EchoStorms are Ben Locke and Katya Fadeeva. Born out of their mutual love for electronic music and informed by their disparate but complementary musical backgrounds, Echostorms make full-blooded, emotionally-charged dance music that incorporates elements of melodic techno, indie dance, and house, resulting in a highly distinctive and electrifying production aesthetic.
With a sound coined as cinematic tech house, EchoStorms presents their debut single, ‘Tidal Wave’, announcing the project in highly impactful fashion, inspired by Ben and Katya constantly traveling the world and absorbing cultural markers on their way.
Today, we sit down with EchoStorms to talk about the release of ‘Tidal Wave’, their unique bond, creative process, and learn more about their workflow.
Electronic Groove: Hi Katya! Hi Ben! It’s a real pleasure to have you down for a chat. How have you been lately? Where are you guys based right now?
EchoStorms: Hi Electronic Groove! Thanks so much for having us. We are very well thank you, busy with everything surrounding the ‘Tidal Wave’ release, preparing for the next ones, and doing DJ sets. We are currently by the sea in Bulgaria which is very beautiful and inspiring.
Electronic Groove: How is the night scene looking in Bulgaria? Are you guys optimistic about the current situation?
EchoStorms: That’s an interesting one – The Covid-19 restrictions in Bulgaria were never quite as severe as in most of the world. Clubs reopened here a few months ago and everything in that scene is pretty much back to normal. Speaking on a global scale, we are pretty optimistic things will return to normal fairly soon. They have to for the nightlife and dance music industry, from a live point of view, to rebuild its economy. It’s very encouraging to see big shows starting to happen again in America – seeing events such as Red Rocks going ahead and being so successful is very encouraging. It’s also very heartwarming to see everyone together again and enjoying doing what they love.
Electronic Groove: You both have got quite an interesting background. How did you each get started in music?
Ben: I was born into a musical family. My grandmother was a music teacher and I spent a lot of time with her as a child. She taught me everything about music from every perspective – playing the piano, music theory, the history of music. She gave me a very solid and well-rounded musical education and I owe a lot to her. She was an amazing woman.
Katya: I learned to play the piano when I was very young and later on learned how to play guitar. I used to organize house parties when I was at school and perform for everyone singing and playing guitar. Happy days!
Electronic Groove: When did you make that transition to electronic music? How did you discover that? Was there a track or record that kind of turned you to electronic dance music?
Ben: For me, it was in 2011/2012 when EDM was really exploding with phenomenal artists like David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia, and of course Avicii, who still inspires me today. I had just come out of a rock band that was signed to Universal and I was looking for new musical avenues to explore which excited me. I remember waking up one morning in a hotel in Poland and I’d left MTV on from the night before and as I was waking up I heard ‘Titanium’ for the first time and I thought ‘that’s what I want to do’. I wanted to make records as incredible as that and to touch people‘s lives globally the way that record did. I then started really diving into the world of house music, going on a musical journey through its history all the way back to artists like Frankie Knuckles, Erik Morillo, and Carl Cox. Within a year I was DJing at clubs like Pacha and Ibiza Rocks and I’ve been in love with creating and playing electronic music ever since then!
Katya: I moved to St Petersburg when I was 16 and lived with my sister who was already involved in the underground techno scene there. We started organizing raves together and I became very passionate about electronic music through this. Crazy times!
“As soon as we saw each other at the airport it was like being reunited with a long-lost best friend and the
chemistry was instant”
Electronic Groove: When did you meet each other? Did you hit it off right away? Or did the project take some time to evolve and develop?
EchoStorms: We met through a mutual friend online in 2019 and decided to meet each other halfway (Ben was in the UK and Katya in Russia) in Munich, Germany. As soon as we saw each other at the airport it was like being reunited with a long-lost best friend and the chemistry was instant. We ended up traveling to Paris together in a van and it was during that journey that EchoStorms was born. After that we went to St Petersburg and lived there for a month working on new material and absorbing the local culture before flying to the UK and spending six months there, continuing developing our sound and building our repertoire.
Electronic Groove: How do your personal experiences become a part of your music? Do you incorporate new concepts from your travels into it?
EchoStorms: All of our songs are about personal experiences. We are not afraid to tackle difficult subjects or experiences which might be a bit close to home in our music. We believe that the best songs are always written about things which you are passionate about or have affected your life.
Electronic Groove: Right now, you’re behind your brand new single, ‘Tidal Wave’. What’s this one all about? What was the inspiration for this one?
Ben: This song has a long and interesting story – I originally started work on this song when I was working with Timbaland and was asked to come up with some tracks to pitch for the new Birdy album – which was being executive produced by Ryan Tedder, who was Timbaland’s protege and at the time he signed to his label. Years later in 2020, Katya was going through loads of old demos, stumbled across the demo for ‘Tidal Wave’, and fell in love with the song. We then finished off the writing together and turned it into the banger that it is today!
Electronic Groove: Are you guys always in the same room/studio? Or do you sometimes have to work remotely? What is the workflow like? Do you guys have some kind of set roles?
EchoStorms: We are together 24/7 so no remote sessions are needed between us – only when we are collaborating with other artists, which we do via Zoom. We record everything in our mobile studio which we take everywhere on the road with us – we work in Logic and heavily use all the UAD plug-ins on our Apollo. For recording vocals, we use a Telefunken TF39 which is a wonderful tube microphone with a rich and crisp tone. We track through a Neve 1073 preamp and TubeTech CL1B compressor. Synth-wise, we use a Sequential Prophet 6 which is a wonderful combination of classic analog sound with modern versatility. We also use the brilliant and extensive Arturia V collection which is a fantastic reproduction of all the classic synths and always one of our go-tos, and of course, we also use Serum.
“All of our songs are about personal experiences. We are not afraid to tackle difficult subjects or experiences which
might be a bit close to home in our music“
Electronic Groove: We know there’s a lot coming in the next few months for you. What else is in store for EchoStorms this 2021? What new milestones are you looking forward to?
EchoStorms: We’re really excited about some collaborations we have coming out very soon – including a track with Chapter & Verse that’s coming out on Atlantic in September. We are also very excited about doing some live shows and especially about heading to America to tour this autumn.
Electronic Groove: Thank you for sitting down with us guys! We wish you all the best!
EchoStorms: Thank you so much, we wish you all the best too!
Echostorms’ ‘Tidal Wave’ and Chapter & Verse’s remix are out now via Dying Light Records. Purchase your copy here.
Follow Echostorms: Facebook | Instagram | Soundcloud | Spotify
