Interview with Shades of Play

Alejandro
28/02/2022

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Derek & Felipe from Shades of Play, to find out a little bit more about there history, label and what they are up to. Read on below…

Can you tell us a little about your experience? Where are you from / how did you get into music?
We’ve pretty much done a little a bit of everything over the years, all the while trying to work on our sound. We’ve gotten to work with all sorts of artists from small to big, putting together shows in our city, managing labels and just about everything in between.
Both of our stories are a bit different but we both played in bands from a young age and that slowly developed to DJ’ing and Production.

We’re both based in Washington D.C
Derek: Im originally from Cleveland, Ohio and I grew up during the 80’s and I am of Native American and Black descent. You could call me a bit of a rolling stone, I lived all over the U.S over the years. I definitely think my growing up and having moved around so much influenced a lot of my sounds.

Felipe: Im from Alexandria, Virginia and I’m first generation American. My parents came to the U.S from Chile and Colombia during the 80’s and a lot the sounds that i gravitate to definitely feel like they are in my blood. All that coupled with 80’s, 90’s RnB, Hiphop & Rock are what sticks to me.

Who have been your main inspirations (both musical and in «life»)? And how have they affected your sound?
Derek: Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, musically and Bruce Lee in Life
Felipe: Yanni and Parliament Funkadelic, musically and my Mother

How would you define your sound?
We try really hard not to define our sound but unfortunately you kinda have to sometimes, I guess you could say, pulsating, primal rhythms to progressive rock and jazz-influenced fusions, our sounds are a direct result of our ancestral roots and tend to explore broader spectrums of electronic, house, and techno music.

How has your sound evolved so far? Do you see yourself as part of one style of music?
Its a forever work in progress but we’ve been lucky enough to work with some talented mentors who showed us the ins and outs over the years. We don’t see ourselves as one style of music, we actually have a tendency to write a bunch of different styles and end up trying to make them fit into a mood.

What can you tell us about your last release? What inspired you? What do you want to convey?
Basically coming out of pandemic, we had just finished an album the year before and we wanted to make something that was more approachable. We wanted to try new things, experimenting with doses of mushrooms and overall figuring out our sound is what ended up being ‘Microdose EP’.

What modern artists are you enjoying? Maybe you can share some lesser known artists we might not know of?
For sure we enjoy Floating Points, Fourtet some of the homies that produce as well, Martin Bundsen, BinaryFunction, RSRRCt and shout out to our own city Washington DC, there’s some fellow producers making waves, one of them being Micfreak.

What projects are you working on right now?
We’re working on putting together some shows and our next releases!

Artist Social Links:

https://www.instagram.com/shadesofplay_/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/SOPRecordings
https://www.shadesofplay.org

Label Social Links:

https://www.facebook.com/WittyTunes/
https://www.instagram.com/wittytunes/?hl=en

https://www.beatport.com/label/witty-tunes/8231
https://ra.co/labels/6044
https://twitter.com/wittytunes?lang=en