Oct 22 Interview with Lessov!

One of the top guys on the progressive house scene, and particulary when it comes to emotional and melodic progressive house, then Canadian producer Lessov comes in mind. Along with his productions he also runs his own label, all that in the age of 18. His label Portrait Digital Recordings is one of the fast rising labels on the EDM scene and something to watch out for all the time. He is an ace finding new talented producers all the time. Now it is time for an interview with him here at Progressive House Worldwide.

First of all mate, thanks for joining in for this, we appreciate it a lot since we been following you since the very beginning. Could you give our viewers a small introduction that is behind the name of Lessov and how it all began for you and your music?

First of all, thanks for having me. It’s a big honour to be interviewed here because as you said, you guys have been with me since the beginning of my career. The name “Lessov” was inspired by two things: first, my love for the Russian language and the culture behind Russia. Second, my love and adoration for forests and woods. I’ve always held a special place for these settings, and I always imagined if there were to be mystical, undiscovered realms in this universe, they would be found in a forest. A rough translation of “woods” or “of the forest” in Russian was Lessov, so I picked it.

I began in music by taking piano lessons at a young age. I think I jumped around from 3/4 different teachers as I grew up, but I could never focus enough to sit and memorize lines of notes. I believed music was all about improvisation (which isn’t totally the case) and I believed music shouldn’t be read like a book. When I was about 11 or 12, my mom came home and had bought me the Green Album by Weezer. One of the tracks “Hash Pipe” was on that CD so I asked what it was. Let’s just say I haven’t seen that CD since and that’s a shame because I loved it more than anything I had heard up till that point.

When I became a teenager I of course picked up a guitar and tried to find myself. I was drawn to “Nirvana” and bought every CD, every biography on Kurt Cobain, and tried to learn almost every song. I quickly realized my guitar playing abilities were bad so I enrolled in guitar lessons in my town. I took them for about 3 years (14 years old to 16 years old) and played every day constantly until my fingers were raw. After I learned more complex things about the guitar, I began trying to learn everything I could from Jimi Hendrix to Rammstein to some classical stuff (I was never good with the classical stuff).
After being in a few bands, I remember listening to Daft Punk and “Robot Rock” and instantly saying “I want to make this music.” So I bought every Daft Punk CD and had dreams of buying samplers and keyboards etc. I didn’t have enough knowledge or money to buy these things, so I acquired Cubase LE from my guitar teacher for cheap along with a PreSonus Firebox in attempts to record my guitar tracks, but learned I could program small beats into the piano roll. Cubase was too hard for me to I switched to FL Studio and have been producing on that DAW ever since, upgrading from 7, to 8 to 9 and now 10. It wasn’t until listening to “Not Exactly” by Deadmau5 that I started producing the style I do now. I began with trance under my alias “Frostwave”.

To me you have always been a producers building a lot around your melody lines. How does it often start when you start to build a track from scratch?I have two ways of producing: inspiration and experimentation.

My first EP and my first two tracks on L8 Night Records were soley made on experimenting with basic progressive house music structures. They were popular so I released them. But everything after that point, especially my EP with Round Triangle, was made when I felt something and was inspired. The ocean, along with the woods, deeply inspires me to create. It reminds me of my home on the east coast of Canada, and my grandfather’s house by the Atlantic Ocean.

I usually start by having a certain message I want to send not to my listener, but to myself. The track on my Round Triangle EP titled “Everyone Needs Someone” was inspired when I wanted to tell myself I couldn’t just rely on myself when my mind wandered to a dark place, I need someone else to help. Also, my track “Sunshine Girl” was inspired by a girl I saw at a party once who completely took my breathe away as to how beautiful she was and how she carried herself. I never spoke with her face to face, but things like human beauty just really shake people to the core when they see it like that I think.

Those types of tracks allow me to set my mind and soul free in my colourful little DAW world. However, lately I’m more into the experimentation aspect and trying to find a more professional sound, and I make more emotional stuff outside of EDM.

