On an island off the southern tips of Sweden and Norway lies Copenhagen or the home of young blood producers, Boye & Sigvardt who recently got a break of a lifetime, a collaboration with Canadian star, Kiesza. Best known for ‘Hideaway’ that has reached 100’s of millions, Kiesza’s touch on ‘The Feelings’ really puts these kids in the limelight.
‘The Feelings’ was written in October 2019 in a session between Boye & Sigvardt and Kiesza a couple of days before their performance together at Club Awards doing an official remix of her single ‘You’re the Best’. The show aired on one of the biggest TV-stations in Denmark.
Doing a song with Kiesza is a milestone for Boye & Sigvardt, something they have wanted to do ever since they started listening to her music. ‘The Feelings’ is a song about letting go, live in the moment, dancing and connecting through this. For Kiesza it’s her first come back to the house genre after ‘Hideaway’.
‘The Feelings’ is being received very well, getting added to major tastemaker playlists such as Friday Cratediggers, MINT Canada and New Music Friday in Scandinavia. Having been following the duo for the past year it is exciting to see them jump a few steps up. Although ‘The Feelings’ may be their highest profile release yet, their prior releases hold weight amounting over 26 million plays on Spotify alone.
While digging through Boye & Sigvardt’s collection you will find ‘Hazma’ a tech house track off their ‘Night Addicts Vol. 2’ EP that manages to sonify bravery, ‘Confessions’ an Usher inspired dance music hit featuring Hazel and a massive tropical house collaboration with Norwegian heavyweight SJUR ‘Blame It On Me’ featuring another star, Peg Parnevik, among other gems.
Enjoy exploring more of their diverse catalog while reading our exclusive interview with the buzzing duo, where we talk music, Denmark’s scene, the progressive lifestyle of Copenhagen and what’s next…
If you were to play a club set this Saturday at 2am, what are 5 tracks you would likely drop?
Even though there is so much good new music out there we want to include in our set, we think if it’s only 5 songs that it would be: Boye & Sigvardt – Party Sucks (Ft. H. Kenneth), Boye & Sigvardt, Kiesza – The Feelings (We can’t wait to play this live!!) and then our 3 favorites from our upcoming club/festival ep that is dropping later this year just because it defines what music we like to play live and it’s just super experimental.
What an exciting collaboration with Kiesza! Did you learn anything from her during the production process?
Thank you so much! We’re super stoked about it too! Kiesza is for sure one of the most talented and fun artists we’ve ever met. You can tell she has a passion for what she is doing and her technique when recording is just out of this world. She definitely taught us a lot about not overthinking when it just feels right and that’s why ‘The Feelings’ just happened and it all just made sense.
A lot of people actually didn’t think that we wrote and recorded the song just the 3 of us, but she came to Denmark to perform a remix we did on her song at an award show and we just had such a good time and we’re just happy the song is finally out.
How do you guys feed off each other in the studio and during your sets?
So after working together for a lot of years we’ve learned a lot about each other and how we work. Boye is for sure the more creative guy in the duo that will start the idea and just throw everything out he can think of and then Sigvardt is super into the whole technical part of it and will structure and mix it. We both have a lot of years experience DJ’ing so usually we just play back to back in the clubs, and when we play festivals or just shows in general our sets are way more structured to build the perfect vibe.
‘The Feelings’ is intended to help listeners live in the moment, which can be difficult to do. How do you try to stay in the moment during your day to day life?
This is actually a really nice question. So we live in a crazy world at the moment and even though we wrote the song before 2020 it still fitted super well into everything. Everybody has problems and some talk very openly about them and some don’t, but a thing our parents always told us when we were kids is that the glass is always half full and NOT half empty. We always think so much ahead like “Oh what can we do more, more and more” and sometimes you need to appreciate what you have and what you have achieved. If you always think ahead you will never have time to enjoy the things in life and that would be stupid. SO chill, be happy and live your life to it fullest.
Would love to dive into some production talk. Can you describe the layers of the beat you created for ‘The Feelings’?
So we actually wrote and recorded the vocals over a more major funky production which we ended up not using because we thought we could make something more exciting and impressive. When we make music we have the tendency to make something a bit more minor so you get a mystery vibe. Back when we made the final production for “The Feelings” we thought that it would be cool so combine this major/minor vibe so it would become a song that was a bit mysterious in the verse and then in the build and drop you just wanted to dance like crazy. We really love the feeling you get from the song when the pluck melody comes in and indicates the energy is coming.
What about ‘The Feelings’ says Boye & Sigvardt?
The song is actually somehow a reminder for ourselves as well to live in the moment and enjoy all the good things both big and small that are happening to us. If you ever feel down about something go dance it out and don’t overthink. ( Of course a little hard right now;) )
How are people in Copenhagen adapting to quarantine? Are events going on?
Everything has been closed since March in Denmark/Copenhagen. All of our festivals and our club tour got canceled which we of course were super sad about like everyone else who got their shows canceled, but at least it has given us a lot of time to be in the studio and do our thing. We just hope for everyone that things soon will go back to a place where we can perform again.
I understand Copenhagen is a progressive city socially, economically and environmentally. What are some progressive concepts people in Copenhagen are pioneering?
Yea it’s a really cool city with a lot of good ideas. People are trying to rethink everyday life and how we can still have fun, but be responsible at the same time. BaneGaarden and Østergro are nice examples of restaurants that want more than just tasty dishes.
Østergro wants to take over rooftops with greens – creating small oases in the city and decreasing transport for food, and preventing the streets from flooding during rains. Banegaarden is a sustainable project situated in an old abandoned trailway-area focusing on ecological food as well as recycled materials, enlightening people and creating community spirit. Then there are a lot of cool things going on preventing food waste like Eat Grim and TooGoodTogo. We love Copenhagen :).
Who are some of your favorite local artists? What are some of your favorite clubs, events and festivals in Denmark?
There are soooo many amazing artists living in Denmark. If we talk about electronic music: Nonsens, Zookeepers, Toby Green, Faustix, Fabian Mazur, Snavs etc… if we talk rap music we have a guy called Artigeardit who is next level. There are just so many. We have a lot of cool clubs in Denmark. Most of them are a bit too commercial for our taste since we’ve been playing them before we started producing and releasing music. We have some really cool festivals in Denmark though who is all up for up and coming artists.
What artists have inspired you to create music?
Ohhh… There are so many again. If we talk about big artists we’ve always been super inspired by Calvin Harris and Disclosure. For us they are two artists that are always doing what they want to do and not trying to follow any trend which is super inspiring. Right now we live in a very digital world where every sample and almost every preset is available for download and the way they work with analog gear and their ability to tweak sounds to something new is next level.
What is next for Boye & Sigvardt? Who else do you have an eye on to collaborate with?
Well as many others we’re super excited for 2020 to be over so we hopefully can come out and play our new singles and our upcoming EP. We miss traveling to our favorite writers in the UK sooo much and just meeting new people in general. 2021 will be a year for us that will include at least 1 more club/festival EP and a couple of big features we can’t talk about yet, but yeah things are starting to look really exciting and we can’t wait to show everyone some of the new tunes we have lined up!
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