blaktone: in 2022 we have many musical surprises for you

Radio Intense is pleased to welcome our next guests, blaktone.

This December, the Saint Petersburg duo made their debut on the Iconic UK imprint Renaissance, with their track 'ExMachine' featuring on the label's latest edition of the Merin EP series. Since beginning the project around five years ago, Roma Rone and Igor Ri90r have together developed their blaktone project into a household name within the scene with releases on the likes of Bedrock, mobilee, Sincopat, Selador, Renaissance and more.

Following the release of the Merin EP Vol.3, we chatted with blaktone - enjoy!
— Hello guys, it's great to have you with us today! How are you both and whereabouts are you based right now?
— Hi guys. First of all, we want to say thank you very much for the invitation. We are very glad to talk to you. Everything is great with us, we spend a lot of time in the studio, completely concentrated on new music. At the moment we are based in St. Petersburg. It is a kind of northern capital of Russia. And it's very cold here right now guys. :D
— How is the music scene doing there at the moment with regards to the effects of the pandemic?
— The pandemic has also fully affected our country. Everything was closed. This is a very strange and unusual time. And in fact, thanks to it we had a lot of free time to make music. It was kind of a push for us. Now slowly everything is getting better and revived and we are sure that in the near future everything will return to normal as it was before the pandemic.
— We're super pleased to be speaking with you around the release of the Merin EP Vol.3' on Renaissance, featuring your track 'ExMachine'. Congrats on this release, it's a great track amongst a very strong EP. What can you tell us about your track?
— Thank you, we are very pleased to be alongside such cool and talented artists. This track was the first after a small upgrade in our studio and for us it is literally a new step in our sound. We managed to test it a little in front of the crowd at our performances and we must say it works amazingly on the dancefloor.
— The release marks your debut on the iconic imprint Renaissance, how did ExMachine find its home on the EP and what's it mean to have your music on the label?
— Renaissance has always been an iconic label for us. We can say we grew up on compilations and releases from this label and it is a great honor for us to be in this musical family. There was a lot of thought about which of our tracks would suit them best. And when we sent the first demos to them, we were very surprised that the guys from Renaissance already knew about us. It was very pleasant. And as a result, the track "ExMachine" was signed to the label.
— Now almost 5 years on from your first release together as blaktone, you have since released on the likes of Mobilee, Bedrock, Sincopat and many more. We would love to hear the story of how you came together to form blaktone?
— In fact, we had known each other for a long time before the project. Each of us had our own solo career as a DJ and musician. Sometimes we crossed paths at local events. After a while a spontaneous idea arose to combine our forces and try to create something new and unusual. As you can see, the results were not long in coming and after a few months we signed our first contract.
— Can you tell us a bit about the artists or genres that have influenced you both the most in your careers?
— It would be a very long list that would not fit in this interview. But we will try to highlight the main artists of the electronic scene and not only who influenced us. First of all, we would like to mention the legendary DJs and musicians like Sasha and John Digweed. For us, they still serve as an example and inspire further work. We were also influenced by Carl Cox, James Holden, Nick Warren, Hernan Cattaneo. If we talk about the alternative scene, then there are of course Depeche Mode, Thom Yorke and Radiohead, UNCLE, Underworld, Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, Fatboy Slim, Pet Shop Boys and so on. To some extent we can call ourselves music lovers since we listen to quite different music from Frank Sinatra to Linkin Park.
— Thank you both for chatting with us today and congrats on a great release. To round off, is there anything else upcoming from yourselves that you would like to share with us?
— Thanks again, we were delighted to be able to communicate with you and your audience. We hope that all of you will enjoy our track. In 2022 we have many musical surprises for you, follow us to keep up to date with our news. Take care of yourself during this difficult time.