Arms and Sleepers, the ambient-electro Boston duo consisting of Max Lewis and Mizra Ramic, are unveiling their new album, Matador, on Wednesday at the Middle East upstairs. The band started out in 2006, and Matador will be their 8th release to date. They were featured in The Boston Phoenix Fall Arts preview as a local band to keep an eye out for, and for good reason. Their new album is the perfect mix of trippy and relaxing, the kind of music you need to listen to on a rainy day with the outside world washing away.
Lewis and Ramic took some time to answer our questions about the new album and its variations from their last full length album "Black Paris 86," as well as their inspirations (damn good music and movies to inspired by).
Come celebrate their new release before they move up the coast, and eventually out to Europe where they will tour from December to January!
BBC: How did you first find each other? What kinds of musical backgrounds did you start out with?
A+S: We both went to the same high school, though we weren't really good friends back then. We started working together musically once we were in college, in various bands, until finally deciding to just write music on our own. I (Mirza) have been playing classical piano since the age of 7, and Max has been playing guitar since the age of 10, so we both got started with music early on.
BBC: You’ve only put out one full length CD and an EP, but already you’ve gotten yourselves known as an up and coming force in the ambient-electronic genre. How do you feel about the new album and how it will differ from your older material?
A+S: Well, we've actually had a bunch of EPs since 2006... a total of 7 releases not counting the new record. Some of these might go unnoticed as they are hand-made type releases in very limited editions. But yes, most of the focus has been on our first EP and our last full-length, "Black Paris 86." We feel great about the new album, it's definitely different from our previous releases in that it has many more vocals and also instrumentation that we did not use in the past recordings. We still think it maintains the general vibe of what we do, but just done a bit differently.
BBC: Are you satisfied with the new album?
A+S: Yes, we're very happy with how it turned out! We've been working on it for a while now, so we're excited to have it released and have people finally hear it.
BBC: What are some of your favorite tracks?
A+S: I think the tracks that we are really thrilled with are those that had contributions from other artists, so songs like "The Architekt," "Simone," Helvetica," and "Twentynine Palms."
BBC: How has the transition from do-it-yourself to studio produced work been?
A+S: We've actually continued to record everything on our own. For this last album, we recorded in our home studio once again, except for vocals which were done in various parts of the country. So the do-it-yourself mentality is still very much there!
BBC: How was touring with people like Asobi Seksu and the Books? Are you excited to start touring primarily on your own?
A+S: We've done tours on our own before, so we have a pretty good idea of how things work when on the road by ourselves. We've only done single shows with the Books and Asobi Seksu, but have toured with Lymbyc Systym, Birthmark, Jacob's Stories, and are looking forward to touring the US in December with The American Dollar and touring Europe/UK in January with Ben Shepard of Uzi & Ari.
BBC: There are a lot of bands whose sound I could say remind me of yours, but there is something more space-y and almost trippy about Arms and Sleepers. Do you have any specific artists you are inspired by? Any certain sound you are going after?
A+S: We both have been inspired musically by a lot of different artists, but also film has been very important in our creation of music. For music, it's been artists such as Max Richter, Air, Sigur Ros, Do Make Say Think, and tons of others... For film, it has been movies such as Talk To Her, Volver, Cache, Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Sex & Lucia, etc. I don't think there is a specific sound that we are going after, but just music that we think is as well-crafted as possible, whatever the genre might be. There is a lot of erasing and starting over in our process of writing music, so in the end it's a wide array of musical genres that might come through...
BBC: It seems your sound is pretty unique to the Boston indie scene. How do you feel about Boston music? How has it inspired your sound?
A+S: We've had ups and downs with the Boston music scene, but as of late we've been very excited about a lot of the music coming out of Boston. Bands like Caspian, Junius, The Main Drag, Henry Gale, Irepress and others that I'm forgetting right now have been releasing some great much and also happen to be some of the coolest people we know. And it hasn't just been other bands, but also promoters and people involved in the scene that make it work and put in their best to make Boston a cool place to be a part of if you are an artist.
BBC: Where are some of your favorite places that you’ve played?
A+S: I think so far the best places have been in Europe, like Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. We also really love playing in Montreal, Norfolk, VA and of course Boston!
BBC: What is your live performance style? Do you usually have a set plan for each song, or do you leave room to elaborate depending on the performance?
A+S: We have visuals that go along with our live set, so everything is very pre-planned and there is not much room for improvisation or anything like that. Since the visuals are synched to the music, we have to make sure that everything is going according to plan. However, since we have been playing more acoustic instruments live, there is more room now for trying out different parts, which has been fun for us on the stage!
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