Interview: AIRMOW – "At night, I find that I ask myself a lot less questions and I give way to my creativity"

Von Sarah Weinberg| 23. Mai 2022

AIRMOW ist ein Musiker und Musikproduzent aus Paris. Seine Heimat fand der Künstler in der elektronischen Musik. Im Interview mit Old Vinyl spricht AIRMOW alias Antonin unter anderem über seine musikalischen Anfänge, Lieblingskünstler und seinen Song "NUIT".

Seine Debüt-EP "RUPTURE" veröffentlichte AIRMOW 2021 via CloudKid, nachdem er in der Trap / Future-Bass-Szene mit diversen Remixes auf sich aufmerksam machte. Es folgten die Singles „ROUGE“, "NUIT", „MARBRE“ und „HALLUCINATION“. Mit diesen Songs markiert AIRMOW den Start seines neuen Projekts "DYSTOPIE"; ein Album, das Ende Mai erscheinen wird.

Der moderne, teilweise rätselhafte und bedrohliche Sound soll die Zuhörer:innen in eine neue Welt entführen. Eine Welt mit neuen Klängen und Gefühlen; skeptisch, bedrückend aber auch hoffnungsvoll. Inspiriert wird er durch die Außenwelt; unter anderem von der französischen Modeindustrie, aber auch von Sountracks und Filmmusik düsterer Filme und analogen Synthesizern.

Old Vinyl: Hey Antonin, thank you for answering some questions for us. How are you doing at the moment?

AIRMOW: I’m good ! Thanks for asking 😉. I'm working on a lot of new stuff lately! Can’t wait to share it with everyone.

Old Vinyl: When did you start making music and producing music? What was your inspiration / motivation to start?

AIRMOW: My father is a pianist and I was a huge fan of Hip Hop and Electronic Music when I was at school. I have always been surrounded by music in my childhood. I was also really interested by softwares and new technologies. I tried a lot of software such as Sony Vegas Pro, Photoshop, Final Cut etc. for fun.

I started producing music 7 years ago. When I came across a video from the French artist Madeon using a launchpad to create a dope mashup called “Pop Culture” on YouTube. I immediately wanted to try this machine and bought one.

I started to do some mashups by making cuts and assembling pieces of different tracks. I did my first mashup and shared it with my friends. I finally wanted to really create my own music by using VST and do real compositions and I downloaded FL STUDIO software.

Step by step, I started to produce my own trap beats that I uploaded on YT under my first alias “Technixbeatz”. I released almost 100 beats on YT and did some placements for rappers. Step by step, my beats became more and more creative and didn’t sound like basic trap beats. It was finally impossible to write anything on it as a rapper haha.

I had a lot of electronic influences and was really interested by electronic music and film music. One day, trap nation decided to upload one of my remixes that I did with the French artist “Afterfab” and I finally decided to create my own tracks and no “beats” destined to send it to someone else.

Old Vinyl: Can you describe the process of writing and producing a song?

AIRMOW: I don't have any particular process to start a track production-wise but I always start with a vibe in mind. Lately, I’ve been composing more with pictures / videos in the background as a means to immerse myself into a particular universe. I watch some fashion shows, shots from films, original video clips etc. without any sounds on Youtube or other platforms.

I also do a lot of “sound design sessions” to create sounds/synths and atmosphere that I will use when I do a composition/production session. It really helps me to improve my sounds and be inspired faster when I start something new.

Lately, I receive a lot of requests from brands to compose music for their commercials, so I also create some totally different sounds and synths for them that I re-use and improve for Airmow. Working with other artists (as producer or as main artist/collab) also really helps me to open up to other styles and change my way of seeing things.

Old Vinyl: Where are you recording your songs?

AIRMOW: I have my own studio where I produce 90% of my stuff but I like to go to different studios to try news synths and create news sounds.

Old Vinyl: Describe your music in 3 words!

AIRMOW: Enigmatic, Threatening and Dark.

Old Vinyl: What was your inspiration for the song NUIT?

AIRMOW: The song translates into the word ‘night.’ Nighttime is my favorite time of the day, because it’s when I’m the most creative and uninhibited. At night, I find that I ask myself a lot less questions and I give way to my creativity. Writing this piece took an all-nighter and a few more days of finetuning. Relating to that process, the track is about discovering an unknown world that is both wonderful and huge, but that can also be threatening and disturbing. ‘NUIT‘ proposes a vision of a less apocalyptic world than my previous track ‘ROUGE,’ but the vision I had for both tracks remains, nevertheless, very dystopian. This was very inspired by movies like Blade Runner, Dune & The Matrix.

Old Vinyl: Who is your biggest critic and why?

AIRMOW: One of my friends called Thomas (his artist name is VOG) was a real mentor for me and taught me a lot of things about music and production. He is also a kind of big father for me. He always pushes me and gives some really interesting feedback and advice to my productions and my mixdown.

Old Vinyl: Imagine you are hosting your own music festival. Which three headline artists / bands would you book to play?

AIRMOW:

• JUSTICE
• GESAFFELSTEIN
• SEBASTIAN

Three french artist that are a huuuge inspiration for me!

Old Vinyl: What are your three favorite records of all time?

AIRMOW: It’s a really hard question because it depends of my mood etc. but here are three tracks that I've listened to a loooooot recently:

• Oklou – God’s Chariot
• Gesaffelstein – Lost In the Fire (with TheWeeknd)
• 070 SHAKE – Guilty Conscience
• Stephan Bodzin – Boavista

It’s 4 😉

Old Vinyl: Please finish the following sentences:

• If the song “NUIT” was a drink, ... it would be Ayahuasca, a South American (pan-Amazonian) psychoactive brew used both socially and as ceremonial spiritual medicine among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. It is extremely psycho active and it transports the one who drinks it into a totally different universe. It is a real journey. That’s what I want to share with tracks like “NUIT” or “ROUGHE” (which transport the listener in an apocalyptic world).

• A language I would love to be able to speak perfectly ... is English. In France, we are really bad at English and it’s really important to speak English perfectly as a music producer.

• A song that will always be stuck in my head is ... definitely Oklou - God’s Chariot. I listened to it thousands of times. It is both bewitching and powerful. I love it!

• Something that will always motivate me is ... money & fame! Joke haha. Just making music and keep enjoying it.

Old Vinyl: What are your musical goals for 2022?

AIRMOW: I will release my next project soon 😈. I want this project to mark a real step up for Airmow so I'm working a lot on it with my team. I work closely with the Label Cloudkid to develop and push this project and with my friend Valentin Houee that helped me a lot to develop the project too. I never thank them enough for all the help on this project.

I'm also working on a lot of other projects. I'm working on differents commercials (I already did a XIAOMI TV commercial) and I'm also producing and composing for other Artists such as ROSENFELD and some other upcoming artists.

Old Vinyl: A last message to our readers?

AIRMOW: Thanks to Old Vinyl for this interview! The questions are really interesting and it’s a pleasure to be a part of this blog. The concept is dope! Hope you enjoy reading this interview! 😉

Old Vinyl: Last but not least - please draw what you associate with your single NUIT!