Oriental Cravings Interview - Sparking The Creative Juices
Meet Quincy Patti and Yujin Choong from Oriental Cravings. The pair have just dropped 'Toxic' featuring Ned Philpot. It's without doubt another banger to be added to their catalogue of thumping releases. We had a chat to Oriental Cravings about their new single, their production process, and the support they've developed along their careers.
Futuremag Music: What's your relationship with music been like over the years?
YC: Music has always been apart of my life! I was enrolled into piano lessons at a young age (fitting the asian stereotype!), and grew up listening to hip hop, punk rock, and eventually EDM. That led to me learning to DJ, which kickstarted my passion for production.
QP: Music has been a big part of my family. My dad and his brothers are all talented musicians, my aunty is also quite a famous singer in Indonesia! I learnt classical guitar, played a bit of the Oboe in high school and also loved to sing all throughout my childhood. I’ve had phases where I was into pretty much all the genres but was then fascinated with electronic music - and that definitely stuck with me.
Futuremag Music: How'd you guys meet? How has your production developed since working together?
QP: This is about to sound like a love story. We met at high school, and Jin was the person that pretty much taught me how to DJ. Then over time mucking around in the studio, Jin and I became consistent in making projects together and it eventually became a thing. Whenever I had a project, I would always share it with him and we just kept improving. Since it became hard to always organise a studio session together to just make music, we use a program called Splice (which is kinda like a dropbox for producers) and bounce our project files through there. We both work on the projects in our own time and then eventually finish them together in the studio once the track is in its final stages.
Futuremag Music: Your recent single 'Toxic' featuring Ned Philpot is a tune! How'd you loop up with Ned? Can you talk us through the writing and production process of 'Toxic'?
YC: Thank you! Means a lot to us. Ned is the most talented and down-to-earth vocalist and songwriter we’ve met. We linked up when we were over in Sydney for a show, and within an hour he had the vocals and lyrics done and dusted.
QP: Yeah Ned is an absolute gun at songwriting and he works fast! We had the skeleton of the track already written before we got in the studio, and the final touches were easy after Ned put his power and emotion into the track.
Futuremag Music: You also released a remix of LDRU's ’The Calling', how'd that come to fruition? What was your favourite part about flipping the track?
YC: We are very blessed to share the same management team as LDRU - who we’ve always listened and looked up to before getting into music production. It’s a huge honour to remix a track from his mixtape! The favourite part I’d have to say was seeing the reactions of both Tom (LDRU’s manager) and LDRU when we first sent the track through to them. Epic.
Futuremag Music: You guys have been killing it lately, RL Grime and Alison Wonderland have spun your tracks in front of thousands. How has this influenced your production and audience base?
YC: It was such a surreal moment finding out that the two biggest names in the scene were supporting our tracks. It has definitely widened our audience base and has pulled in quite a few fans, which we’re very grateful for!
QP: It has definitely made us more confident in our production, and sparked up some more creative juices seeing everyone go off to tracks we made. It gives us a good indication that people are liking our style and sound.
Futuremag Music: If 'Oriental Cravings' was a cocktail was a cocktail what would be in it to best describe yourselves and your music?
YC: Quincy is the bartender of the group, so I’ll let him explain the story of Oriental Cravings: The Drink!
QP: Shoutouts to the Jack Rabbit Slim’s Nightclub fam in Perth! They released a cocktail named after us last year haha. It consisted of watermelon liqueur, creaming soda liqueur and topped up with Apple & Kiwi fruit RedBull. Give it a try if you have all the ingredients ;)
Futuremag Music: What does the future hold for Oriental Cravings?
YC: Keep doing what we’re doing really! Looking to play a lot more shows around Australia - bring back the livestream sessions (where we get a whole lot of producers to come in for a mix) and release more music!
QP: Also expect a lot more versatility from us in our production! We’ve got a whole new sound that we are going to showcase… expect a bit of rap and singing from us ;)