It’s a journey into the depths of the unknown, or not quite.
Azaleh is something of a magician; a staple of the bass music scene who sits outside the definitions of genre, creating music that sifts through ambient, future garage, breaks – to name a few, whilst calling the listener’s subconscious to heed. The latest is no different; the monolithic A Deeper Blue EP debuted on STUDIO’s label imprint, STUDIO SONICS, this month. A gorgeously rich collaboration that merges Azaleh’s cosmic symphonies with the lilting melodies of the mighty Echo Map – a journeyman of a musician who straddles over a decade’s worth of production experience.
Together, their combined experience culminates in this five-track collaboration masterclass that voyages through sonic space. Shifting, breaksy soundscapes complete with cinematic pads and deep grooves; entrance, entwine, and entice, exploring the depths of ambient techno-influenced nirvana, in new genre ground for both talents. Experimental frontrunners Diode Eins bring a gentle hypnotic edge to the pensive Unknown Depths, whilst the titular A Darker Black delivers the notes of resolution and the last line of the poem etched from the track titles themselves. It’s a self-contained universe of an EP and a personal triumph of the long-time partnership.
We caught up with the two to chat, discussing the ins and outs of their artistic relationship, Azaleh and Echo Map’s respective aims and ambitions, studio refreshments, and movements through techno as the pair journey further through the sonic sphere.
Hallo Moritz (Echo Map), Leonard (Azaleh)! Happy Release Month!
M – Haha, thanks, it’s been a great month!
L – It’s great to see this special project out there.
So, where did the A Deeper Blue EP begin?
M – It started with the track Sinking Into, my solo track on the EP. It’s a year older than everything else on the EP. That first idea formed the bedrock of the whole thing. I knew I wanted this techno-influenced song to be on there, and that was it! And Leo and I have been working together for a long time, I thought, let’s get together and try to make this a collaborative project. We’ve done collaborative projects before, but not on this scale. Some individual songs or like a two-track, but never a full five-track EP. I also think a lot of what we’ve been doing in the last few years has been very sound design design-oriented, and this track that I was sitting on was just, so very straightforward and very European in a lot of ways.
L – Yes, at the time that we started working on it, we were also working on our live set, and we wanted to create some more material that we could actually play out, in all honesty. So in this realm, you might not want to go as deep into the details and rather focus on something that moves people forward. This was also a strong influence on creating the EP.
Yes ,yes, sounds that make people want to dance. How would you describe your signature sounds?
L – We try to create this world that you can get lost in and blur the lines between sonics you’re familiar with and something that you might not have heard before. It can be difficult to fit that into a club environment just because of what people are expecting.
M – I think it’s about being fluid. I think our sound signifies changes, progression. It’s about contrast and breaking expectations. It’s subtlety. We’re pretty adaptable, we like journeying around different styles and energies a lot of times. But I think what remains consistent is that it’s about vibe, having harmony as well as that progression. I don’t like music that is static or remains in one place. I want an energy gradient, pulling everything from point A to point B.
Mystical and progressive. Just what we love. You’ve been steady collaborators for a while now. How did you both connect musically?
L – I think I hit more Moritz (Echo Map) up back in 2020, which is also how we met, basically through UPSCALE and the community there. I loved his music, his first EP as Echo Map, but also previous works he had done under the Synergy Sound alias. So I sent him a message, not expecting anything. He got back to me, we started talking, and then we just started working on Feather quite early on. You (Moritz) had this progression for the song, and I just ended up sending a bunch more sounds to Moritz.
M – It was incredible. I think we wrote that song in about a week! We were constantly working all week, and whatever we were writing on Discord about the song; exchanging ideas, sound design, or samples I needed for the arrangement, Leonard (Azaleh) just immediately sent it over. I felt like I had a perfect sample pack, whatever I needed; for example, a specific drum break idea, five minutes later, I would have the most unthinkably perfect drum break, exactly how I imagined it! It was perfect. And that happened 200 times over. It was really inspiring and motivating for both of us to try that again at some point, because we obviously worked so well together and had the same aesthetic in mind. This has proven true a lot of times with our collaborations, where even though we do make pretty different stuff in our solo works, it’s very easy for us to converge on an idea that we both really like and both understand the same way.
