Tuesday 13 September 2011

FORD & LOPATIN NEWS PIECE FOR NME


When cosmic drone-synth explorer Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) and ex-Tigercity bassist Joel Ford fulfilled a childhood dream late last year of forming a synth-pop duo the last thing they imagined would hamper the project would be a face-tatted ex-affiliate of 50 Cent.

However, the pair have had to loose the Games moniker that served them so well on last years exceptionally excellent That We Play EP on advice from their label. 

Mexican Summer, which is home to the pairs’ newly minted Software imprint, advised Ford and Lopatin that the Games alias could possibly kick up a stink with Interscope-signed thug rap aficionado The Game who has recently switched to being known as just plain old Game.

“We were told Game was a little too close for comfort,” bemoans Lopatin over the phone from his new studio HQ in the bowels of the Mexican Summer complex in Brooklyn, New York.  “It was kind of a pre-emptive strike to avoid the legal muscle of Interscope as opposed to us having the guy beat down our door yelling at us to cease and desist thank God. That would not have been good”.

With the Games alias cruelly swiped from their paws Ford and Lopatin have decided to become known as, well, Ford & Lopatin.

“We actually wanted to come up with another band name but nothing felt as comfortable as Games for me so we figured we might as well just be ourselves. We’re definitely more Kruder & Dorfmeister than Hall & Oates though”.

Channel Pressure, the highly anticipated Ford & Lopatin long player is due on the seventh of June and Daniel couldn’t be happier to be releasing it via the duo’s own imprint: “We see Software more as a production imprint than a label per se. Mexican Summer have some amazing studio facilities in Brooklyn that they have been kind enough to give us the run of to work on both our own material and with other bands. After the F&L LP and the next OPN LP we’ll initially be focusing on smaller 12” and EP releases for folks like Sleepover and Laurel Halo but if the right artists come along we’ll be looking to release LP’s as well in the future.”

Here’s hoping that release schedule is not cut short by enraged gangster rappers or major label lawsuits.

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