The first Botnek track I heard was "Vikings," their recent collab with 3LAU, and upon pressing play I couldn't tell whether to laugh or headbang. I just ended up doing both. The Halifax, Canada-raised duo bring such twonked out glitchery to big room templates that you can't help but react in some manner. Turns out i'm not the only one who feels that way, either. "Generally, when we're playing our stuff early in sets, people just sort of stare at us and wait for us to stop playing it," laughs the duo's Erick Muise. "While we're up there rocking out, enjoying, having so much fun, everybody is just so confused as to what's happening." continues Gordon Huntley."We don't take ourselves that seriously. We just do what we think is funny," says Erick. "A lot of it comes from a sense of humor. We're like, 'this is so much more insane than what we just made, let's make it more!' The serious side of it is that we try to make it sound good but the songs themselves are whacky and crazy so that's us just having a ton of fun with them.""There are people who just don't get it at all and that's totally fine," Erick goes on. "I like the strong reactions towards our music and either you love it or you hate it – that's what I like." What is actually going on, though? "A lot of our stuff is hinting at the old fidget sound," says Gordon. "Which used to be just like those side-swipes on the drop. It's just a total left field sassiness, so we still play that aesthetic but we're trying to make it even bigger."Big room isn't a sound that gets the most shine at HARD events, a brand that leans ever so slightly towards hipster aesthetics. I asked how the duo ended up on the bill. "Peer pressure mostly," laughs Erick. "And a lot of bribes! I don't know, I'm excited about it though, we've never played a HARD event before. It's our first one and it's my birthday. Yeah its my birthday November 2nd!"Never ones to ignore an opportunity for silliness, the Dim Mak-signed duo will most definitely be dressing up for Halloween. "I haven't seen our costumes yet," says Erick. "Management is getting them made for us but its secret – but I'll tell yout that it rhymes with trailer park boys."Find Botnek on FB // Soundcloud // Twitter
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