Some­times a fusion between two seem­ing­ly dif­fer­ent and dis­parate ele­ments can pro­duce some­thing that radi­ates a new and unique ener­gy. The new­ly released track Van­ish­ing Point is a case in point. One half of this col­lab­o­ra­tion is Richard Wal­ters: solo singer song­writer and a band mem­ber of LYR with poet lau­re­ate Simon Armitage. He teamed up with Pølaroit – a young elec­tron­ic music duo, based in Han­nover, pro­po­nents of ‘melod­ic deep house’. Pølaroit ref­er­ences their north­ern roots (Polar) and the birth­place of tech­no (Detroit). The result­ing track has a pow­er­ful feel: deep, cin­e­mat­ic and star­tling­ly emo­tion­al. I talked to Richard Wal­ters and Pølaroit to find out how their project came together:

Richard Walters…

Your part­ner­ship with Pølaroit is an inno­v­a­tive and inter­est­ing cross-genre and cross-bor­der col­lab­o­ra­tion. How did the idea of work­ing with the duo come about? 
I was real­ly drawn in by what Pølaroit were doing. A song popped up on a playlist, and I know that can be a very pas­sive lis­ten­ing process but this track just caught my atten­tion, and I became a fan instant­ly. So I decid­ed to reach out to them.

What was your expe­ri­ence of devel­op­ing Van­ish­ing Point as a col­lab­o­ra­tion? Was there any­thing notice­ably dif­fer­ent about the cre­ative process? 
Work­ing on Van­ish­ing Point was a very sat­is­fy­ing remote work­ing process. I sent the sim­plest of ideas – just a few sung lines and some piano chords, and Mar­ius and Jonas built this whole world around it. It was such a plea­sure to then come back to it, this amaz­ing pro­duc­tion, and add more reac­tive vocals. It felt like a good conversation.

Can you tell us more about the lyrics – the sto­ry or inspi­ra­tion behind the track? What is it about? 
It’s about fear and cau­tion, about over­com­ing those emo­tions and look­ing beyond the worst case sce­nario. I’m not mak­ing that sound very pos­i­tive, but the intent is. It’s about hope with­out fear.

What ele­ments do you par­tic­u­lar­ly like about the fin­ished track? 
I adore the pro­duc­tion, that piano line and the mix of organ­ic and syn­the­sised sound. It feels very unique. 

What projects are you work­ing on, and what plans do you have for this year?  
I’m writ­ing a new solo record at the moment, and I’m just fin­ish­ing the mix for a new album with my band LYR. Hop­ing no road­blocks get in the way when it comes to tour­ing this year, I’m long­ing for a busy sum­mer of fes­ti­vals and shows. Fin­gers crossed. 

Pølaroit

Hi there. Could you tell me a bit about your­selves, where you are based, and the kind of music you like to make? Do you have your own stu­dio? 
Hel­lo, we are Mar­ius and Jonas from Han­nover, Ger­many and we make organ­ic elec­tron­ic music. For four years now, we’ve been com­bin­ing our strengths and cre­ativ­i­ty in this project and for about a year we’ve been work­ing in our own studio.

How did this col­lab­o­ra­tion with Richard Wal­ters come about? Who made the ini­tial approach?
The first step came from Richard, he wrote to us via Insta­gram. From that point, we were in love with his music and his vocals.

What were the dis­cov­er­ies you made when lis­ten­ing to his music?
We main­ly lis­tened to Richard’s solo work on Spo­ti­fy, but we fell in love with his col­lab­o­ra­tions as well. His vocals add a spe­cial touch to all the tracks that we total­ly love, and it was super fun work­ing with that.

How did you cre­ate Van­ish­ing Point?
Richard sent us some vocal phras­es and these were the foun­da­tion, the inspi­ra­tion for the track. Then we start­ed build­ing the track direct­ly around those phrases. 

Van­ish­ing Point sounds like a sound­track for a film. Is this inten­tion­al on your part? 
Good ques­tion. We love cre­at­ing an atmos­phere in our music. I would­n’t say it’s con­scious­ly cre­at­ed as a film sound­track but I think it nat­u­ral­ly veers into that ter­ri­to­ry. We’re glad you inter­pret­ed it that way.

What oth­er projects are you work­ing on right now?
At the moment, we’re on the brink of play­ing a live per­for­mance in a spe­cial place some­where in the world (unfor­tu­nate­ly we can’t reveal fur­ther details at the moment). We’ve also near­ly fin­ished our debut album which will be out lat­er in the year. Also, a sam­ple pack with our favourite sam­ples and piano sounds is com­ing out next month. All in all, there’s a lot going on right now.

Richard Wal­ters web­site | tour dates | LYR | Richard Wal­ters inter­view here
Pølaroit Face­book page