elektro exclusive: Filtercrush “Bootleg Pack 2013″ + Interview

New York duo Filtercrush have become known for the high octane sets. Every time Filtercrush takes the stage, you can expect to hear their energetic original tracks, as well as some of their brilliant bootlegs. Now, they have teamed up with us to put together a package of incredible bootlegs that they use to get the party started wherever they grace the decks. Check out the release and its tracklist below!

Tracklist:
1)Cango Lights Alive (Filtercrush Bootleg) - Pelari x Steve Angello & Third Party x Krewella
2)Believe in Kemi (Filtercrush Bootleg) - Marcus Schossow & Sebjak x NERVO, Norman Doray, CLMD
3) I Could Be Jumangee (Filtercrush Bootleg) - DubVision vs Nicky Romero & Avicii vs Wayne & Woods, Henrix
4) Give It All Soon (Filtercrush Bootleg) - Don Diablo & CID x David Guetta, Sebastian Ingrosso, Dirty South
5) Just One Last Timephonica (Filtercrush Bootleg) - Hard Rock Sofa & David Guetta x Nicky Romero
6) Taitolight (Filtercrush Bootleg) - Mord Fustang x Don Diablo & Matt Nash

PLUS: Two exclusive edits frequently featured in live sets:

Kardiac (Filtercrush Bootleg) - John Dish x Arston
Release Me Alive (Filtercrush Deepleg) - Foamo x Krewella

Interview with Filtercrush

Elektro: Tell us about crush

We have been DJing individually for about the past three years now, playing at various spots in the city. I met musha outside of Lavo, the night I was playing with Arty.

M- It was March 2012

Yeah he is Mr. Russian going to see a Russian. It was his first time at lavo; he was bugging out. So I was outside and some promoter chick came up to me and said I have this kid, he makes music.

M- She actually brought me to Lavo for the first time after hearing my music. I was producing alone too then nothing really big. I would send my stuff to blogs the first year of producing.

I had seen her at a few parties, and she said you’ve got to meet this kid! I said alright, alright. At that time I had a lot of people sending me music asking what I thought. It either sucked and I never got back to them or I told them it was cool and stuff.

M- I literally played my soundcloud outside off my phone.

Yea we were sitting outside smoking cigarettes geeking out about music, he was showing me his thing and I though wow this is pretty good. The next day he sent it to and I listened to it in the studio, and I was like yo! For me the background is all engineering but his background was all music so as I was listening to it I could tell the engineering wasn’t there 100% but he was shooting ideas and I knew if it was engineered properly it would be sick. So then I kind of took over the engineering side, sound design and was pushing one way or this way using his music, getting sounds together. Really just putting everything together in one so it was a complete package as far as the sound goes.

M- The best of both worlds!

Yeah so its been a little over a year now. In the beginning we didn’t really have that much stuff out because everyone wanted to do originals at the time

M- In the beginning we were trying to go to serious mode right away. Lets do originals, lets do EPs of this and that but we were working together but we didn’t really know each other till we could read each other’s minds. We didn’t really find our sound yet so we were doing that for a couple months.

We had a mentality that we were going to make this one banger like levels and sell out, play at ultra and other festivals. We thought someone was going to pick it out of the crowd and we quickly learned things were not going to be like that. We met up with a friend of ours Jamie _____, he knows a lot of people in the industry, and he heard us so we got lunch sometime, sat down came up with a game plan and he was like look you guys need to start with stuff that people know first, put your spin on it

M- We had actually just finished a remix of Nervo and Norman Duray, something to believe in. One of my favorite blogs, beat my day, put out the studio acapella for free through the artist and I downloaded it the first day and we made that. It was okay, it was pretty good but that is what Jamiee heard first.

Yea and then my girlfriend who is a big fan of Rihana said we should do a remix of Stay and I listened to it, there was no drums in it, it was kind of a blank slate with piano and her singing. So we knew it would be easy to do a bootleg with it. But chicks love this song, so you know if you’re at a club and someone drops it they will have to switch out or scratch it and go into something else because there was no club friendly version of it. I would love to play that kind of stuff at lavo too because that would be a great way to change the pace of the night. So we just figured out how much we could pitch it or speed it up where it didn’t sound too bad. We took the blank slate and added a bunch of strings and some bass under it and little drums but it had the song that people knew and then it rams up to the progressive house sound.

M- In her original there was an acoustic piano so we had to keep it acoustic with cellos and orchestras and sounds like small margin drum, lots of acoustic stuff into an epic drum.

That worked, we put that up. We got like 10 blogs who posted it.

M- We got like two and a half thousand friends just from that one song

For our first track we got like 30,000 plays in a month, which was huge because we went from no one listening to our music to people actually liking our stuff.

M- Stuff we put out before that in 6 months maybe got like 60 plays.

Yea so we did that and realized this formula worked so we did a remix of Bruno Mars, which blew up even bigger than the other one. Vibe put something out and it was nice because it was the first time we had any publication. Then we started putting out other stuff

M- The third song was "Play Hard"

Yea at that point Jamiee had been talking to Krewellas tour manager, actually their manager Jake and he said he really digged our stuff and he said we should do this that etc. Then he gave us an acapella and he said I want to see what you guys can do with this

He wanted to see how fast we could do something with it

He gave us Play Hard acapella and he said he loved it, they were bugging out about it so we put that one out there too and right after that we switched gears. We did a remix of monster cat, with a dubstep producer

We did some new stuff, kind of went a little bit darker a little harder. Steering away from the top 40 track, we were kind of worried that it would not go anywhere but it was one of the most popular on the remix EP, youtube followers, it was the only club song,whereas the others were dubstep or trap or some crazy candyland, it was cool but it literally sounded like a machine gun. We were originally progressive so it was our first non-commercial song.

