Okapi Sun
Los Angeles, California, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2013 | SELF
Music
Press
The Rising of Okapi Sun
January 21, 2014By Eugene S. Robinson
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Why you should care
Because the sublime joy of digging them before everyone else has dug them can’t even be measured.
Sometimes things happen so fast that if you’re not paying attention you just might miss them.
It felt to me like Bananarama meets Depeche Mode. Wait. Not Depeche Mode … not typical club music, either.…
Which is OK, on first blush, since if a thing ends up being big enough, you can be pretty damned sure that the first time you miss them will probably be the last. Think: Madonna, Menudo, or even the Red Hot Chili Peppers, fer chrissakes. They had hits before you even heard the hit that first broke through the conscious veil of your pop culture radar. It’s that slick and quick. Next thing you know, you’re in a mall surrounded by people wearing their concert tees and you wonder just how long you’ve been napping.
So remember this moment: the moment when you first heard about Okapi Sun.å
”It just had this really cool sort of 1980s flair.” The speaker is Neal Harrington Pogue. You know, the board runner/producer for Outkast and TLC, and the owner of a shelf-load of Grammys for the same. “It felt to me like Bananarama meets Depeche Mode. Wait,” he says from his Atlanta studio as he pauses looking for descriptors. “Not Depeche Mode … not typical club music, either …,” and he trails off.
Leo and Dallas, whose last names are already not necessary nor offered, started up in Berlin at some underground techno club. Leo, who claims Czech, French and German ancestry, met up with the U.S. Air Force brat, Dallas, who’s been all over the place. With classical training in piano and viola, they took the next and most logical step: techno duo.
They called themselves Okapi Sun, after the zebra-striped animal, and got down to the business of goofing around.
The duo lists influences from the Rolling Stones to Chopin and Dr. Alban, a real life Nigerian-born Swedish dentist. They called themselves Okapi Sun, after the zebra-striped animal, and got down to the business of goofing around.
”We really both loved pop music,” said Leo from Southern California, where they’re getting ready for their first trip to South by Southwest in March, right after which their first single drops. ”But even more than that, we really wanted to do something that was fun.” Since they relocated to San Diego, Calif., in January 2013, fun is maybe not such a surprising choice.
“Fun and dance-y,” said Dallas, her voice hoarsened from … “Oh. You know.”
So they picked up producer Ethan Allen after playing a show with his band Gram Rabbit, and more quickly than might seem seemly, they were handing over all of the stuff they had recorded on their laptops. To? Oh, just to a guy who worked with Tricky, Sheryl Crow and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, to name a few of the most major and noteworthy.
And immediately after that, things moved amazingly fast. Sponsorships from Puma, New Amsterdam Vodka and a label deal. Which brings us to the music: bouncy but not empty, it seems very much like a considered take on the ’80s zeitgeist, all while being a bit more knowing than were those who lived through it the first time.
And since seeing is believing, believe it.
Read more: The Rising of Okapi Sun | Performance | OZY - Ozy.com
Electronic-dance duo Okapi Sun describe their music as "a cut-and-paste of our past, our now, our culture, our soul. We decorate ourselves with sounds and let them form into songs." To put it more simply, guitarist Leo and keyboardist Dallas lay down catchy dance grooves and blend their vocals on deliriously giddy pop songs like "Sidewalk," coming off a little like a postmodern Bananarama. Dallas keeps things funky with her throbbing synth lines, while Leo's surging guitar chords prevent the tunes from sounding too poppy. Like its namesake animal, Okapi Sun "decorates itself with different stripes to become one with its surroundings and add to its great camouflage." What that means musically is that the duo isn't limited to the usual dance-music rules, preferring to branch out into stranger territory, like its mysteriously cool and groovy remake of "Hit the Road, Jack." —Falling James LAWEEKLY - LA Weekly
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
Okapi
Sun
Techno
Prisoners
Available
April 29, 2014 on Phaedra Records
"When you are receiving this message, it is 13 billion
light years later. In a time, in a place, on a planet, somewhere in the
universe two creatures were sent to earth in the form of Okapi Sun. We have
been brought together tonight to experience their sound. And in the unity of
the Okapi Sun Tribe let's go crazy. Stare into the Sun, stare into the Okapi
Sun."
The Okapi is rare mammal with of traits of both the zebra and the
giraffe found exclusively in the Ituri Forest of The Congo. Like the
Okapi, the world is a mixture of races and beliefs
unified as one on Earth under the Sun. This is what fuels the concepts behind
the tribal sound of dance-electronic pop duo Okapi
Sun.
After a fateful introduction in a Berlin nightclub, Dallas (vocals, synth, bass, drums) and Leo (vocals, synth, guitar, drums) reunited in Southern California, this time
moonlighting in a local recording studio, to forge the sound of Okapi Sun--a
creative outlet drawing on their experiences as classically trained musicians while pulling from influences featuring
everything from Rick James to Daft Punk with their own twist of EDM. The result is a record
that is contagious, fun, and filled with one dance-pop gem after another.
Okapi Sun
has one goal, explains Dallas.
To make you MOVE. With cuts about not settling for second best and never
giving up (Johnny Kiss), vulnerability and heartbreak (Judy Baby), and
temptation leading to inspiration (Cold Outside), the tribal electro outfit
create a environment thats raucous and completely their own. Both Dallas and Leo come from unique backgrounds. Dallas, the army
brat and classically trained violinist and Leo a gifted pianist and
multi-medium artist from Germany
have brought their eclectic and versed experiences together to blend a
freestyle form with massively danceable hooks.
At its core the record was tracked
live at their rehearsal space. They then took those tracks to the artsy Los Angeles community of Silverlake where they recorded
with Ethan Allen of Gram Rabbit at Royal Triton Studios with
additional production from Grammy winner Neal H. Pogue (Janelle Monae, Snoop
Dog, Outcast, Pink, TLC, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Franz Ferdinand) in Atlanta. The result: an
international dance party culminating everywhere under the Sun.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Mario Escovedo Mario@requiemme.com
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