The FADER Interview: Overmono on why they prefer sampling vocals to recording them

Tom and Ed Russell (Overmono) are this week’s guests on The FADER Interview podcast. The Welsh electronic duo joined The FADER’s Arielle Lana LeJarde last week in advance of their first studio album, Good Lies, dropping Friday via XL Recordings.

Over the course of a deep conversation about their long-awaited full-length debut, the Russells touched on why they’ve never had a strong urge to record original vocals on their tracks, preferring to stick with sampling.

“We’ve never recorded a vocal, not intentionally,” Ed claimed. “There’s a sonic quality to samples we’re both really into. It’s very difficult to get when you record a vocal. With sampling, you’re able to reach into other people’s… Someone else might’ve expressed an emotion in a very confident manner that we wouldn’t have felt as comfortable doing. But because they’ve already done that, you can take a bit of it, and it’s a really freeing feeling. Maybe we’ll sample a big pop ballad [with] lyrics that maybe are really overt. But we recontextualize it in a way that feels true to us.”

“When you’re sampling something, you approach it differently in terms of the way you treat the vocal and chop it, process, as opposed to if you’ve just written a verse and recorded it,” Tom added. “With sampling, it’s a bit more carefree.”

Listen to the full interview via this link, embedded below, or wherever you get your podcasts.