Music

Keys N Krates recreate the remix

by Melody Lau

Remix culture has traditionally remained inside the studio, but thanks to acts such as Toronto’s Keys N Krates, it’s beginning to grab the spotlight onstage. “I don’t think we’ve changed the cultural landscape of remixing,” said DJ Jr. Flo. “What we’ve done is taken that and made it a very live thing that can be done in a live context and that’s how I think we’ve recreated the remix.”

Keys N Krates never even thought about production as a means for their music since they began as a live project.

“We’re all live players so we just came together and started jamming out like musicians would,” said David Matisse. Jr. Flo adds that the trio – rounded out by drummer Adam Tune – were “supposed to be this crazy, weird live act that does something you’re not supposed to do live and now as a result we’ve gotten into production.”

Communicating the idea that Keys N Krates were going to focus on live performances was one thing, but communicating in two different musical languages took some time for the band to get accustomed to.

“We spent about six months trying to communicate from musician to DJ,” said Matisse. “That was the big trick at the beginning.” Tune adds that it was difficult since there was no defined method and form of song to develop. “We started developing our own sort of structure.”

“I guess it could be argued that in the musician world, where Adam and I came from, a lot of musicians don’t jam a lot with Djs for some reason,” Matisse noted. “They don’t look at DJs as musicians and usually when a DJ is part of a band they’re just added on as a couple of scratches here and there.”

“We’ve made the DJ the forefront of the band so, instead of having a singer, we’ve incorporated the DJ as another instrument in the band.”

Tune admits to falling victim to stereotyping DJs at first. “When we first started doing this, I wouldn’t have classified DJs as musicians,” said Tune. “Then I met Flo and saw that he spent just as much, if not longer, crafting his skill as any guitar player.”

Jr. Flo adds that the acceptance of DJs in the music industry is also in part due to the fact that almost anyone can become a DJ nowadays with Serato and a bunch of mp3s.

“There’s kind of no difference from every kid in high school, at one point in time, grabbing a guitar and playing in a band,” said Jr. Flo. “It didn’t really mean they were real guitar players or real musicians just because they learned the chords to Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’”

“It seems like more people are running into the DJ world now but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there’s still a lot of money in it,” said Matisse. “It’s another source of income for musicians.”

But Jr. Flo has mixed feelings about real musicians who pretend to DJ at after parties, such as The XX, Florence and the Machine and Glasser.

“I’m kind of into hearing what artists are listening to, so on one hand I can appreciate it, but on another hand Florence and the Machine aren’t real DJs. I don’t really even consider it a DJ set, I just consider it as them playing music, and I’m cool with that, but is it really a DJ set? I guess it’s easy to call it that.”

Download their newest mixtape “Almost 39 Minutes” here. Key N Krates play Toronto’s Lee’s Palace tonight.