The NYC duo The Dayoffs are set to their second album with an eloquent title ‘Two-Phase’.
“Music is a lifetime experiment for both of us and once we finished our debut guitar indie-pop song-oriented album, we instantly knew that the next one will be something different” – says one half of The Dayoffs, Atsuo Matsumoto. The Dayoffs’ debut self-titled album was released on German Emerald & Doreen label in 2017 and garnered critical acclaim.
“We didn't want to repeat ourselves. The aim was to reinvent our music, so we got into ambient, dub and techno – claims The Dayoffs singer Vladimir Komarov – And it is instrumental this time because this is how we feel it now”.
The Dayoffs is a collaboration of Komarov and Matsumoto. They met at legendary Stratosphere Sound Studios, NYC in 2012, when Vladimir was tracking down for one of his projects and Atsuo happened to be engineering the sessions. Soon they teamed up to produce a bunch of records. Always busy working on other people's music, Vladimir and Atsuo (incidentally born on the same day) recorded some instrumental improvisations during studio downtime. When the duo realized they had enough ideas for a debut LP, they chose to call themselves The Dayoffs (from constant lack of studio time for their own music) and set about completing the record.
During the process of making the album ‘Two-Phase’, the duo has been influenced by sound devises only. However, the title of the closing track “Ambient Lesson No. 1” clearly refers to Glenn Branca’s “Lesson No. 1”. Russian noise and electronic legend, Alexei Borisov joins on the track “Noise”, while Grammy-nominated British born/US-based producer, Alex Newport lays down additional synth and guitars on the first single “Fireflies”, as well as a dark mid-tempo track “Kabinen”.
“This album is very much about outer space, intergalactic journeys and life on the orbital stations – the way we imagine and understand it, of course – confess Vladimir. – You can see it even from the name of the tracks: Cape Canaveral, Ugol Posadki (Angle of Landing – in Russian), Fireflies…”
“By the way – Fireflies is about illuminated frost flakes that had accumulated on the outside of the capsule as it burst out of the earth’s grasp and began to fall away, looking like what could be fireflies to the untrained human eye – adds Atsuo – Turn it on, buckle up and enjoy the ride”.
