Q&A: ZDO

ZDO [pronounced “zy-doe”], is a cyber sonic wave music producer / artist who was born and raised in New Zealand and is currently based in Edinburgh, UK.

Drawing influence from trance, trap and festival dance music, the intoxicating sound of ZDO emanates from his immense euphoric melodies that buries your body in bass and opens the door for your soul to escape on a spiritual experience. ZDO sheds light on the uncharted universe within by blending in sonics from his Indian roots. ZDO is well immersed in the EDM world, already making an exciting disruption to the local scene, playing live shows and working with select local and international artists.

Tell us how you started out creating music as ZDO

Following my move to the UK in 2022, ZDO was born as my new alias. After years of working under an old alias in New Zealand and Australia, I felt it was time to rebrand and establish a new electronic artist; one with a consistent sound, direction and identity. During the pandemic, I rediscovered a lot of the nostalgic 2000s dance music I grew up listening to and I realised how simple it was, yet it had this profound effect on me that seemed was increasingly lost in modern dance music. On the hunt for new music, I managed to find some incredible young artists doing exactly this in tiny pockets across the globe. Having produced several other genres up till this point, this ‘wave’ movement immediately felt the most authentic to me, especially when reflecting on my long intrigue with cyber culture explored through other art mediums growing up. ZDO is my contribution to this culture.

Your latest release with LYFFE was ‘Fall’, and previously you also released ‘Late At Night' together. Could you talk us through any musical/social influences for these and your continued collaboration with LYFFE?

LYFFE is a brilliant producer, collaborator and friend. We met through an online discord community that shares a passion for wave music. We both grew up on 2000’s dance music - trance, hardstyle, electro etc - and this comes through in both tracks, especially melodically. These melodies are rhythmically contrasted with modern trap drum beats that give our tracks a fresh festival aura. A type of beauty and the beast blend that has been distilled down today to be known as ‘hardwave’. We like to say that both those tracks are like siblings, having been made around the same time after a track idea swap that got us started. There is definitely more coming with LYFFE.

What was your favourite musical highlight of 2023? Favourite show to play, any "pinch me" moments?

Playing main stage at YouthBeatz Festival with Alexander Romance (shoutout) was a big highlight. Shortly after meeting last year we joint forces and produced an array of new material together in a very short space of time just for this show. A moment we were both immensely proud of. Towards the end of last year, I also played my own full original electronic dance set at F!N!TE, an hour long of mostly unreleased material which had otherwise been collecting dust on my hard drive. A huge pinch me moment to finally put my new sound in front of people in a live setting and have it resonate with others.

Tell us your three desert island albums.

alt-J - An Awesome Wave
Flume - Hi This Is Flume
Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP2

If you could collaborate with anyone on future music, who would it be?

Flume. Since the day I started writing music, Flume’s production has been an inspiration. The process of endless experimentation to achieve otherworldly sonics keeps artistry fresh and exciting. I think it would be a lot of fun.

You're originally from New Zealand but what advice would you give to aspiring musicians who are looking to establish themselves in the Scottish music industry regardless of where they are from?

In my limited experience here, aspiring musicians could capitalise on the many networking opportunities around and closeness of the local music communities. There are a great bunch of organisations supporting young musicians. Meeting people face to face and having real human relationships leaves a lasting impression that will set you up well for when you are ready to take things to the next level.

Lastly, what can we expect to see from ZDO in 2024?

2024 for me is all about introducing ZDO to the wider world. I have plans to release mini mixes containing my own original music, remixes and include the work of some brilliant artists within the sphere of this sound. I have just put out one already called ‘Hydrogen’ on YouTube and SoundCloud: https://youtu.be/DasJADDnm0o

Follow ZDO here.

Q&A: NOISE

“If I didn't say yes, there was a chance I’d spend a lot of time regretting it.”

The Glasgow Guardian hailed them “Glasgow’s loudest new indie band” and they were absolutely correct. Appropriately named NOISE, the band hail from Dumbarton, a town to the west of Glasgow, and the four-piece had a whirlwind career so far. The NOISE live debut happened in one of Glasgow’s most famous and celebrated music venues, a sold-out King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut supporting The Nickajack Me. The band have gone on to share stages with Royel Otis, SAINT PHNX, and The K’s. In late 2023 the band dropped their EP, ‘Not Until Tomorrow Night’, and we caught up with them to hear all about it, and the inspiration that helped shape the record.

