Interview with Thin King

Interview with Thin King

Hailing from Italy, Thin King drop their anticipated new EP on promo & in doing so – continue to lay out their musical agenda.

Following on from the revered Somethinks EP, which picked up plenty of love & lit up radio airwaves worldwide, their forthcoming Leafless EP continues the theme & in fine style. Producing a sublime blend of electronica that is both versatile & forward thinking in its approach – Thin King’s signature sound is one that traverses across varying soundscapes & not clearly defined by one style.

From the aptly titled opening track ‘Leafless’, through to the more melancholic ‘Can’t See’, the duo based out of Torino deliver a whole host of vibes across the extended player & set themselves up for further support in the weeks ahead.

Hey guys, welcome to Artist Rack! How’s it going?

Thanks for inviting us! It’s a moment full of surprises. After being focused on our music and signature sound for a few years, we started releasing studio productions. Now we are happy for gathering the early results.

How did you meet exactly & was there an instant musical alliance?

It’s a fairly curious story, we met in high school. We basically started messing around with the Op-1 synthesizer during lessons. Passion and union have been maintained over time but rarely expressed because of the two different paths of studies we took at the university. After a while we started making music with the laptop but we felt we need more. We started running our project as a musical duo that produces and performs electronic music coupled with visuals and photography. So it’s hard to tell about a specific moment but, if there was, it would probably be when we wrote our first EP in Milan, during a strange day with sun and rain at the same time.

Tell us about your new EP “Leafless” & how you achieved it’s eclectic mix of sounds?

’Leafless’ is the result of a few months of work. It’s the first piece of music we cowrote
inside our actual studio, so we feel it special.
It was during the building of the studio, we were sketching ideas. The vision we had on this EP, and with writing our music in general, comes from story telling; we are trying to represent moments with sounds, arranging them as the story unfolds, so every section evolves every time that brings us back.

In other words, we are trying to create the contrast between happiness, melancholy and all the emotions through synthesizers, sound design, field and studio recordings. We take care of the entire process of creation, from the first sound to the mix & master; we feel this way we have a wider opportunity to express ourselves. We are glad you loved it!

Where did the name Thin King come from & what inspired it ?

The curious fact about our name is in plain sight, the ‘Thin King’ can be read in two different ways: we decided to use it because of its ambivalent meaning. ‘Thin’ and ‘King’ are at odds, as we like to couple distant moods; moreover the word ‘thinking’ calls the action of reflection and thoughts, which is something we really like to do when we talk about music.

Back to the past, as we said before, we met in high school and that’s the place where our name really born: Riccardo used to play with words and noticed this semantic singularity. Starting form that point the name has floated over years until it found its own dimension.

What additional insider background can you tell us about Thin King?

Our musical duo is based on two backgrounds, pretty different in some ways. Starting from our musical taste Riccardo always used to listen to alternative and indie music, I was more on the electro side of electronic music. After high schools we took different ways, Riccardo went to degree in Industrial Design at IAAD in Turin, while nurturing his passion for photography. I went to Sae Institute in Milan for two years for the degree in Audio Production and Creative Media Industry. The experiences we had in the past are crucial for our actual musical approach, finally we are able to complement each other with different skills.

What was it like growing up in Italy, What can you tell us about the music scene there?

It’s been great man! We are happy and feel lucky to live here, and we love our hometown, Turin is a really inspiring place: We got the hills, mountains, flat lands and a river, what more can we ask for?

In Italy we don’t have a specific culture defined by the electronic scene, we have many artist who are making music and developing their brand to get heard in foreign countries. In general if we are talking about electronic music, the large majority of the population is linked to the techno-side but always addicted to the Italian Pop music. In the last period we are facing a new beginning for our country: Italian songwriters have
finally been influenced by electronic music.

Are there remixes on the agenda for any of the three EP tracks?

For this EP we have decided not to have remixes, since it’s our second EP: we want the people to focus on our signature sound. But for the next EP, we will release a pack of interesting remixes from our hometown artists whom we share the passion for making music like HolyU, Hypsidia and Luigi.

What have been your highlights of the year so far?

It’s hard to tell which are our favourites, it’s an intense journey! We began the year focusing on the release of this EP and we played at our first Release Party at IQOS Embassy in Turin. It has been great experience, with the help of the people and the fans who joined us we settled up a wonderful atmosphere, here is a shot!

We will share in the next weeks on our youtube channel more live performances of the EP. During the party we were able to release the “Can’t See” musical video thanks to the work ofthe Wide Eyes Factory team.

And finally, any further release plans for 2018?

We got our next release in one month and we will not say were it’s going to be released but we can say it’s a collaboration born during a jamming session with HolyU in our studio.

Thanks guys for having us!

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