Entering Toronto’s early rave scene in the late 90’s, Juno winner Hatiras has enjoyed the whirlwind electronic music scene first as a promoter with his highly successful Liquid Adrenaline events then as a producer and DJ. Hatiras’ entrance into the upper echelons of electronic music was due to the success of Space Invader being endorsed by BBC Radio 1’s Pete Tong as “essential new tune” and remixed by the talents of Olav Basoski and Darren Emerson, to name a few.
Hatiras has worked with artists Kylie Minogue and legend Loleatta Holloway and notable labels such as Universal Music, Sony and Ministry of Sound. Working to give talented producers a means to share their creativity, Hatiras is creater of Blow Media and Hatrax Records as well as the internationally syndicated radio show Hatiras Presents. As busy as this man has been, he has found the time to release is new 9 track EP “Message From 04244” along with a music video for each single. These videos are about to drop starting January 14th, 2014 and we will be sharing them on EDM TOR every day for nine days. Hatiras had time in his busy schedule to answer some questions from EDM TOR.
EDM TOR – “Message From 04244 is a crazy story about space travel and lost love”, what sort of space travels and love adventures have you been on that led to the creation of this album?
Hatiras – I’ve had the craziest experiences over the last few years. Some too personal to divulge. Basically, about 4 years ago I moved to Portland, US where I started a promotions company, developed the scene, threw parties, made a ton of friends and new experiences. Moving to a new place and starting over gave me an interesting perspective. I’ve also always been a huge fan of space, science, sci-fi, physics and anything ancient or alien related haha.
Were there any other factors that influenced the creative process of this album?
Yes. One day I had the craziest dream. Everything was red and fiery. The face of a shape-shifting lion appeared in my dream and I took orders. The next day, I sat down for about a week straight and made the initial sketches for all 9 album tracks while I felt a strange, invisible presence looming over my left shoulder while I worked. I knew this “presence” was from Andromeda and I was simply taking instructions and transcribing it’s “message”. True story. I’m just as freaked out about it as you probably are reading this.
Why 9 tracks? Does the number hold any significance to you?
9 tracks just felt right. It wasn’t really the number 9 that was magical to me. Instead 4, 2 and 0 kept coming up in a mysterious way. Originally, I titled the album “Message From 04244” because, call me weird, but I felt like the whole album was beamed to me from the Andromeda galaxy. The astronomical coordinates of the Andromeda galaxy are “right ascension 00h 42m 44.3s” – coincidentally, the apartment I filmed much of the videos in was #42… It’s also 2014 and (video spoiler alert) I made the world end in 2044.
Were there any singles that were harder to create than others, genre wise?
I’ve never really made a dubstep tune. Never really made hip hop or chill-out either. Funny enough, all of the music on this album came very easily to me. Don’t get me wrong – the music production took a lot of effort but the most challenging part was creating 9 music videos. I’ve never really shot, designed or edited video before. It’s something I always wanted to do and I learned along the way. The whole video thing is something I plan to develop more. I feel like a more complete artist after having fully made both the audio and visual component of this whole album. Very fun!
For your next releases, are there any genres you are looking to explore more in-depth?
Following this album release I plan to continue to explore new genres but hope to tap into classic house and techno sounds. However, I never go into the studio with a plan so you never really know what might come out. I’ll tell you one thing – it won’t be generic or cookie cutter. I always aim to challenge myself and my audience.
What can we look forward to hearing from Blow Media and Hatrax Records?
Moving forward into 2014 you can expect more variety, more genres, more artists on Hatrax. I used to be stuck on house but am fully open to genres like deep house, tech, trap, hip hop, etc. If it’s good and if the artist is dope, I’ll support them.
Is space really the final frontier?
No. The brain is the final frontier. Space and reality may all just be an illusion. We’ll probably never really fully understand the connection between the brain and consciousness.
Natalia Toussaint – EDM TOR
