Tuesday 9 February 2016

Canal Pop Q&A

Your name:
Emiliano Canal.

Where are you from?
Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America.

Name of band:
Canal Pop.

Who else is in your band?
Canal Pop is a solo project but I collaborate with cool, talented singers. I'm currently working with Josefina Aufranc who's also a part-time model.

How would you describe yourselves and your music?
Catchy electropop with elaborated vocals and somehow ironic lyrics. The sound is a mix of classic electropop and modern sounds. A critic once said Canal Pop was Daft Punk meeting ABBA, and I liked that.

Who are your main influences musically?
Lots of things, but mainly classic 80's synthpop/ electropop (Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, New Order, Human League) combined with modern electronic music, a bit of the current top 40 sound, and a bit of classic rock and pop (Beatles, Bee Gees, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons, ABBA, Montown, disco, whatever). I'm also very interested in what was called Hi NRG/ Italo disco, late 70s/ early 80s disco/ dance music made with synthesizers in home studios. This was considered cheap, second class music and nobody took it very seriously, but they pretty much layered the foundations for electronic dance music. Giorgio Moroder was the pioneer of this style and he's one of my heroes. Canal Pop covered Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" in his honour.

What do you hope to achieve in music?
I'm from Argentina and for several reasons no Argentinean act has been successful in the international pop music scene (singing in English), which is a shame because Argentina has a great musical tradition (we created tango). I would like to help change this.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
I've won the Gardel award (the Argentinean equivalent of the Grammy/ Brit Award) for the best electronic music album in 2012, but not as Canal Pop but because of a compilation album I've released (I also own and direct a label, Eternal Sunday). As Canal Pop, in 2005 I remixed a track by electropop pioneers Heaven 17 for the legendary indie label Ninthwave records (USA). They made a good promotion campaign among DJs and the single reached #24 on the Billboard dance charts, which is the only way I've charted in a major market as far as I know.

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
I've made hundreds of mistakes, but that's how you learn this job and this business. You find the right door by opening the wrong ones and realizing that's not the way.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
Maybe Canal Pop's last single featuring Josefina Aufranc, Come To My World.

Where can we listen to it? 



Where can we find out more about your music? 

Anything else you’d like to say about your music that I forgot to ask?
Some random facts:
* I also direct the Eternal Sunday label, check it! www.eternalsunday.com.ar
* I wear leather trousers on stage.
* Josefina Aufranc is currently in Mexico doing some singing and working as a model.
* I rarely add guitars to my arrangements.
* Canal Pop recorded an album called An Electro Tribute To Oasis with singer Lara Sambert, featuring versions of the Gallagher Brothers' hits. People either loved it or hated it.
* Our version of Stand By Me was chosen in 2010 as "song of the day" at Popjustice.com, UK's most influential pop music blog, among songs by artists like Kesha and Lady Gaga.  That was nice.
* Songs by Canal Pop have been featured in compilations by labels like Section44 (USA) and Alfa Matrix (Belgium) and by music blogs like Side-Line (Belgium) and Electrozombie (Germany).
* One of the singers I worked with, Polette, is an amazing session singer who sung hundreds of commercial jingles and shared stages with Shakira and Deep Purple among many others.
* I'm very interesting in pop culture in general, some of my influences are Andy Warhol and the whole pop art movement (especially the experimental film stuff), cartoonish bubblegum music from the '70s and Japanese and Asian young culture and aesthetics. I'm also a huge fan of vintage technology, like old computers, reel-to-reel tape decks, old video formats, that kind of things.

1 comment:

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