We were lucky enough to chat with Oh Boy about his experience making the project and the story and creative process behind all of the tracks.
Sydney/Eora based producer Oh Boy has consistently proven himself as a pioneer in this cities alternative electronic music space. Having joined forces with the likes of Cub Sport, Golden Vessel, Mallrat, and BLESSED in the past, he's ignited stages and listeners alike with his unique knack for left-field production, high energy rhythms and subtle yet profound incredible songwriting abilities.
For his new EP, he's teamed up with locally adored favourite Ninajirachi for 4 tracks of pure, unadulterated dance bliss. The track-list explodes with glitchy, galactic goodness, tapping early noughties nostalgia to showcase a brand of electronic club music that is equal parts awe-inspiring and club banger worthy tracks.
We were lucky enough to chat with Oh Boy about his experience making the project and the story and creative process behind all of the tracks.
Commenting on the overall creation of the EP, Oh Boy stated, "Angels Only 2001 was made during the pandemic we are still currently dealing with, when I first had the idea for the project the demo was called "for when we are allowed to dance again" and I think that conveys exactly how I was feeling when I was creating it.
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"My production roots stem from creating club music and it feels good to be in touch with that while branching my creativity in so many other directions right now."
"I owe a lot to Ninajirachi when it comes to Angels Only 2001 as you can see, she's featured on every song. I hadn't been focusing on making club music for some time but Nina and I being so close and sharing so many interests, especially within the music we listen to really made me think of my production with the club in mind again."
"In combination with the pandemic we are still in and playing club DJ sets online at parties like Club Quarantine and Club Immaterial creating Angels Only 2001 felt really natural to be honest. The challenges from the outside channelled the project within me from the inside, that's usually how the majority of music comes about anyway though right?"
Catch Oh Boy breaking down his EP track by track below.
Winx Club is our official entry song for the Eurovision Contest. Here's why...
Winx Club came out of nowhere to be honest. It was the last track I had started for the project and had no intention of making a song like this at the time yet it inspired the next 5 or so songs I've been involved with. One night I had gotten these chords down and I felt like it sounded a little trancy (I had been listening to Bladee a lot, especially the 'Good Luck' project with Mechatok) and it kind of clicked that I needed make it 4 to the floor, add organ bass and get Cult Shotta on it.
I sent the demo to Cult Shotta and after a positive reaction had a vocal demo back a few days later. When he sent it back a reply was attached saying "I went Eurovision for this sh*t". I showed it to Nina and with Eurovision in mind we got to work and now we have Winx Club. My favourite lyric is at the start of the song when Charlie says "the world sucks, burn it all, start again, take it from the top". At one stage we wanted to take out that line and Nina and I were both like "NO NOT HAPPENING" hahahah.
Vibrate was the first song I started and completed on Angels Only 2001. I started it after hanging out with Nina one day. It was a straight club track with a vocal sample looping throughout and I decided I wanted to fill the track with phone sounds (something I've done before with my production if you look back far enough). Nina came over like a week later and I showed her and she said "would it be weird if I kind of rapped over this?". We removed the vocal sample and she recorded Vibrate within like 10 minutes. We added and subtracted a few things production wise and that was it. My favourite part of the song is literally just Nina saying "F*ck my phone off". I think the majority of people need to hear that these days.
Angel Tattoo in reality is Nina and I being huge Lonelyspeck stans. I hadn't heard their music before but had seen the name around and Nina told me to listen to them one day and so I listened to the Abyssal Body EP and was shocked at how incredible it was. After that I had worked on the instrumental for Angel Tattoo and sent it to Nina and she said it was one of her fav beats I've ever made so I sent it to her and she wrote a verse for it and I had sent it to Lonelyspeck too who agreed to write a verse and then we were just so happy that we were both on the same song as Lonelyspeck. I got an angel tattoo on my stomach purely for the single art for this song LOL.
This edit of Winx Club purely for lil golo, if you know lil golo, you'll know it makes perfect sense, if you don't know lil golo, look him up. I wrote this EP when it felt like we couldn't express ourselves dancing and being out like we used to be able to do, so I want Angels Only 2001 to give everyone hope that we will be allowed to dance again, and it's going to be so much fun. Also listen to the lyrics, they have more depth than you think <3.
Image via Claire Mooney
Words by Parry Tritsiniotis
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