Since Karma Fields’ debut on Monstercat, hype has hardly subsided. Sure, there have been other releases in the meantime that caught everyone’s attention, but when Monstercat premieres a new anonymous entity with a track as brilliant as “Build The Cities,” people take notice.
Pretty soon after, people were wondering where it would go from there. The first clues came from Twitter as Project 46 were teasing a return to Monstercat. Speculations abounded from a new single to a mini-EP prior to their Beautiful album release on Ultra Records. As time dragged on, however, the voracious Monstercat fans uncovered the incredible truth – Project 46 would be returning to remix “Build The Cities.”
. @Monstercat fans we are coming back this Thursday for a special release before we drop our album. We missed you guys.
— Project 46 (@DJProject46) April 25, 2015
Having been completely enamored by the vocals, the duo chose to completely deconstruct the original mix and build it back from the ground up. Using the vocals as a focal point, the song became an emotional rollercoaster with a tinge of that classic Project 46 trance sound, but with so much more influence from Karma Fields’ unique electro interpretation. The result is a short but sweet remix that satisfies in every fathomable way.
Purchase the remix here.
Coming off of a major label deal with Ultra Records, some might wonder why artists like Project 46 would return to the label that launched their career. But that’s really just it – why wouldn’t they?
For a label to launch a career, so many things have to be perfect in sync and timed just right, and Monstercat has nailed it time and again with numerous artists such as Krewella, Vicetone, and yes, Project 46.
Project 46 has been wanting to make a return to Monstercat for a while now, and “Build The Cities” was really the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak. Having been tied up by their album deal with Ultra Records for Beautiful, the vocals from Kerli immediately inspired them to make their long awaited return.
But this isn’t the first time that a major artist has returned to their first, independent label: Snails to Kannibalen, The Bloody Beetroots to Dim Mak, and even Alesso back to Refune. So why now? Why is it becoming more popular for artists to return to their “launchpad” label?
Personally, I believe it has something to do with the surge of collectives and “familial” groups of artists. Groups like Hegemon, Soulection and Moving Castle have created more tightly knit communities of artists that feel more like family than label-mates. It breeds trust and loyalty in a parent figure that might not exist with other such rigid labels. There is a noticeable rise in the quality of relationships between label and artist, rather than simply shooting for an artist-mega label/distributor complex.
Of course, there could be various other contributing circumstances.
Project 46 was gracious enough to answer some questions about their relationship with Monstercat specifically, and how that relationship has grown over the years, even though they haven’t released any music on the label since 2013’s “Motionless”.
Tell me about your early days with Monstercat.
In the early days Ryan and I were good friends with Mike Darlington and John (Going Quantum). Ryan and the guys lived in the same area and were both in the music scene so Ryan introduced me when we started working together. They signed our first tracks and were the people who told us that we should start releasing our music.
What has the relationship been like?
The relationship we have maintained has been more of a friendly relationship than anything. We have released music on Monstercat over the years because they believed in us and they liked our music but I feel we grew closer as friends than “business partners”. Mike now lives in Vancouver so I get to see him once in a while.
What does it mean to you to come back in this way to Monstercat?
We had been working on a return to monstercat for a while. Of course we got a little tied up with our album, where working with Ultra [Records] they have the final say in who we partner with, so that made it a little more difficult to accomplish. When they showed us the vocal I really liked it and was excited to work on it. It was a great chance to get back on the label and help out one of their emerging talents!
What are your thoughts on the young talent at Monstercat?
The new talent on Monstercat, and just the scene in general, is truly inspiring. It goes to show how much dance music has grown. When we were emerging onto the scene there weren’t nearly as many people who could produce well as there are now. Karma Fields did a great job on the original. It was a really emotional track and I think thats why it reached out to us. We love things with emotion.,
What was your process in remixing ‘Build The Cities’?
The process was quite simple. When I heard the original the vocal really stuck out to me. Later, Mike asked us if we wanted to remix it and we of course said yes. We took the vocal and just worked off that exclusively. We wanted the remix to be an exact version of the song as if we closed all our doors and produced it ourselves. It was fun one because we didn’t really take any direction on it whatsoever, we just sat down and started writing.
