The guys sent us a brilliant mixtape, crammed with breaking barriers music that has inspired them for the release and we took the opportunity to ask a little about their recent ventures.

Forumist Sessions: Femme En Fourrure by Theforumist.Com on Mixcloud

Where do you find your inspiration?

Juuso: It goes in phases where I’ll find inspiration. I think I’ve written my best ideas while in anger. Recently the pressure of my blood has been really high, because of the recent political changes in Finland, imbecile racists, homophobic Christian Democrats and the so-called “True Finns”, misogynistic human beings. Although our musical pieces have been about misogyny in general more or less from the start.

Sandra: Negative energy definitely drives me as well, yet the goal is never to glorify it but rather to personally deal with it. What comes to the imaginary characters that are personified in the songs, they are pretty animal-like maybe because right now, to me, all human-like ways to verbalize any feeling or mood feel artificial and alienating.

How important is the visual presentation for you?

Sandra: It can in many ways actualize things that wouldn’t necessarily come through otherwise and at it’s best it brings along something new and unexpected.

Juuso: Music and visual should always go hand in hand. We’ve been lucky to have all these people around us who have contributed to the visual world of FEF.

We love the mixtape, please tell me a little bit about it.

Thank you! The first segment is by Juuso and the latter is by Sandra. Tracks and grooves that inspire and have inspired the recent lullabies.

I read that you will be performing as Paperi T this summer. Tell me a little bit about the collaboration and if you have any plans of performing live as Femme En Fourrure.

Paperi T is an artist from Helsinki, who we’ve produced two very well received singles. We wanted to contribute to Finnish music, because it felt lacking a lot in content and in production wise. We’re also performing live here and there as Paperi T’s band, which is fun, because it’s so different than people have used to. As in if we’re talking about an ordinary rap music live setting. Probably we’ll be performing as Femme En Fourrure again after the release of the new EP!

What’s the music scene like in Helsinki 2015?

Juuso: Small, but precise and inspirational. Lately I’ve noticed to get inspired more by my fellow musicians, than I was previously by artists from abroad. It’s unique. We have great festivals and clubs like Flow Festival and Club Kaiku, in which I play solo all-nighter dj sets every now and then.

Besides your upcoming performances, what’s your plans for the future?

Sandra: We have quite a few demos in the making that I’m personally really thrilled about. At the same time we’re both inspired by many different kinds of music that we’d love to include in our production, so I’m looking forward to see what the outcome will be.

Credits:

Words by: Gustav Bagge

Photography: Sakke Soini, Maria Kulina, Helen Korpak, Paavo Lehtonen.

Music video director: Miikka Lommi.

He has edited DJ magazine, worked for BBC Radio 1 on the after hours show The Blue Room. He has made artist albums for Warp and Distinctive Records. He has made compilations for Playboy, Ministry of Sound, EMI Classical and Trojan Records. His music has appeared on many compilations including the big ones, Cafe Del Mar and Hotel Costes. His music has been featured Sex And The City, Nip Tuck, House and many other TV shows.

Gustav Bagge from R.fm caught up with Chris Coco to find out what he’s working on and score an exclusive mix with some of his favorite tracks from all times.

Chris Coco Mixtape R.fm X The Forumist by Theforumist.Com on Mixcloud

Tell us about more about the mix

I tried to make a potted history, but the ingredients wouldn’t fit in the pot. So it’s gone freeform. It’s about saying things with music that can’t be put into words. It’s about ambience and atmosphere. It’s about music that makes a film in your head and music made for films that makes you cry. It’s about laughing and dancing and loving and that best of all feelings after the party is over when the atmosphere lingers. About a sense of history while searching for something new. It’s about endings and beginnings but more beginnings than endings.

You are one of the most influential figures in online electronic music radio. Could you elaborate on why you think your Melodica series has been such as success?

I think it’s about direct communication with the audience. There are a lot of DJ mixes out there but not so many shows where the music explored is explained in simple terms. I hope it is also to do with the brilliant and consistent music selection!

The future of club music & online radio shows?

I would like to develop a collective on Mixcloud and other platforms so that people making interesting shows can promote each others work and maybe even start touring the shows / doing live shows in interesting locations. I haven’t seen this happening as a trend but maybe if a few of us work together we can make it into one?

Which online shows do you listen to?

I follow Mixmaster Morris for his diverse mixes; NTS Radio do a lot of good stuff; Groove Salad from San Francisco is pretty cool; Dub Lab in LA too. To be honest I don’t listen to loads of other shows, there’s too much new music to listen to and mixing to do, not sure if that’s a bad thing, I guess I should try harder.

What’s your view on Soundcloud’s recent move towards deleting mixes with copyright infringing content?

I think this is a simple one. Soundcloud’s agreement only covers uploading material you own to their platform. So if you upload mixes without permission that’s not covered. If you are also allowing other people to download the mixes you are effectively giving away other people’s music, which, in my opinion, is wrong.

I think Mixcloud works better for mixes because you can’t download stuff and they pay royalties.

What’s coming up, any new releases/gigs or new adventures?

Well, there’s the remixed version of Coco, Steel & Lovebomb – The Chillout Album, my experimental soundscape project with mixes from Seahawks, Mark Archer from Altern 8 and some other luminaries; and a new Nightbus album that I have curated with Ojan from Haraket featuring late night electronica from new London based artists.

Credits:

In collaboration with R.fm and Gustav Bagge.

Chris Coco, Melodica Recordings, Nightbus, Melodica Radio Show, Coco Soundcloud