It’s so cool to see bands hailing from Dumbarton, tell us how you got together?!

NOISE began with two brothers, Luke Doleman (Rhythm Guitar & Vocals) and Evan Doleman (Drums & Backing Vocals) jamming The Smashing Pumpkins in their spare room trying to figure out how to play the guitar and drums on their own.

Fast forward about 10 years later, Junior Khawli joined the group when he was at a house party with Ev and in the midst of the party started playing the guitar. What started as Junior playing Oasis renditions for people to sing to, turned into him roaming the house creating jingles on the spot to insult everyone at the party (nothing too offensive). The jingles were superb and the people at the house party didn’t phone the police so Junior was asked to join the brothers and within a few sessions the first few NOISE tracks were created.

Missing a bass guitarist, we were on the hunt for another member of the band and weirdly, at another house party, Robbie Duncan was recruited after a drunken night. Robbie vividly remembers being shown some crackly, poor quality phone recordings of a couple of early tracks and, in his own words, knew that if “I didn't say yes, there was a chance I’d spend a lot of time regretting it”. Since then we’ve played a sold out headline gig at King Tut’s, supported Glasgow legends SAINT PHNX to a 1500 strong crowd, and supported various high profile touring bands such as The K’s and Royel Otis. 

What was the process like for writing ’Not Until Tomorrow Night’?

As with any of the music we’d previously made, it varied a lot from song to song. Most of the time Luke will arrive at the studio and surprise us with the bones of a new track he’s been working on. That’s usually the highlight of everyone’s week as we’re always blown away. But other times it could be Junior playing a new riff he’s come up with or Robbie a new funky bassline, then we just develop the music and structure from there! To give you an example, our single ‘Victor’ was initially very slow and spacey but one day the main riff was played for another song and we ended up repurposing it as the driving riff for Victor. It’s always different and there’s no single way of doing it which is great and allows for everyone to get creative. Lyrically, Luke does everything as he is a wordsmith! 

You guys have played some really cool places in Scotland, tell us, what’s been your favourite gig?

We’ve played some really fantastic gigs in amazing venues recently, supporting Royel Otis in Tut’s was a particular highlight; a band who’ll be selling out huge venues very soon! However, the best has to be playing with The K’s on the sold out show at St. Luke’s. Playing in front of a 500+ crowd in such a great location was really really special. The whole night was immense, and it was probably the best reaction we’ve ever had from a crowd!

Photo: Colin Douglas

Tell us your biggest musical inspirations as a band

Luke: In Rainbows / Radiohead - Just one of the most perfect albums I’ve ever heard!

Evan: Siamese Dream / Smashing Pumpkins – Jimmy Chamberlain is probably my favourite drummer, the guys insane. The explosion and dynamics of Geek U.S.A always blows me away!

Junior: Listening to Arctic Monkeys is a rite of passage that so many people go through in their teens and I was no different in that regard. I still remember being in my bedroom listening to “Favourite Worst Nightmare” for the first time and the memories of listening to that record over and over again, trying to figure out the riffs to Teddy Picker and Old Yellow Bricks whilst I had the music blaring in the background. That feeling of being enamoured by a band and spending hours on YouTube trying to find unseen footage of the band or acoustic renditions on songs from their albums was what made me want to be that person on stage. That definitely drove me to start creating my own music and go jamming with other people, which has played a huge part in playing in NOISE. 

Robbie: Such a hard question, if this is an origins question I'm gonna need to let out my inner emo. Probably something like The Used’s self titled, some Blink 182 or maybe Puzzle by Biffy, that was a huge album for me. 

If you could collaborate with anyone on future music, alive or dead, who would it be?

Chris Cornell would have been an absolute dream. We were all totally gutted when he passed; one of the best male vocalists ever. To have him sing on one of our tracks would have been the highlight of our entire career.

To follow NOISE and keep up to date with new releases and gig announcements, click here.