narrative choices that mix emphatic and dramatic intros and breakdowns with nasty, abrasive, metallic drops. Going further into details, we can notice how ‘oh gao’ clearly shares common traits with ‘bring/up’ and its dubstep-esque rhythms while ‘yes I do’ follows a similar path to ‘won’t stop spinning’.
As brought up in the previous reviews, all these tracks feature a very prominent groove that is given a lot of room to shine. When questioned about this choice and if DJ sets/ live shows were something that influenced him during the creation process msft. answered: “I cannot deny the fact that shows (especially club shows) are between my future goals. However, this wasn’t completely planned. I must say that those tracks came out pretty naturally. But I must also say that I definitely get what you mean; maybe my brain was trying to tell me something when I was producing the EP, we will never know.”
Stream Hands below or on your favorite platform here, and keep reading in your want to further explore msft’s vision, the EP’s art concept, and more.
The visuals for this EP are sick! How did the creative process work between you and the graphic designer?
The visual aspect is very important to me; having a clear vision of your aesthetic brand is something I consider crucial nowadays. My graphic designer (@dvrsvisuals s/o to him) and I sat down and discussed the visual direction of this project; hands are kind of my visual brand and the fact that he managed to reproduce my real hands (and my girlfriend’s as well) with all the details is so crazy to me.
Your theme colors are pretty much always black or various shades of grey. Is this something you decided when you started msft. and it’s now incontestable or is it a choice that you still question at every release?
Black, grey, and white are my fav colors; they can be so deep and meaningful. I chose them when I started out msft and I have no plans to change them!
This tweet actually got me. Trust issues aren’t exactly the answer artists like to give to the “why are you independent” question. Where is this “hot take” coming from?
It’s coming from a lot of delusions I got from the music industry, especially when I started out; I got scammed and turned down a few times. I felt very fragile and since then I somehow knew I had to count on myself and myself only. Don’t get me wrong, I also met a lot of cool and genuine people (both on the artist and label’s side), but the idea of people taking advantage of my music still scares me.
At the beginning of the month you got approved by Catalog and immediately after you unveiled your Genesis 1/1 NFT with ‘Won’t Stop Spinning.’ Do you already have other NFT plans for the EP?
I cannot unveil much but I am already in the talks with my graphic designer; we’re planning to do something very cool ;)
Off-topic question but I mean, you basically asked for it. What are the weirdest sounds there will be in your next sound pack?
Definitely synths and bass (either one-shots and loops), I added both sounds from the EP and ones exclusively for the sample pack. But pay attention to the “Cursed Italian Folder” too…
Fuck _____ . You complete the sentence.
I wanted to say 2022 so bad but I’m releasing this EP this year so I’m not tryna jinx it haha.
