Words / Erica Russell
It’s unlikely that LA’s bass pop trio Contra were old enough to party hard back in ’92, but they’ll be damned if their music doesn’t sound like the raddest 90s rave you weren’t cool enough to be invited to. The group’s recently dropped video for “1992” – all throwback house beats, neon lights, and pump-up-the-jam, feel-good vocals – could easily soundtrack ‘A Night at the Roxbury.’ (Not that you’d get in, though.)
On the heels of the official single release, LADYGUNN is pumped to premiere the group’s newest remix, courtesy from The Lazy Villians. A hazy, slowed-down take on the original track, The Lazy Villians give “1992” a burn-out rework with hip hop tempos, re-engineering the jam in a “lazy house” style that’s been hotly developing on the West Coast.
Take a listen to the remix first, right here, and find out a little bit about Contra in our interview with the crew, below.
Can you tell us a little about Contra and how the band got together?
Baby and Zaccheus used to live in the same apartment block and met Robbie just playing around LA. We all get along so well, it was natural for us to start jamming and messing around musically. We felt we had something, so we ran with it.
There seems to be a big 90s influence to the group, both visually and sonically. Is that the case for you guys?
Definitely for this EP. It was a big influence fashion wise and that spilled over into the music and caused us to really explore and dig into some 90’s tunes that we were maybe a little young to experience at the time.
“1992” has an obvious party atmosphere to it. Why did you land on 1992 as the year to accurately reflect the energy of the song?
All the songs on the EP are based on a year and what we interpret that year to sound like in some way. So for us 1992 just felt right, even though not all of us were even born then and the rest were too young to really remember. When we go back and listen to older tunes from around then we got so inspired.
Can you talk a little bit about how the Lazy Villians remix came to be?
The Lazy Villains guys are on the cutting edge of this new vibe, ‘lazy house,’ that’s about to start making noise. We love how it feels so we approached them to remix the track and are so glad we did! It’s just such a vibe!
What’s next for the group?
We’re working on new music always! Exploring ways to push ourselves musically, and hopefully we can get on the road this year too.
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