2XM on their debut album ‘Love Unbound’

2XM have dropped their debut album ‘Love Unbound’, a beautiful sonic exploration with UK garage and breakbeat influences, to take all you dance and electronic music lovers on an absolutely entrancing journey! With millions of streams across their tracks on Spotify alone, they chat to us about importance of community and the impact it’s had on this album, where they draw inspiration from and more.

Huge congrats on your debut album 'Love Unbound'! How did you land on the name of the album?

When we were starting to pool together potential tracks for the record, we were speaking more and more about what they meant collectively. We kept coming back to how many incredible people had been a part of growing the project over the last few years and the amazing community that we had been a part of. 'Love Unbound' seemed to be the best way to reflect our feelings, and even then, this still doesn't encompass the immense gratitude we have for everyone for their support and guidance. It was also a nice way to pay homage to how dance and electronic music have been central to fostering community in and of itself, and hopefully gives listeners a chance to celebrate a group that really focuses on shared experiences.

So amazing! What were your main artistic influences going into this album?

We spent a long time trying to figure out whether we wanted this album to be a representation of the genres and influences we had explored in previous releases, or a snapshot of what we were engaging with at the time of making it. Ultimately we went with the latter, as there was a poignant moment that we recognised that people have our previous releases to engage with if they choose, so continuing to look forward was important. Though there are many signature 2XM sounds, instrumentation and ideas throughout the project, we explored more UK garage and breakbeat, with artistic influences including MJ Cole, Floating Points, BICEP, and other figurehead electronic producers. Overall, we really wanted to capture a more club-led sound to mirror the primary meaning behind the album.

Incredible! How did you draw inspiration for the initial concepts and ideas for the tracks?

This is a very interesting question! I don't want to go too cliché and say that we drew inspiration from all elements of life and experiences (though there is definitely an element of that...). I think we've always taken a lot of inspiration from artists that we listen to (like those above) and communities that we actively engage with; between us, having lived in the UK, Australia and NZ since we've created music has been very interesting, exploring the different dance and electronic scenes in each country has revealed more about what is at the core of these communities. Having a wide range of musical training (classical, jazz, hip-hop, bagpipe music) has also informed a lot of our understanding and choices around music making. Ultimately, we always want to create music that feels like a true representation of both of us at any given time.

What was your general writing and production process like for the album, or did it differ for each track?

Our production and writing process has generally stayed the same for as long as the project has been going. We've always lived in different countries, so have had to create a process whereby we are ideating and working on our own elements of tracks individually, and then sending to each other online. There'll be a few different iterations of one track while we finesse things like additional layers, structure, mix-down etc. until we are happy! This project was no different in the writing and primary production stages, however there were more times we reviewed tracks down the line as album narrative and themes began to emerge.

What were your main highlights working on this album?

We've always been incredibly blessed to have a supportive community of creators around us, and working on this record we have been able to engage and work with this community more. The album would not have been possible without the incredible help of the likes of Neil MacLeod, who despite being an incredible artist in his own right, assisted with co-production and mixing on 'Love Unbound', as well as Tyrone Frost (Kamandi) who did the mastering. Beyond these two incredible people, there have been a myriad of people who influenced the direction of the album and the 2XM project as a whole, as well as helped bring it to the world. With the album's main theme of community, we feel so grateful that our little community have all had a hand in this.

What were some of the biggest lessons you learnt together while creating this album?

Because we had decided to create an album that was representative of the music we were engaging with at the time, there were several lessons we learnt around songwriting and narrative within an album project, especially within our creative process of sending ideas back and forth rather than together in the same room. Also releasing the project independently has taught us a lot about the other side of the music industry, which is in our eyes can be as important as the music making itself.

We wanted to take a quick throwback to your track 'Leave With You' which now has over 1M streams! What does it mean to you to have so much love for that track and that it's connected with so many people?

'Leave With You' is such a special track for us, especially with the incredible vocals from Sydney-based artist Quails. It can sometimes be a bit overwhelming seeing how much love there has been for the track; we never thought it (or the whole 2XM project for that matter) would reach such a large audience, but we are so thankful that it has connected with people and opened up many amazing opportunities for us. We'll certainly never take it for granted.

You've got some exciting live shows & festivals coming up including Hidden Lakes in Christchurch! What are you looking forward to most around performing live?

Yes! Playing together for us is unfortunately rare living in different countries, but we always love coming together and performing. We've found a very fun pocket between DJing and live performance where we can play out tracks with enough space for a bit of Rhodes / synth jamming over the top. We love being able to bring a new life or perspective on already-loved tracks and giving the audience another point of interest during shows.

Thanks so much lads! Make sure you keep up with 2XM on Instagram, Facebook, Spotify or Apple Music.