Tom Swoon told me at lavo he loved the original when he heard it in July or June. He was so happy to find our remix. After sending our new stuff to a lot of artists and record labels we received a lot of feedback saying we need locals or that DJs would have to change some things to play it. But then we heard that Tom Swoon dropped it at a show soon after he opened for Avicii. It was nice because we were feeling discouraged but it was nice to get recognized and he played it again at the sunrise festival. We heard that on the radio.

We searched his tracklist for sunrise festival and I was scrolling and scrolling and was becoming discouraged after not seeing anything but then clarity ID remix came up.

So he came recently to play at lavo where I was playing with him so I hit him up on facebook and asked him what do you think about this idea. I found the clarity acapella, the original acapella, and we made it sound like an official remix with the back overtone. So we asked how would you feel to do a collab with this and he was like yeah lets do it. Its nice because he has a lot of people who play his stuff so it will be a good opportunity for us to let some of the gods of the EDM world to hear some of our stuff. So we have that coming up and we also have a remix with these two or three guys raveradio. We did a song with Chris ____ vocals. A lot of people are using these vocals; they are really good. I think quintino, us and a bunch of other guys are doing remixes. But we will change the sound, a little darker but still progressive.

M- We always evolve but keep elements that work so we are going from day to night but slowly getting there.

We have been using the same kick drum for the last five remixes because it just works.

M- kick drums are just one of those things that never change. Probably 80-90% of the popular songs out there that have been on beatport top 10 all probably use four different kick drums because a kick drum just always sounds good.

So we just took three different ones and made them our own. So we have that track and we are doing a bootleg pack that is coming out soon we just have 8 or 9 edits. We have mashups we have played live, a couple of cool ones. Ill show you those. We are really happy we just did a deep house one that we have been playing at our opening sets where we took the vocal that everyone knows over a deep house track so its really kind of funky.

M- It really hits you out of no where because it is such a popular vocal, very popie/comerical sounding it sounds so different its smooth and sexy because its lower and just mashes.

So that’s what we have coming up. Some more possible collabs

Elektro: So one cliché question- How did you guys com up with the name? Your image?

The image is changing everyday. We are not at the point where we have a brand. We just let the music speak for itself. The name actually came from.

M- we were trying to figure out some names and we were trying really hard to not come up with anything super corny

If you look at a DJ 1000 mixer there is the effects section, there is one that says filter and one that says crush. Its normally crush on the left, filter on the right on the pioneer mixer. And we said it just makes sense crush filter didn’t sound good so we switched them. Those are the buttons we use most.

And it sounded cool right away so we just went with it.

Elektro: In your life sets, what do you guys drop? Do you guys keep it similar all the time or do you switch it up?

M- Well the most important thing is to read a crowd

That for us is the big thing. A lot of DJs and even big producers will have a set that is all right you can see the playlist with the date and tracks.

M- a lot of the bigger names usually play more festivals and they will come to lavo and you will see their playlist will say EDC vegas or tomorrowland. A lot of DJs say in interviews they are playing live sets because there are lights and the screen to synchronize. In general, festivals are usually more planned where as the club is really more like doing it on the fly

I grew up as a club kid not really festivals but for him it’s the same thing. We are more into the club crowd and you really need to cater because sometimes people are more into the vocally stuff where other times you can go a little bit harder. Sometimes halfway through the set ill break into a trap thing and play 3 or 4 trap songs and everyone will back into it.

M- Its all about the people on the dance floor and these days they have a short attention span so if you don’t keep them engaged and do something new every 3-5 min you loose them and if you loose them then yea. Its easier to keep it fresh then to get them back once you loose them.

At a festival everyone paid a couple hundred bucks and they are all fucked up and going ape shit for being a festival so DJs cant do that much wrong. Who ever is playing you’re having fun

Whereas in NYC at a club you can always hop in a cab and 5 minutes later you can be in a new club. You have to keep everyone standing around at a club with their cell phones it’s the hardest to keep their attention.

We keep it progressive, with a lot of vocals.

But a track with a big epic build up after playing song after song after song can give people a change to get super excited then go back into the super fast mixing thing. In general it is very melodic, big room, progressive, some electro sometimes, super hard stadium banger.

Its tough especially in NY because if people don’t know the track you’re playing like I was playing reload before it went to #1 on beatport and people didn’t really know it so they weren’t really into it but three weeks later I dropped it again and that was after it blew up and everyone was crazy about it. It was the same record and probably a lot of the same people that heard it but its just knowing what is being played engages people differently. Something when it comes to who is playing. It kind of changes peoples perspective.

Festivals people are fucked up so they don’t even care but in a club you know if people don’t like what you’re playing because either the managers or the people there will let you know.

Elektro: There will be some dudes willing to pay you $100 to play "Levels."

M- Or play start it from the bottom

Elektro: Anything crazy you guys experience while playing live? Or odd?

Sometimes we get ridiculous requests its kind of tuff because I’ve been in clubs so long so something that someone may seem ridiculous I’m just kind of used to it. You know, it happens. But other people would be thrown off by it. I mean the stuff that kind of throws me off is that the same time is when big DJs show up. Like this one time I had Tiesto show up and he just sat with the owners of the club. Since I was 16 or 17 I was buying tickets to see tiesto play at Avalon so I had one of the guys I grew up listing to sitting there listening to your set

Two weeks ago I was playing with Paris and Simo at Lavo, and one of the songs I played was black eyes and blue by Carl Louis & Martin Danielle and I was playing it and someone pressed me on the shoulder and it was Martin Danielle from CLMD and he said, "Hey I’m Martin, thanks for playing my song." I was like so thrown off and they guy who made it pressed me on the shoulder. That is a really awesome thing.