Imagine a riff driven track written by The Specials and produced by Chase and status. Delightfully exotic and seductively addictive, Myopic Aminals’ debut track titled Gift Horse in Midstream is a real treat. Read our discussion below!
Describe your sound in 3 words
Exotic, visceral, mysterious
Tell us a few things about the Myopic Aminals project. What is the story behind it?
(Dino) It actually all started with the heavily distorted Elephant-flute in the track. Babo brought the instrument to us and we were blown away by the sound he was able to achieve. We used that as sort of the main character and built a track around it, a track that we hoped would be this combination of unique culture and incredible texture.
(Kat) A lot of us were friends before we started making music and had no idea we were all musicians.
It’s just 5 of us (me, Dino, Babo, Orca & Tee) but I think it’ll keep growing.
Your debut single titled Gift Horse in Midstream has has a very nice ‘The Specials’ touch. What are your main influences?
(Tee) Oooh I love that, thank you! We all come from really different backgrounds, so it’s tough to pin down a few main influences but the Gorillaz, Cat Empire, Proleter & Onra really brought us together (also Buena Vista Social Club, Lemon Jelly, Daft Punk, Hans Zimmer, Dirty Art Club, Julian Casablancas). We’re also storytellers and massive lovers of film, so I think our music will always find a way to have cinematic elements and tell a story. Like The Cat Empire, we’re in love with the thing that happens when you combine two unlike things, let alone three or five. We’re excited to see how that translates into more music, some of which may lean more samba than trap or reggae than electronika… or rap. Babo raps!
What made you gravitate towards electronika?
(Orca) Electronika is really just one of the intersections of all of our passions and backgrounds. Dino loves samba, Kat’s really into insanely gritty, almost incomprehensible distortion that abuses speakers, Babo’s from South Africa and pulls out these unbelievably unique sounds like the Elephant-flute you hear in this track, Tee’s heavy into house and electronika & trip hop are my dig. And I think it just all comes together into this really eclectic sound that we all can’t get enough of.
(Kat) Electronika is a canvas that allows for a really wide array of colors.
Take your eyes away from your monitor for 10 secs, look around you and tell us the first thing your eyes caught?
(Babo) Post it notes. Thousands of post it notes everywhere. The wall is covered in them, our instruments are covered in them. We use them for ideation, chord progressions, lyrics, song structure, lunch orders, drawings. If we’re a reflection of our environment, I have no idea what this says about us.
If you were an animal what would you be?
(Dino) Oh this is a great question. It’s interesting because I really do feel almost animalistic sometimes when making music. Instinctively animalistic. Something about the process of creation and the flow state that’s needed to make something really honest demands that you turn yourself over to yellow eyes and let the claws slip down out of your knuckles. I didn’t answer the question, I would be a Hyena.
Have you booked any gig in the near future? If so, who are you seeing?
(Dino) We’re actually doing some secret pop up shows in a few really cool locations over the next few weeks. Despite starring in the Gift Horse music video, we’re definitely a group of introverts and prefer to remain in the elusive shadows as much as possible, so we’re really excited to just show up somewhere unannounced and PLAY.
What’s next for you?
(Dino) Honestly, we have more things in the works than we probably should and some very interesting collaborations, it’s really exciting… What I will say is our passions definitely don’t stop with music. We have some pretty cool projects in the works that I think will really surprise people. In the meantime, we and a bunch of the other aminals are selling Myopic Merch and making content over on our instagram
Thank you!
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