Tonique is a newly signed electronic act from The Netherlands. With remixes for European star Bakermat and a remix with legendary songwriter Diane Warren they’ve had a tremendous start. Now they’re set to release their Resonance EP on YourEDM Records which contains four brand new songs and a remix for Comfort Me, originally performed by Feist.
Tonique’s music could be called crossover club, mixing all kinds of electronic, and has heavy groove influences. The result is unique – avant garde electronica, which is both haunting and impactive. Check out the track below: 
Thanks for taking the time. Could you tell us a bit about Tonique?
Nick: We’re a Dutch production duo making our own brand of alternative EDM. However that term wouldn’t quite cover what we try to represent with Tonique. Same goes for other genre labels. Combining a lot of different influences we focus on making a style of music that’s very hard to categorize and we actually prefer it that way.
Who are your inspirators?
Nick: Our inspirations would be acts like The Chemical Brothers, Groove Armada, Justice, Trentemoller, Flume, Porter Robinson.
Thomas: Yeah, especially The Chemical Brothers’ album Further has been a huge go to when producing this EP. Apart from electronic acts we also love bands like Arctic Monkeys and Foster the People. It’s always our goal to keep a live feeling to our music even though it’s all created in the box. We play a couple of instruments so that absolutely helps when writing and creating the Tonique sound.
What do you think of the current EDM scene?
Thomas: There’s been an extremely big slur of formulaic EDM lately where artists’ songs are pretty much interchangeable. We don’t condemn that though since it’s really the people’s invitation to electronic music. It gets you in the scene and when you’re into it enough you can start looking for different and other exciting styles and artists. We also noticed there’s been a big rise of alternative EDM lately. People seem to be looking for new things and that really helped to spread the buzz for artists like Flume and Porter Robinson. Hopefully our Resonance EP will be something that people who are looking for something different will embrace as well. We’d love that idea.
Do you feel there’s a difference between the European scene and the scene in the U.S.?
Nick: I don’t think there’s much difference. There’s always been an exchange in ideas between the US and Europe making the scene what it is today. Some of it originates from the US and some of it from Europe but in the end it’s all one big collective. We do think the difference in the underground scene will probably be bigger compared with the popular dance scene.
Can you elaborate a bit about your Resonance EP? What’s your idea behind it?
Thomas: Our main focus was to create something that has a little bit of everything. The EP has influences from indie dance, deep house, rock, hip hop, chill out, big beat and a whole bunch of other styles. You can listen to it in your car or hanging out with friends but you could also go nuts on more energetic songs like Holiday Rain and of course the Comfort Me remix.
With music production the possibilities are pretty much endless so we really took advantage of this, zooming in on details and shaping every sound to complement the ones surrounding it. We’ve put a lot of effort in Resonance and we’re happy with the outcome.
Nick: Absolutely, detail is very important to us. Let’s say you would listen to our EP a couple of times and like it, but after listening to it for the 10th time you would suddenly hear a different (little)sound or edit in it. It would mean we’ve accomplished what we’ve tried to do. The Resonance EP is meant to play like a story so the order of the tracks is very important as well.
What can we expect from Tonique?
Nick: Songs you can chill to but also go nuts on!
Thomas: Aside from Tonique we’re also production and song writing duo The Prime under which we write and produce songs for other, mainly pop, artists. With The Prime we create and produce a very mainstream sound and we enjoy that very much. There’s also a big challenge there. People underestimate how hard it is to write, produce and mix a good pop song. It’s a lot more complex then you’d expect.
When we take breaks from The Prime we’re always working on Tonique. It’s a completely different approach since we don’t compromise. We just write and create what we like to do at that very moment.
Nick: With Tonique, we don’t think about pop structures, the length of the song or the commercial value of it. That all goes overboard when we’re working on our own music.
When we write for ourselves, we do what we like and go with our gut feeling.
Do you already perform live with your sets?
Nick: We’ve been working very hard on this EP so we actually didn’t find time to give it serious thought. We have been invited to come over and perform in Geneva (Switzerland) this January, so we’re planning to get more on the road after that. Apart from DJ sets we would like to aim for shows where we could play a full set containing Tonique songs only, that would definitely be one of the targets for 2015!
What would you like to say to the readers of YourEDM?
Thomas: We truly hope everyone will enjoy this EP and find something in it that works for you. We’d love to hear what you think of it, so please get in touch with us on Facebook or Twitter.
Furthermore we would like to say thanks to Greg from YourEDM for his support and belief in our music.
Listen to the full Resonance EP here https://soundcloud.com/toniquemusic/sets/resonance-ep
Free download Tonique – Call His Name: https://soundcloud.com/toniquemusic/call-his-name
Free download Feist – Comfort Me (Tonique remix): https://soundcloud.com/toniquemusic/feist-comfort-me-tonique-remix
Beatport: http://www.beatport.com/release/resonance/1409507
Tonique Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toniquemusic
Tonique Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/toniquemusic
Tonique Twitter: https://twitter.com/toniquemusic
Tonique Instagram: http://instagram.com/toniquemusic
Tonique Website: www.toniquemusic.com