What do you see as your main strengths as a producer?

I have no idea really. You mentioned you like my melodies, but everyone has great melodies in a great track. I guess it could be my titles? Haha that might be weird but my titles are often very personal to me, especially in the inspirational production phase. I think I can connect with the listeners in a way that is unconventional in dance music. Everyone has been hurt or inspired at some point, and if they like dance music more than a certain type of music, it’s another outlet to feel those feelings I guess. Even simple titles like “Marina” mean so much. That song is extremely personal, and very sad although it has happy melodies.

The most of us that listen to your music are definitely interested in how you do it. What programs do you work with, any specific vsti’s that is significant when it comes progressive melodies and Lessov? Also, do you work with both software and hardware?

I work in FL Studio 10. I use all Native Instruments synths (Massive, FM8, Absynth, and Kontakt). I refuse to download Sylenth1 because it’s so used in our genre. The sound banks in software synths like FM8 are so gigantic, and it’s better to have that warm FM sound in my opinion. I used to depend on cakewalk zeta and it’s “Chords of Life” preset, but I’ve ditched that entirely. It’s good to start off with, but as you grow as an artist, you want more variation. I believe this is the case with the esteemed artist Mango as well. Listening to tracks like “Forever July” as compared to his newest “City Lanes Air Planes” you can hear what I mean. As far as hardware, I use my PreSonus Firebox recording interface, and I own an M-Audio Oxygen 49 keyboard which I purchased only a few months ago. I prefer producing using the mouse though.

When it comes to listening to music, what can we find in your Ipod? A lot of different styles, strictly progressive music or what is there in it?

My iPhone and its music library is very, very specific. Some people have 5000 songs on their iPod, but I believe if it’s not worth listening to all the way through once, it’s not worthy to be on my iPod (I have about 300 songs on there).

My styles are certainly varied in what I listen to, but I’m often drawn towards acoustic pieces and ambient. My top 5 major artists I listen to outside of EDM are: Owsey, Sun Kil Moon, The Vines, The Diogenese Club, and Helios. I cherish all these artists dearly and they all mean so much to me. Music should reflect something inside of you, and give you the ability to see it in a clearer light in order to meditate on it in pensive thought.

I also download various ambient soundtracks, movie soundtracks, and instrumental CDs. I can’t stand vocals in music unless their soaked in reverb and have boundless harmonies.

I also have a massive love for deep house music. I was introduced to a minimalism/drum and bass genre early last year with artists such as bop, oak, and despot. I then learned about an artist named Timo Camillo and I bought every EP he’s made. My favorite deep house producers are: Timo Camillo, Midav, Oak, Bop, Nikosf., Myk Derill, and Alveol.

As far as progressive dance music, I have PROFF and Mango. I own almost everything in PROFF and Mango’s catalogues and they’re my biggest inspiration for dance music. I also love Mossy, Matao, Answer42, and Roald Velden (among many many others).

The progressive scene is growing bigger and we are happy for that. In the progressive genre there are now almost sub genres also. I think of the tech/progressive, melodic/progressive, deep/dark side of progressive. How would you define a great progressive track?

Indeed it is growing. There seems to be a huge shift towards “melodic” progressive house, especially amongst newcomers. Mango pioneered this sub genre, but I think for sure he had no intention of labelling his music in such a way.

A good track to me is one that is well crafted, lush, and has an element in it that is different than the rest of the mass produced progressive house. I also love huge 80′s inspired tunes, typical of PROFF, Matao, and a lot of the stuff on Macarize with those big tom tom rolls and snare drum rolls. Those are my favorite!

Could you name a few producers that you think are really good when it comes to progressive house/trance music and that have been an inspiration for you?

Yep! PROFF, Mango, Mossy, and Dinka is where it all started in terms of inspiration when I was starting. To me, PROFF is the complete producer and I hope to be at the same level as him. He does shows around the world, has a great image he’s marketing, he does interviews, interacts with “fans” and his complete sound is just amazing to me.

