Miguel Ramirez
After debuting their much-anticipated artist album last week, SMR LVE have now hit No. 1 on Beatport.
The reception of SMR LVE’s new album ‘To The Stars’ has so far been overwhelming and this has translated to an incredible rise to No. 1 on Beatport’s Top 100 Releases chart.
The new album features a total of 15 tracks and featured collaborations with some of the biggest vocalists in the scene including Eric Lumiere, Christina Novelli, Roxanne Emery, That Girl, Linney and more.
We recently caught up with the duo to talk about how the album came to be. Check out the interview below!
Congratulations on the release of your new debut album, ‘To The Stars’! What’s going through both your minds right now?
We both worked really hard on this whole album and it’s crazy to see the day is finally here when we get to share it with the world. We hope all the listeners love what we’ve created and we’re excited for them to hear it.
What was the mission you both set out when completing this work of art?
We actually had a very clear vision in mind when creating the album. We knew we wanted to take the listeners on a musical journey with it and we came up with the concept of ‘To The Stars’ very early on. Starting on a beach for the intro and keeping up with the melodic, beach vibes for the first few tracks. The album then transitions to more progressive sounds and concludes with pure uplifting, essentially taking the listener on a journey “To The Stars”.
What do you hope your fans get out of your new album?
We hope the fans really treat the album as a full experience from start to finish, as the album is intended to be listened to that way. We treated the album the same as we would for one of our live sets, starting with more melodic and building from there. We understand people will have their favourite tracks on the album, but hope they will enjoy the album as a whole from start to finish too.
‘To The Stars’ features some amazing collaborations including Eric Lumiere on your latest festival smasher ‘Through The Fire’ and ‘Show Me The Light’. How did collaborating with Eric Lumiere come together?
We’ve been fans of Eric going way back to his early days working with Cosmic Gate to more recent tracks with Paul van Dyk and Ferry Corsten. We connected with him in late 2019 to work on ‘Show Me The Light’ and meshed really well together, so we were excited to join forces again on ‘Through The Fire’.
You’ve also worked with Christina Novelli, Roxanne Emery, Polly Strange, Kyler England, Linney, Waves On Waves and That Girl on your album. When selecting a collaborator, how do you decide who you will work with?
We basically had a short list of our favourite vocalists that we wanted to work with and we were very lucky to be able to connect with them. We’re fans of their work just like everyone else and we feel blessed to work with such amazing talent. Everything came together with them in all the right ways and we couldn’t be happier with the whole project.
Do you both have a track that you are most proud of?
The track we are both most proud of is “Need Somebody”. During the difficult times with COVID and people’s hardships, we wanted to create a song about a song about love, hope and something to make everyone feel needed.
We reached out to friends, family and fans from around the world who submitted clips to be part of the music video so it really holds a special place for us. It also went on to win the “Future Favourite” on Armin van Buuren’s ‘A State Of Trance’ and is our biggest hit to date. We’re definitely proud of the success we’ve achieved with this song and working with Tanya (That Girl) was amazing as well.
How long have you been working together as SMR LVE and what inspired the idea of joining forces?
We’ve had a passion for this music for years and started chatting online together back in 2018. We’d both been producing solo for a number of years using FL Studio so everything clicked right away with us. Sending tracks back and forth, we came up with the idea to work together and collaborate with the best vocalists possible for a sound with nice summer feels. Hence our name SMR LVE is actually an abbreviation for Summer Love 😉
If you were both stuck on a desert island, which Trance records would you have to have with you?
Chicane’s “Saltwater” is a timeless classic for both of us. It has such a mysterious, yet beautiful vocal from Moya Brennan along with an amazing summer feel to the track that instantly takes your mind to our favourite place – Ibiza. Our track “Rising Sun’ was very much inspired by “Saltwater” and we thought was a perfect way to open our album after the beach inspired intro “Horizons”.
We wish you loads of success on your new album! Do you have any final words for all your die-hard fans across the world?
We’re fans of this music just as much as you, so getting to wake up everyday and do what we love is truly a blessing and wouldn’t be possible without you. Your streams, likes, comments and support never go unnoticed and we appreciate you all so much for that. We want to give a huge thanks to each and everyone of you and we hope to be able to connect with each of you someday around the globe. Until then, we hope you all enjoy the journey “To The Stars”.
Tracklist:
01. SMR LVE – Horizons (Intro)
02. SMR LVE & Polly Strange – Rising Sun
03. SMR LVE – Beautiful
04. SMR LVE & That Girl – Forever
05. SMR LVE & Waves On Waves – Help Me Believe
06. SMR LVE & Eric Lumiere – Show Me The Light
07. SMR LVE & Eric Lumiere – Through The Fire
08. SMR LVE & Christina Novelli – Sanctuary
09. SMR LVE & Kyler England – Story Of Your Heart
10. SMR LVE & Roxanne Emery – Lost In Love
11. SMR LVE & Linney – Someone You Love
12. SMR LVE & Roxanne Emery – Let The Light In
13. SMR LVE & That Girl – Need Somebody
14. SMR LVE – Light Up The Sky
15. SMR LVE – Discover (Outro)
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