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Elvin Estela, aka Nobody, and singer Niki Randa are Blank Blue. “Western Water Music Vol. II” dives deep into psychedelic and folktronic music. Estela describes it “as psychedelic bass music because there are the two things that matter to me when I’m listening to music.” Hard pressed to pigeon-hole the album Estela says “I would describe it as psychedelic bass music because there are the two things that matter to me when I’m listening to music. Gotta’ love the bass, gotta’ love the layers, and my third eye’s gotta love it too.” He adds, “This is my dream record. I’ve always wanted to have a concept record that revolved around one theme. I feel that this is the first record that I’ve done where I understand the song making process more than ever. In previous albums I would learn as I went along. With Blank Blue, I knew what I wanted to do going into it. I am also more inspired by the present than the past right now as well as the concept of future music. I feel that Los Angeles is just starting its incline with a new generation of awesome electronic artists that I can luckily call me peers. I am inspired by what’s going on around me right now, and I am happy to do my take on what’s happening and put my spin on it. I’m also very lucky that one of my good friends ended up being my main collaborator, as I don’t think the record would have come out the same if I didn’t fully trust Niki and her ideas and vice-versa.” In addition to touring around the world, Estela also kept himself busy between Ubiquity releases with multiple side-projects including the 2005 b-sides album And Everything Else on the Los Angeles-based Plug Research label and in 2006 a full length collaboration with Mystic Chords of Memory Tree Colored See on Mush. He also released a collection of his remixes on Plug Research featuring reworks of acts as disparate as Postal Service, Phil Ranelin, The Free Design and Her Space Holiday. In 2007 he was involved with his first hip-hop project since Soulmates, his debut for Ubiquity in 2000, working on Busdriver’s critically acclaimed Roadkillovercoat on ANTI/Epitaph. |
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