It’s only just come out, but the self-titled debut record from Azari & III was already nominated for the 2012 Juno Awards and Polaris Music Prize.
Azari & III (One-day stream)
Azari & III
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“We’ve seen the whole thing go down in E.U. and it’s a tougher sell in North America, but it’s looking big so far,” says Alixander III, one of the group’s two producers alongside Dinamo Azari. We’re sitting, along with vocalists Starving Yet Full and Fritz Helder, under red lighting surrounded by old, salvaged CBC studio panelling in one room of their west end Toronto recording studio. “Any time we’ve ever gone to the States it’s insane, the kids are so ready for it.”
The record — deft, slinky and sometimes ribald, a contemporary house music classic — was originally released overseas last summer, leading to international praise and rare domestic acclaim for an electronic album.
“It was nice, especially with the Juno [nomination], because the album wasn’t even available in Canada,” explains Helder. “And, thinking of it, the way we’re doing it is a nice old-school way of releasing a record.”
For what the group is calling the “official release,” Azari & III comes out on Tiga’s Turbo Recordings in Canada and Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak in the U.S. They’ll celebrate by co-headlining an eight-date Sonar Festival tour of North America with Die Antwoord, including stops in Toronto (Nov. 1) and Montreal (Nov. 3).
The Barcelona-based music fest is a premiere name for electronic acts. “In some ways, this tour is a dream come true,” says Alixander III. “Because you can prepare for the harsh reality of putting out your record and planning shows and who knows what the attendance will be like? So this is like a proper, can’t-go-wrong scenario to introduce us to America.”
Touring with DJs like Tiga and Paul Kalkbrenner on Sonar means the group is going rawer, though no less bombastic, with their live show. “We don’t want to be the band that takes forever to set up,” says Alixander III.
“We’ve got different layouts but for this one we went with raw, ghetto appeal. Very straight-up North American, bomber jackets,” says Azari.
“It’s going to be really stripped back,” adds Helder. “Like a rave."
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