In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet.

This time we’re chatting to PELA, a south London duo twisting the landscape of modern electronic music.

Since the release of their debut single ‘You Got Me’, the pair have been turning heads around the music industry. They combine the warm pop vocals of Hannah Coombes with the impressive production skill of Olly Shelton to create a sonic palette that rings true of the likes of Cocteau Twins and KAYTRANADA while crafting a sound that is all their own. They seem to have a natural talent to bring out soaring, addictive melodies above fizzy electronic sounds, and have even enlisted the help of Dom Walker for the bouncy saxophone head on their latest track.

We caught up with the duo just before the release of their new single 'Reverie'.

***

TMR: We know that in PELA, Olly handles production and Hannah is in charge of vocals, but how rigidly do you stick to that? Do your responsibilities ever overlap?

O: It’s fairly loose really! We’re generally in the same room when we’re doing the bulk of writing /producing, so are constantly bouncing ideas off of each other. That said, Hannah definitely takes the lead on lyrics as she can really hone in on finding beautifully poetic ways to articulate a feeling, whereas I have the stubbornness, if you like, to spend 4 hours on a kick drum so take the lead on that kind of thing...

TMR: Where did the inspiration to bring the saxophone into ‘Reverie’ come from?

O: We played the track at a gig in Waterloo last summer with a friend of ours (shout out to Dom Walker). At the time, we thought the track was basically done as it was - but Dom started playing this really infectious riff the first time we rehearsed it and that was that - it had to go in the recording. I guess it’s one of those things where you don’t know something is missing until you stumble across what the thing missing actually is...now we couldn’t imagine the song without it!

TMR: Speaking of ‘Reverie’, how did you achieve that juddering synth sound that persists throughout the track?

O: I love being asked this question haha! Basically the quasi shaker / accordion / synth sound the track opens with is a just a heavily manipulated piano loop I recorded of the main riff (sidechained with a ghost kick to give that bouncing feel and then fed though Soundtoys’ Tremolator and various distortion emulations). The shaker sound is the hiss from these old ribbon mics I used, which when messed with in a certain way gives this really present, grooving feel to the whole thing. The Tremolator got a lot of use in this one generally to be honest - on the bass to give it that wobble, on an actually synth you hear in the first verse to give a juddery stereo feel, even on some of the reverb sends and added ambience, just to get everything glued and grooving as one.

TMR: What’s the story behind the artwork that accompanies the track?

O: So it’s actually some random house we saw on Venice Canals in LA... We thought it looked pretty cool with the boat hanging outside reflecting off the water and then started messing with it in some editing software to give it even more of a dreamy feel - I would definitely put it up there on a dream house list come to think of it. (On a closer look, it turned out there was a monkey jumping around inside the house...definitely not okay)

TMR: We recently featured ‘South Of’ over at TMR, which was the first track you wrote together- how did it come together?

O: Big thanks for the feature, feels amazing to have that track out in the world! I had a little room in a studio complex called Ten87 in Tottenham at the time and Hannah was coming up with the idea of working on her EP as a solo artist with me producing. Fairly early on we realised that we both had a similar range of influences and artistic visions and that it would make sense to go at it together - we haven’t looked back.



TMR: ‘You Got Me’ layers an addictive vocal melody over an atmospheric accompaniment. Which one came first?

O: It began as just piano - I sat down at the end of a long day, pressed record and ended up playing the whole take you hear on the track. We then built the vocals and atmospheric bits around that. It felt very natural throughout and as with all of our tracks, we like to keep those little imperfections in the recordings to give it that human touch. We’re not after the shiny clinical pop sound that fills the charts right now (although it’s very impressive from a production point of view of course). We just want to keep it as real as possible, like you’re in the room with us.

TMR: If each of you had to choose just one influence on your music, who would it be?

O: For me, I think it has to be Jon Hopkins... how the fuck does he make things sound so good??? Hannah says it’s an impossible question and is so unfair! ...but a huge influence would be Elizabeth Fraser, who spans Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack and This Moral Coil.

TMR: How has South London shaped your sound?

O: We’re surrounded by so many amazing artists, who just inspire us to keep creating music really. I’m not sure if the actual physical place has shaped our sound (although subconsciously it probably has), it’s more than we’re in a place that encourages us to discover the kind of sound we’re after, which feels more and more set with every track.

TMR: Has lockdown changed the way you approach music?

O: We’ve always had a pretty simple and portable setup that allows us to get the results you hear, so in many ways it hasn’t really changed. If anything, we’re lucky in the fact that we’ve been able to dedicate more time to PELA in this period and now have multiple tracks close to being release ready (along with countless ideas that came to nothing!), which obviously feels great! Generally I think a lot of our friends in music have adapted remarkably well to the situation we’re facing. That said, this time has also re-focused our energy into things that really matter - we care and need to do more for Black lives, for trans lives and the queer community - we are holding ourselves to account for how we truly enact our commitment to social justice. Although you get some people saying that artists should stay out of politics, we think we have a duty, no matter how small our platform, to say what we stand for - and this isn’t just ‘politics’, it's people’s lives.

TMR: How do you envision the music industry in a post-COVID world?

O: Ah I don’t know...a lot of people were quite positive about the whole bounce back for a time, which I’m sure will come and will be amazing...but it doesn’t look like it’s soon enough and I’m sure even when everything is lifted, a lot of people will still be wary of going to gigs etc and the industry as a whole will have taken a big blow. Fingers crossed for the best of course but I don’t really want to add to the mass speculation going on around the whole music-COVID-world thing.



***

-Dan Peeke