lavender
One of the more challenging aspects of making it to LA is crafting your persona: Who are you? What’s your sound? lavender objectively answers both with just two singles out. The who: Hailing from London, Adam and Oskar are the pair behind the magic. The sound: definitively their own. A quick listen to their (currently) short and sweet discography proves this; it’s hard to describe their music in terms of others, and no one group comes to mind when asked who lavender is reminiscent of. Best described as lofi and acoustic with a bit of digital sound effects and funk, but layered with complex, beautifully dissonant harmonies, Adam and Oskar are on the precipice of something wonderful. We recently spoke with the up and coming dynamic duo about how they spend their time away from music, the method behind their musical madness, and more!
How did you start making music?
Well we’re friends from high school, and both of us made music separately in different projects for years. We’d always talked about trying to do some stuff together but never got around to it. It wasn’t until a friend (who’s now our manager) told Oskar he had a studio space up for grabs that no one was using, that we finally actually tried and just like that, lavender was birthed.
Where is your go-to location when it’s time to song write?
It was a bit all over the place really. Oskar makes beats on his laptop anywhere he lays his butt and Adam would write at home and then we’d both meet at our studio in Hackney Wick after work to put stuff together. Our weekly late night slot was usually between 10pm and 4am, which I think you can kind of hear that kinda late night haze in a lot of the tracks. Since lockdown, we’ve been isolated separately but a couple months ago when things eased a little Oskar grabbed a little camping gazebo, and we’ve managed set up a garden studio which has been a vibe but has probably driving his neighbors slowly to breaking point.
An incredible Spotify debut with “peppermint”. What was the inspiration behind the song?
Thanks guys! So the track came about kind of all in one evening, Oskar made the beat on the train to the studio and then it was one of those 3am sessions in the studio where we basically wrote the whole thing in about 3 hours. It’s really just a vibe for us, there was no specific muse but for us it just really sounds like the last year of our lives. If we had to pick one inspiration for it, it would probably be a mango flavor can of rubicon or like 4 cups of tea.
Who’s your dream collab?
Ooooooh boy that’s a tough one. If we can only pick one, it’s gotta be Frank. That guy is our North Star.
What is the best thing about working in a pair?
There’s always someone to split a takeaway with.
When you aren’t making music, what do you like to do?
Turns out we’re pretty 1 dimensional, we spent like 10 minutes trying to work out what we actually do outside music and couldn’t think of anything. Adam’s just started watching Chuck which he’s really excited about it? And Oskar just finished rewatching New Girl but that’s about it.
Anything planned for the future?
We just dropped “home:so long”, which is the b-side to “peppermint” and have a video coming for both of those. Then we’re gearing up to release a few more tunes which we’ve worked on with some pals of ours, which we’re pretty excited to get out.