What inspires you to create the beats and tunes that you come up with?

I mentioned this in an earlier question. However when it comes to “beats” I just make a loop of sounds that sound great when played together. As of late I’m starting to go deeper into percussion and hand made loops.

As said before you are also running your own label (Portrait Digital Recordings) and that is great to see. Why did you open it up and has it helped in some way getting more and more recognition?

I opened it up because I believed there was too much music out there that was not being justifiably represented. I called my label “Portrait” digital because I had a vision that every artist on my roster had a message behind their tracks that was deeper than just piano roll notes on a screen, just like paint on a canvas. I also had great friends who were producers that had unreleased tracks such as Mathieu Tilli and Roald Boesveld (Roald Velden). They both seem to be doing very well now, so yeah I think I gave them some recognition, although they are incredible producers and were bound to find their way eventually. After I opened my label though, a whole bunch of new labels popped up hoping to do the same thing I was doing. This kind of belittled the flame I had when I started the label, but I’ll still be putting out some great tracks in the future.

I could write paragraph about each of the released under Portrait Digital, but I don’t think it’s appropriate here :)

What would you say are the main thing to think about if someone is thinking about opening up a label?

I would say make sure you have the vision, love, time, the patience, and the ear for it. It’s hard work, and the harder you work the bigger you become. I believe Kristoffer Ljungberg is one of the top A&Rs in our genre, and that can be seen with how well Macarize is doing after only opening not too long ago. I also believe Sergey and Vesvold from Spring Tube are two very dedicated owners who put out 4 different radio shows for Spring Tube and release really great tunes with great artwork. Owners who dedicate themselves tooth and nail, and often ones who aren’t producers themselves, generally have the most success. I’m also a producer, and it’s hard to manage time for both things all on my own.

A lot of the music today is not sold, it’s spread through Internet and musicians hardly make any money at all on their productions. What are your thoughts about the sharing through blogspots, forums and all other ways for illegal sharing of music and what do you think there is to do about it?

We can’t stop it, but that doesn’t stop us from buying it anyway. I buy every track I own. And if I love a track but it’s not on Beatport or iTunes, THEN I download it illegally.

In terms of a metaphor, it’s like jaywalking I guess. It’s illegal, but people do it. But we always have the choice to walk a few more meters and cross the street how you’re supposed to. Because in the end, if you do it the way you’re supposed to, it helps more people than just yourself.

If we look in to the future, what can we expect in the coming months from you and your productions and of course on remix duty in the digital stores?

Well, my track “White Butterfly” was released on Arrival Sampler 4 not long ago. Besides that, I have 2 remixes coming out on Nueva Digital and Spring Tube. There will soon be an EP out on Lowbit Records from me, with the tracks Calabria and Whisper. I also have a new EP coming out on Spring Tube sometime in the winter with 3 brand new tracks. I also may or may not be making an artist album that would be out on Spring Tube if I decide to do one! I might also be doing collaboration with artists such as Aerotek and Mindset. The future is unpredictable, but there’s a little bit of info!

If we move a bit further, were do you see yourself, your music and the name of Lessov in a couple of years?

I see myself still going to school as I’m only 18 (I’ll be 19 in a few days). I see myself growing both as a person and a musician and learning all I can and teaching those who come to me. I’ll still be making dance music and I’ll be recording some guitar tracks in the future also. I’m writing an album right now under my own name that will be given away for free to the public. “Lessov” will grow into a more professional sound, and I’ll just be having fun making music and exploring the depths of my DAW and all the sound libraries.

Any final words to our PHWW viewers?

If you have a love for music, or believe there is something to be said about the world that cannot be expressed in words, make music. Whether it’s dance music or a cello solo, do it. Expression, creativity, and improvisation are three gifts we possess that could change a stranger’s or even your own life for the better. Never lose your wonder for what surrounds you on this planet, because as Alan Watts said, “The Universe is the game of the self, which plays hide and seek forever and ever.”