L – I also really, really enjoy bringing these perspectives together and exploring together. And I think, like, most of the songs we’ve written were done in person. We’ve only ever worked on two songs together online.
A true meeting of minds. Do you think collaborating in person makes a significant difference?
L – Massively. When you have an idea, the translation of that is immediate, and there’s no delay between having the idea and then trying to realise it. Also, just having someone else in the room, I feel like I’m also listening through the other person’s ears, which causes my own perception to be different. But it can be quite fun online as well. I’m grateful to be able to experience both of those workflows.
M – In person is definitely more fun. It’s just fun to travel for that as well! When we worked on Feather, we were both, at the time, chronically online. It was almost like doing it in person. There was no delay, right? So the only difference was not being in the same room and not listening with the other person’s ear too. One thing that’s really different working together with somebody else is letting go of having to make sounds perfect in the moment. When I’m working alone, I have a really hard time not being a perfectionist. I just don’t want any sound to be suboptimal. When you’re working alongside someone, you don’t want to make them sit there for an hour whilst you ‘fix’ something, so you just have to move on from it. You think that’s good enough for now. You keep writing, and that’s just a very different workflow.
All producers everywhere can relate to that. A double question now, why did A Deeper Blue become the EP title, and who wrote the poem made out of the track titles?
L – Moritz came up with that!
M – Haha, I think it ended up being a collaboration at the end. A Deeper Blue was the working title for that track from the beginning, without it being the poem. It resonated and conveyed the vibe, but also it’s very much something I would describe Leo’s (Azaleh) music with; a deeper blue, I think blue is the Azaleh colour. That stuck around, and we came up with that poem at Leo’s studio when we were trying to make everything sound coherent. I thought ‘a deeper blue’ very much conveyed deep water and an immersive kind of scenario. A lot of the tracks had a progression moving downwards, towards something dark, where the second drop is darker than the first. I like this way of working with the music, and I like writing with spaces in mind; I’m not really writing emotionally or autobiographically. I’m writing more visually and spatially, that’s why this poem is visual and spatial.
This is such a beautiful mix of media. I love how your styles complement each other. What do you respect about each other as artists?
M – I don’t think it is disputable that Leonard (Azaleh) is a way better producer than I am. That’s just a fact. From a very technical perspective, I’m very much always in awe of how much Leonard can make stuff sound good, which I cannot. So that’s very helpful in a collaboration to have a person like that! And then, of course, the way he uses that skill to create atmosphere and immersion, make things hypnotic and very organic; this aesthetic taste in combination with just having actual skill in this area, I think is so cool and a unique thing that he brings to our collaborations. And then just general good music taste is also just the best.
L – Much love to you Moritz, thank you. I absolutely love working with Moritz (Echo Map) for so many reasons. I think the biggest one by now is just that he’s a really good friend who I love spending time with, so it’s always great to make music together. And when we’re speaking about music itself, the way Moritz uses harmonies and creates progression in his music is just absolutely beautiful. Anytime he sends something, I always think that those core ideas he comes up with are outstanding; they just inspire me instantly and get me going right away. I think this is also why it works so well between us, because we can bounce off each other and have skills in different areas of music. It’s just a good time!
This is beautiful! It’s just a dream to make music with your friends, right? Ok, quickfire round; who finishes tracks quicker?
M – Ah, I would say Leo! You definitely can do it.
L – Awwww.
M – You can do it in a day! I can’t do that.
If you had to choose, who is the better DJ?
M – Definitely Leo. I’m not a DJ, haha.
L – Ah ah ah well, the thing is Moritz works so differently when he plays a set, he spends the most time editing songs and really thinking the whole thing through, and then he plays a better see,t so it’s just a different way of looking at it!
I think that goes to you Moritz. Finally, what’s your go-to studio snack?
L – Well, yours is pistachio.
M – How did you…
L – That’s the one he always gets! For me… see in the studio, it’s not convenient to snack. Sometimes I just chop up carrots to eat because at least with those, you don’t get grease all over your stuff.
