Make Some Noise

Montreal-based duo Botnek, aka Erick Muise and Gordon Huntley, has been one of the most prominent noisemakers in 2013 thanks to their massive original track, Through The Night, and a whole host of remixes for artists including Porter Robinson and DallasK. Now they're finishing off the year by heading to our shores to play their first shows in Australia ever. “Twenty-thirteen is a lot of firsts for us,” says Muise. “It's our first time in Asia as well. I can imagine it's going to be a great change from playing in North America, the obvious difference being it'll be summer when we're in our Canadian winter. But all our DJ friends we've talked to have said the gigs and the people are incredible. We have a surprisingly strong following in Australia so we can't wait to get down there and see it for ourselves!”

The band recently released their I Know/Through The Night EP through EDM heavyweight Steve Aoki's Dim Mak label, Aoki recently giving them a huge leg up when he invited them along for the final dates of his Aokify tour. “Steve is great. He's all about making Dim Mak into a family, and we were honoured to be brought along since this was our first experience with a major bus tour and playing in stadiums. We got a chance to show our music to some pretty huge crowds and played some of our best shows to date on the tour. So we definitely would love to be a part of anything he does in the future.”

Muise says the recording process for the new EP took over a year, with the band recording in various locations including on their European tour last year. “I Know was started years ago in a hotel in Milan, and Through The Night was started over a year ago based around a sample from a rave vinyl,” he explains. “With almost every idea we care about, we tend to work on them over time, perfecting them. To have them finally released after working so long on them is awesome; time now for a follow-up.”

Huntley says when it comes to working with other artists the duo still prefers the more dynamic nature of collaborating on a track rather than just another remix. “Collaborations for us are more organic. We have an upcoming collaboration with Snails that started simply as us helping him with the mix of a house track he started. But as we got to working with it we realised this had to be a collaboration since we had so many ideas for it.  

While they'll certainly be dropping some of these tracks when they tour, Muire adds they'll have plenty of other new material on offer too. “We're planning to show off a lot of new music we've been hiding. We're finishing up a pretty diverse EP right now and the plan is to have it out before Miami and the summer festival season. After that, who knows?”