There has to be something special about your sound when you’re recruited all the way from Europe to join Shlohmo’s LA-based WEDIDIT fam. Porto-born, Berlin-based Luis Dourado—or better known as PURPLE—started making beats with WEDIDIT when he dropped his EP Salvation two years ago. Since then, the recondite producer had been slowly cooking up his debut LP, which dropped last month. The album, aptly titled Silence & Remorse, is the musical manifestation of the darkest corners of your emotions, unlocking pure passion with a sublime blend of brooding beats and haunting vocals—characterising itself as one of the most unique sounds to come out of electronic music this year.
How long was Silence and Remorse in production?
I started first sketching it when I was living in London early last year. I moved back to Berlin in April and that was actually where I wrote and recorded most of it—in my room in Kreuzberg across the spring and summer… then I was in LA for a month, more or less, working details and locking all the tracks.
Did the production process differ much to your EP, Salvation?
I guess it was way deeper and also evolved by a different kind of dedication. I pretty much isolated myself for a bunch of months only to work on it. I would wake up and write, go run, come back, write a bit more, sleep… It felt like a spiral, I was fully committed to it.
When did you first start taking an interest in making music?
Something like nine years ago as far as I remember. My mum had this old laptop and I installed some free software and started recording some drones and weird sounds. It felt like a new space where I could create reflections of my memories and my feelings.
Do you still make art or are you more focussed on music now?
Music has been taking up most of my time for the past two years but I always keep visual arts as my passion and hopefully I’ll always have some time to dedicate to my series. These days perhaps it’s something more peripheral in my life but it’s just something I cannot live without.
I’m now fully dedicating myself to PURPLE, writing and recording new stuff too. I’ll never be satisfied, I’m always curious and intrigued about trying different stuff and getting involved in new things so I feel like in the future I want to be building new and different stuff from what I’m doing now. Still all seems to come from this same place inside me.
You can catch PURPLE along with Shlohmo, D33J qnd Nick Melons on the remaining WEDIDIT tour dates in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth this week. Check out more tour info here.