M – Yeah, your equipment is way too nice to snack around.
Perfect. Carrot sticks, it is. Let’s get back to the studio; Unknown Depths – what was it like working with the legendary Diode Eins trio on this track?
M – At some point, Leonard was in contact with Jerome, and he (Leonard) created a chat with all of us, and I think they were really inspired by Leonard’s work. They’re German techno people, but they were really interested in atmospheric stuff. We had this five-person text chain where we talked about wanting to do something, but we didn’t really know where to go. The idea that became Unknown Depth started with this piano riff I had in an unfinished project, which is the core of the breakdown. I just sent the whole project to them and told them to do anything they want. They created the sound design in the intro by taking a few of the sounds I made, and the progression from the middle section – basically designing the groove. We met up at their studio to finish the track, spent a weekend there, and basically finished it.
L – It was good to do that in person because if you’re five people trying to navigate everyone’s interests, it’s just not that easy to do if you’re not in the same room. Their studio is incredible, with a lot of floor space in this industrial complex. It was cool being able to work at a higher volume, because in my room at home, I never really turn up the speakers, for my neighbour’s sake. There, you could get the experience of what that might actually feel like when you listen to the song on a sound system.
Nothing beats a proper sound system test. Did you have any creative conflicts when working together?
L – There was this question, if we should do this chord change. I wasn’t completely against it, but I also didn’t quite feel it until one moment. We added one more chord, then brought it back to where it was after that change, and that seemed to click with everyone. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a conflict, though. I think it’s good to have these different perspectives because it allows you to find this middle ground that works for everyone. And I think in this specific spot it was where the magic was at, because then you also don’t leave it at 90% ie. just before the finish line, you really have to push it all the way, so it makes perfect sense to everyone.
A very structured way of working, we’re taking notes. How did their style complement yours on Unknown Depth?
L – They completed the song. They made these percussive sounds that had thus punchy digital quality while still retaining an organic feel. The sound design bits they did are so unique and powerful. When you’re listening to techno on a sound system, you want to have these sounds that are very prominent, very in your face. And they did that so well. This really set us off to explore these types of sounds in a context that belongs in the EP; that is progressive, that goes from one place to another, that shifts throughout time. It just all fell into place because of these different sounds that came together there.
M – They can be very authentically techno to a point where that’s just not our instinct and not what we’re used to. I think the EP alludes to techno throughout, but never quite gets there, even though Sinking Into is such a techno tune. So really, they did complete the project by helping us marry up some of these bass music tropes together with their expertise.
Definitely. You’ve both mentioned before your experimentation with across genres recently. What directions has this project sent both of you in?
L – It’s definitely opened up a new perspective. Whenever you do something that you haven’t done before, you’re gonna learn something along the way. These songs are surely going to be an influence on whatever comes next. Right now, both of us are experimenting with more hypnotic ideas in the realm of techno and beyond, playing with odd time signatures and dreamy soundscapes. I’ve been meaning to explore these ideas for a long time and never really quite figured out how I wanted to do that, coming from an atmospheric background. Now bringing that together with this hypnotic quality, in terms of the rhythm, in terms of the texture, is really interesting, because it allows me to build a space in which you can have your own experience. What I mean by that is moving away from an intro and a drop, where you expect to feel a certain way at a specific moment in the song. What I’m doing now is more progressive; you can have that peak at any moment that makes sense to you. It’s not so much about directing the momentum in a way that you usually do in bass music. So, yeah, that’s, that’s something I’ve been exploring and hopefully releasing some of that in the year to come.
And we’re looking forward to it! Moritz, where do you want to go next on your music journey?
M – Aha, I’ve been genre hopping pretty aggressively for 15 years straight, and I’ve always done whatever. I was part of Synergy Sound, which was like five projects in one. Whatever takes my interest, I will put all my effort into exploring a path until I have no more, then I move on. Sometimes I get dragged into stuff by Leonard. Sometimes I drag Leonard along. Sometimes I do stuff on my own. I have some projects in the works, but after that, I couldn’t tell you. But I’m not too precious about that. At this point, I’m really not that ambitious with it in terms of trying to get somewhere I’m honestly pretty happy with, like, the situation that I’m in, where I can just do whatever I want creatively. Also having these amazing collaborators, like Leo, of course, but also others like Tom Finster, Frequent, voljum. All these people are just fantastic musicians, very smart and thoughtful, and I feel very lucky that I can work with them and their wide musical repertoire.
