EZLV are Maxime and Louis, both born and raised in the three peaked city of Montreal. The french Canadian gentlemen have been on our radar before with another podcast back in 2011 and our standing ovations for one of their recent EPs on 100% Silk.

The duo has had a busy 2012 with lots of things happening in the studio, at their residency clubs as well as some unexpected happenings with Michael Jackssons Monkey. Naturally we decided to get some inside info and a mixtape. The mix takes us on an hour and a half long journey starting with nu-disco and descending into deeper shades of groove, including many of EZLV own productions.

HMWL: Your regular biography describes you guys meeting in prison for molesting Michael Jacksons monkey. And learning to DJ with toothbrushes and Tupperwear. It’s one of the funniest and most creative biographys we ever read. Neverless, listening to your productions makes us believe that that’s not entirely true. What is your music background? Highschool bands? Former projects? Hours or years spent in the studio?

EZLV: We felt in love with electronic music when we were teenagers. Maxime was a trance Dj in the rave scene back in 1999 and Louis was hosting an electronic radioshow at college. We met at college back then and decided to form a duo and tried to get serious with production. In 2005, we started to explore productions techniques and waited till 2011 to get our first release out. We invited Michael Jacksons’s monkey and he started to dance in the living room so we instantly knew that we were ready at this point.

HMWL:What is your preffered studio set up? How is production work distributed between Maxime and Louise, who does what. Why do you work so well together?

EZLV: We prefer to do things simple. We are in love with the philosophy less is more. So our studio consists of computer with ableton/reason and a midi controller. Sometimes, we use a Moog Slim Phatty when we are tired of toothbrushes and Tupperwear. At the beginning we were working together all the time but since last year or so we are working one after the other. The problem was that when we worked together sometimes we cannot go at the end of our idea because the other one doesn’t like what’s going on at this moment. But sometimes it could take a while for an idea to develop and that’s why we prefer to do things separatly and get back together when we are satisfy we our main ideas. To answer your question, we think we just work well together because we love each other and got married in Vegas.

HMWL:Let us shift focus for just a tiny bit from EZLV to the rest of the DJ/EDM world. What genres will be dominating the scene in 2013? What is overhyped? What is fresh and new? Which artists and labels should we keep an eye on?

EZLV: It’s pretty hard to predicts catchy genre that will emerge because fashion comes and goes and sometimes it came back when you don’t expect it. We really believe in Nu Disco stuff and we think that this style will have a nice place in 2013. They are so many talented artists in the scene at the moment but if we can name a few, let’s say that we should keep an eye on Bit Funk, Paolo Rocco, Mario Basanov, Disclosure or Mihaela Ellsworth. About the labels, we think 2013 will be a good year for Plant Music, Silver Network, Nurvous or Souvenir, and of course Seaking and Suricate!

HMWL: Suricate label, with those lovely up-side-down savannah inspired cover-artworks. Tell us more about it.

EZLV: Suricate is a deep house label that we launched in 2012. This label will focus on the family already signed. It’s mostly deep house stuff releasing first vinyl then digital. This project is inspired by those little animals who build stuff all together very closely. We also have another label called Seaking who is a bit more mainstream. We already had artists like MANIK, Mario Basanov, Paolo Rocco and more to come if this could interest you.

HMWL: Montreal, Quebec. Where the jolly good people drink good beer and shout “tabarnac!” when they wipe out on a skateboard. Tell us about the house music scene in your city? The best clubs to visit, the summer scene?

EZLV: Montreal is just lovely and very inspiring for electronic music artists. There are so much things going on. We have international artists every week end in many clubs. For the moment, we are close with Salon Daome, Circus and Peopl clubs and this is where you can hear us play. We also got an incredible festival called Piknic Electronik/Igloofest that take part during the summer and winter. To be honest, we just love this city.

Tracklist:

01. Kolombo – Waiting For [Kompakt] 02. Rooftop Revival (Bit Funk Remix)[Hed Kandi] 03. The Glass – Four Four Letter (Black Van Remix)[Plant Music] 04. Francis Inferno Orchestra – Here’s to Feeling Good All The Time [Fina] 05. Lee Fraged – Groovedashit (Arthur Jnr Remix)[Neovinyl] 06. Disclosure – Artful Dodger
07. Sean Roman & Jeff Button – What You Gotta Do For Me [Seaking] 08. Alfred Taylor – Anymore [Lower East] 09. Clubfeet – Heartbreak (Ezlv Remix)[Plant Music] 10. Make Or Break – Gotta Be [Love Not Money] 11. Ezlv – Get Well [Save Room] 12. Audiojack & Kevin Knapp – These Days (Jimmy Edgar Remix)[Gruuv] 13. Jeremy Glenn & Grand Corporation – Wonder & Amazement (Deetron Vocal Remix)[Classic Music] 14. Maxxi Soundsystem – Regrets We Have No Use For [Hypercolour] 15. Guy Gerber – Steady [Supplement Facts] 16. HOSH – No One [Diynamic] 17. Mario & Vidis – Changed [Future Classic] 18. Ellie Goulding – Lights (Ezlv Rework)

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