MP3: Sepalcure: "I'm Alright"

In the constantly shifting world of bass music-- where trends seem to expire about as quickly as a quart of milk-- Sepalcure's style is comparatively formalist. Producers Praveen Sharma and Travis Stewart make music that draws from sounds that should be familiar to those vaguely aware of the genre's hallmarks: pitched vocal samples, skittering footwork rhythms, the easy gait of UK garage, IDM's all-at-once franticness. As such, their excellent self-titled debut LP is inviting as it breathes romantic, rosy-cheeked new life into styles that some may have written off as old hat.

Stewart and Sharma initially established a friendship on the internet about eight years ago (Stewart originally hails from North Carolina; Sharma is from the upstate New York town of Hyde Park). They both started out releasing music separately through IDM-focused labels like Neo Ouija and Merck; Sharma currently produces under the Braille moniker, while Stewart released this year's very solid Room(s) as part of his long-running Machinedrum project.

Sepalcure follows the pair's two similarly successful EPs, Love Pressure and Fleur, but the project's future seems uncertain: Sharma currently calls NYC home, but Stewart recently moved to Berlin. And, as far as Sepalcure are concerned, neither is thinking too far ahead. We sat down with the pair in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood earlier this month and spoke about embarrassing screen names, what dubstep means now, horror movies, and more.

Watch the video for Sepalcure single "Pencil Pimp":

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Pitchfork: As listeners, how much of an effort do you guys make in keeping up with the trends in bass music?

Travis Stewart: I'm not concerned with it. Even if you did try to do the coolest new thing, by the time it gets released someone else has already done it. Why even bother?

Praveen Sharma: It's exhausting-- you don't end up enjoying it because it's changing so fast.

Pitchfork: A lot of bass music artists usually go the solo route, which you guys do as well, but how does your Sepalcure partnership work out creatively?

PS: It took us years to actually start making anything serious.

TS: It has a lot to do with maturing on our own. I don't think I would have been ready to collaborate with another electronic musician [when we started working together]. We try to always remind ourselves that this is for fun. We try not to pressure ourselves to have constant output, like a solo artist would.

Pitchfork: It seems like the notion of "fun" is somewhat touchy in certain spheres of dance culture.

TS: We got a bad writeup when we opened up at Jamie xx's release party in New York, something about how we were trying too hard by dancing around and having fun while Jamie just looked like he was barely trying and still moved the audience. Like, come on.

PS: You've got to have fun up there, man. When we do a Seplacure live set, it's a blast. It's amazing. You have an opportunity to play music to these people, and they're going to enjoy it.

MP3: Sepalcure: "Deep City Insects"

Pitchfork: Do you guys ever clash when working together?

TS: Only when we get really drunk.

PS: But we don't let it go that far-- it's like, "All right, let's go smoke a joint and watch a really bad horror movie."

Pitchfork: What's the worst horror film you've ever seen?

PS: A Nymphoid-Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell.

Pitchfork: Sounds like pornography to me.

TS: It ended up being not that pornographic.

Pitchfork: Were you disappointed?

TS: A little.

Pitchfork: How do you guys feel about the term "dubstep" at this point?

TS: It's definitely lost the dub element. It's become more of a testosterone-filled fighting match between producers to see who can make the gnarliest track and make people spit their bass face at shows. It has this appeal to college kids who've never really heard what actual dubstep sounds like, but let them have their fun.

PS: It might actually have something to do with a lot of the age restrictions on people going to these shows [in America]. Because, by the time they get to go to an electronic music show, they're all pent up and just want to go crazy, and this type of really heavy music caters to that. Going crazy is great, but people aren't allowed to find their taste by going to shows when they're 16 like they do in Europe.

Pitchfork: You both started out sharing your music with others through the internet. When did you get to a point where you felt comfortable playing it for people you knew in real life?

TS: A big reason I wanted to move [from North Carolina] to New York was to get rid of my car. But honestly, I miss just riding around the hood and having some friends get blunted and playing music for them. It's different now. As you get older, people shut up less when you're listening to music. They feel compelled to talk: "Oh, this sounds like it's coming from this genre and this artist's rendition of blah blah blah." I'm like, "Shut the fuck up!"

Pitchfork: Did you have embarrassing screen names when you were younger?

TS: Oh yeah-- Sonicp00pi.

Pitchfork: That is pretty terrible.

TS: And when I was really young, I downloaded something called "The Boob App." I made sure my dad wasn't around and then clicked on it-- and it opened up to a picture of boobs that you couldn't get out of. It took over our entire computer. That was not only the dumbest thing I did online; it was also the first time my dad noticed boobs on the internet.

Pitchfork: Some of the songs on Seplacure have pretty weird names__.__

TS: A lot of the time, you're working on the tune and you're like, "Fuck, we have to name the song now." We'll come up with something random, like "Carrot Man".

PS: I was cooking carrots that night. Gotta be honest, I make a mean roasted fucking vegetable dish.

TS: He was doing this little dance when he was cutting the carrots and I was like, "We got Carrot Man over here."

Pitchfork: Any rejected song titles?

PS and TS: "Grandpa Dingus and His Fertilizer Farm".