A true Creative’s dream. How do you see the techno genre evolving further?
L – That’s difficult to answer in general, I’d say for myself, I can really see us venturing into this hypnotic area further. The Diode Eins guys recommended some music with that kind of sound. There’s so much good music out there that you just haven’t come across, listening inspires us to try some ideas in that realm. I really like that aspect, when you have this static rhythm that propels the energy forward, but you also have the depth of the atmospheres, all these textures and soundscapes that you can really lose yourself in. I would love to hear more of this sound in a live setting.
Any artists that you want to shout out that we should be listening to within that realm?
L – Hypnus Records.
M – Claudio PRC. We’re super fans. I think Basis Change is doing some good stuff… There’s also ANNA.
L – Luigi Tozzi is also so sick. I still feel like we’re scratching the surface of the genre, and some tracks we’ve come across have been insane. It just makes me wonder how much more is out there that I just don’t know of.
We’re going to go away and do some serious listening after this. Thank you. How do you envision the future of music?
M – Have you seen the most recent Skrillex release? Every track was like 50 seconds long, and just a build-up and a drop. 34 tracks, with lengths at 50 seconds, 1:30, 1 minute, 44 seconds… It’s just skits. But some of these skits are actually pretty sick. It makes me think of shows where artists are mixing drop into drop into the next drop and just playing each track for 45 seconds only anyway. It feels like a natural evolution to also structure releases this way, for this kind of set. I think there may arise an even clearer divergence between music that is made to be listened to at home and music that is made to be played out. Right now, I feel like a lot of electronic music tries to be both, and it sometimes just doesn’t work. So why not just make a build-up and a drop for this very specific genre, where you need exactly that?
We hear you, situational listening, set, and setting are important. Hopefully, we can still share music together in the live event setting in the future, as it’s still special to share these moments with a crowd.
L – Absolutely. I’m going to do the opposite. I’ll play at Boom later this year, and I’m gonna play a 13-minute song. Haha! I don’t know what I’m gonna do on stage, but I agree that the context is super important for listening experiences. Who can say how this will all play out in the end?
True! What has music done for both of you in your lives?
L – It’s a lot for me. Recently, I can feel a shift in the way I write music. One of the most important realisations I had was that what I wanted to do in music for a long time had nothing to do with music. In order to achieve it, I had to look inside and align energies within myself, and then come from that place when starting to write tracks. This way it can become a true reflection of how I feel because I’m not writing with an agenda, I’m just doing the thing that I need to do, what the music tells me to do, so it becomes more of a conversation. There’s definitely an aspect of self-reflection in it for me; by listening to what I’m doing, I also understand myself better. In that way, it’s a means of exploration too.
M – That was the deep, full-time musician answer. Now you’ll get the shallow part-time musician answer, haha. Music is a very powerful mood setter for me in general, it’s transformative of moods, spaces, and experiences. I also like music that inspires me to write music, I think all producers get this. If I hear something interesting in a track that interests me, or makes me wonder how that was made, or what that could sound like when combined with something else. I think I’m a lot more utilitarian with music compared to Leonard, but occasionally, a rare find will cross my path that will blow me away.
Both are very, very valid answers. Thank you both so much! Finally, where can we find you this year?
L – I just released Nova and Gloom before A Deeper Blue came out. I hope you enjoy these. I’m playing at Psy-Fi and Boom, I’m really looking forward to flying the hypnotic music flag out there.
M – I have some more music coming out, I can’t say much, but to be honest, you’re more likely to find me at a science conference this year than a festival! But please look out for more music.
Interview conducted in April 2025 by Gianina Mesina.
Thanks to Leonard & Moritz for the chat!
You can stream/download/support their latest release on STUDIO SONICS here.
You can also read our previous feature with Skeptical here.
