Belgian artist, Maxime Merkpoel, better known as Stereoclip, released his third album yesteday called “Echoes”.
After being in music for ten years, he found it time to reflect on his journey and this album is inspired by the ups and downs he encountered. We were able to catch up with him during ADE 2021 to ask him all about it.
Elsi – Hey Maxime! Thanks for joining us for this interview today! Do you mind giving a short introduction about yourself?
Stereoclip – Yeah, no problem. I’m Max and my artist name is Stereoclip. I’ve been doing music, electronic music, for about 10 years and I’m releasing my third album on November 26th!
Elsi – I read in one of your old interviews, that you enjoyed working with the “Roland vintage synthesizers, such as the Juno 60 and Juno 106”, is that still the case? And do you have any other hardware you use for creating your music?
Stereoclip – I just sold my 106, but I kept the 60 and yes, I’m using it a lot. I sold all my gear during Covid because I simply didn’t use it. I did keep the 60 because it’s something that you need to have.
Elsi – How difficult is it to do a “Live” set? Has anything ever gone wrong?
Stereoclip – Part of it is luck, but yeah, lots of preparation. You need to think of lots of stuff. I probably did hundreds of changes during the last 10 years. When you do a live set, you come back in your studio and you say, okay, I’m going to check that, that and that.
I had some big bugs and I’ve had some crashes. I’ve had so many problems but also so many good gigs where everything went super nicely.
Elsi – Are these things you can learn from for future live sets?
Stereoclip – Yes, it’s just like life when you have bad experiences, you just need to adjust yourself.
Elsi – As you just mentioned in the introduction, you have a new album coming out on the 26th of November this year! How long have you been working on it?
Stereoclip – For a long time and I probably started it when I didn’t know that it was going to become an album. During the lockdown in Brussels I really had nothing to do, so I tried to do some new stuff and I had a livestream. I told myself I’m going to play some new stuff for people. I also did some demos when lockdown was finished in my studio and so it became an album over the past two years.
Elsi – Any special collaborations on your album?
Stereoclip – Yeah, I’m sharing a studio in Brussels. We have a house where we have five studios and I did the entire album with Kid Crème and it was super nice. He’s one of my best friends and he was in the studio during lockdown because he lives there. I don’t live there, I was in my house and I was sending some stuff that I did knowing my rooms and my speakers were sh*t. I couldn’t hear very well what I was doing. So, I was sending it to him and he would give some feedback and some adjustments in my mixes and I was like, wow, what you do is incredible. He brought my music to another level, so we ended up producing this album together.
So in the house is Kid Crème and there was also Dim Kelly one of my best friends too. We did one collaboration track and there are two other tracks with vocals. I did those with Eke, she comes from Holland so yeah, she’s singing on two tracks.
Elsi – What’s the emotion you try to share with the people that hear your music?
Stereoclip – I’m not trying to choose something and share it. I’m more searching for stuff that inspires my emotions. I try to share what I can find in the music. So when I’m on the piano or whatever, and it makes me feel a certain way I’ll use that part of what I’m doing because I know that’s going to share the best emotion.
Elsi – Have you already thought about what you want to do once the album is out?
Stereoclip – As it’s finished, I need to wait a bit but already doing new stuff and I’ve already played live so people that have come to my gigs in the past two months have heard a lot of new stuff I think.
I want to continue to share it on stage definitely and also want to do some new tracks.
Elsi – What’s a club or festival you would really like to play at now that the world is opening up again?
Stereoclip – I did a lot already that was a little bit like a dream from when I was younger. I want to discover a new country like South America. Also, I went to New York twice and I loved it so much, so I want to play there again. I want to play in Asia, I’ve been there for playing and for vacation. And of course, still do the same clubs that I love in Europe because there’s so many good places.
Elsi – Thank you very much for the interview and good luck with your new album “Echoes”!
Stereoclip – Thanks!
Stereoclip – Echoes
01. How To Listen To This Album
02. Disconnected
03. Inner City Angels
04. All Over Magic
05. Sunset Drive
06. Moonlight Drive
07. Feel The Game (Remix)
08. SF
09. Oze feat. Dim Kelly
10. Winners
- T.H.E Interview – XiJaro & Pitch - February 3, 2022
- T.H.E Interview – Stereoclip - November 27, 2021
- T.H.E Interview – Eelke Kleijn - October 30, 2021
