Another Man: Bakermat premieres new single, talks disregard for genre categorization and more
by: Dylan Farella
Mar 6, 2015
In more ways than one, Bakermat is ‘Another Man.’
Following the widespread acclaim of “Teach Me” Bakermat delivers a follow up that proves his artistry to be eclectic, and his body of work to be broader than believed before 2015 hit. For the first time, you can now hear “Another Man,” the producer’s newest original material that’s bound to send ripples through the world of boundless sound.
The joy is in the hearing, and that factor couldn’t be any more present as “Another Man” will hit home for those accustomed to all varieties of instrumentals from deep house to classic folk.
Upon unveiling his new material, Bakermat fills us in on the track’s creation, talks about diversity, experimentation, and touches upon the frontier of his sound and how he’d prefer to remain out of the box that the EDM audience has filed under “Tropical House.”
Tell us about your new single “Another Man”
I’m a huge fan of old american folk music, so when I can’t sleep at night I go to the kitchen table, smoke cigarettes and listen to the really old ones. When i was listening to the original ‘Another Man Done Gone’ by Vera Hall i knew right away that I wanted to do something with that. I combined it with the guitar, then started thinking about the arrangement of the song. This was really hard because I wanted to make an original arrangement that kind of honoured old american folk music. To create extra excitement and energy I added the brass build up and the ‘choo choo’ vocal. Basically I start all my tracks from a random little 8-bar idea like I had with ‘another man’ and build an entire arrangement around that. For me melody and chord progression are the most important parts of music.
How is it to be on the front end, one of the first on the resurgence of melodic house sounds and popularity?
I’m really happy this kind of music is popular world wide at the moment. I started combining deep house elements with saxophone back in 2012 when there were a lot of people that were tired of progressive house (edm) and wanted something fresh. My first tracks were really popular under students. After that my track ‘One Day (Vandaag)’ suddenly became a big hit in Europe. For many people it was surprising to see that a ‘melodic house’ track could actually break the charts, so after that every young ambitious producer started making that kind of music. In the beginning that was really good and nice, now I think there’s just too much guys doing the same thing and it’s turning into a not very diverse genre. At the moment I’m experimenting with gospel, soul, blues and rock to mix with the melodic house sound because I feel really connected with this genre, and I want it to be as diverse as possible.
Do you consider yourself as falling into what people call “Tropical House” and how do you feel about the categorization?
Personally I’m not into categorization, but people will always try to put you in a box. It’s human. And at the moment my sound is described ‘tropical/melodic’ and I’m completely fine with that. As I said earlier I see it as a movement, it’s basically a reaction to the hard, aggressive edm music that’s been ruling the world the last couple of years. People have heard enough drops, they want to go back to the roots and enjoy the wonderfull sound of traditional instruments again like saxophones, guitars, pianos and percussion. I’m sure that this need is still growing and melodic/tropical house will get bigger and bigger. As for the name of the genre, i could both be tropical and melodic. I guess i introduced it in Europe as Melodic House, and guys like Kygo and Thomas Jack introduced it in the US as Tropical House. It’s basically a genre where it’s all about melody and not about drops.
What goes through your mind as you prepare for your first ever North American tour and what can be expected?
I’m overexcited. I’ve never even been to the US before! I already had some shows in Canada, and enjoyed it every time. I just really want the fans to get to know the European house sound a lot better and to expand their knowledge of dance music. The great thing about progressive EDM is that it introduced the North Americans to dance music in general. Now it’s time to expand the horizon and show them that there’s all sorts of different dance music too. I feel like guys like Kygo, Klingande, Robin Schulz, Thomas Jack etc. and me are on a kind of mission to share our love for this new kind of dance music in North America. We’re proud of our refreshing sound and hope to get as many people as possible in touch with it.