Kid Gloves is the UK duo comprised of producer wizards Anu Pillai and Roy Kerr. The two recently released their “Third Round” EP on FG and give us a little behind the scenes look on how they came up with their extremely catchy, classic and infectious dance sound. Read the Q&A below and nerd out as they talk about studio gear and some of their favorite classic dance tunes. Also be sure to buy their “Third Round” EP on iTunes now!

1. How did the Kid Gloves duo unite?

We’ve known each other as friends since the mid-90’s. I used to go and watch Anu when he put on these big college raves in Cambridge. After college, we both ended up in London. Anu was making music as Freeform Five and I started making music as The Freelance Hellraiser a bit later and when I got signed to Sony in ’05, we got our first chance to collaborate. I then did some programming on some of his remixes and we started hanging out and working more and more. I guess our first major break was writing and producing for Ladyhawke on her first album. That’s when our name was born and we went on to remix and produce a bunch of cool acts. We never really planned to release our own tracks, but we were just having fun in the studio one day and the vibe of the tracks seemed perfect for Fool’s Gold. Anu had DJ’ed with Nick Catchdubs and stayed in touch, so we fired them over and it’s great to have found our spiritual home!

2. Could you walk us through the inspiration and creation of the three tracks on the “Third Round” EP? The last track “Wish I Never” is a full out 90s throwback. How did you guys link up with Taiwah?

All of our best Kid Gloves tracks are done pretty quickly. When we’re writing and producing we tend to slave over sounds and arrangements etc. and the club stuff is a great chance for us to be a bit more spontaneous. Like we’ll often use Ableton to make our KG tracks, whereas we’d seldom use it for writing or production, preferring Logic or Pro Tools. “Third Round’ was a proper snatch & grab track. We wanted it to be immediate and punchy and obviously work out on the floor. We always mix up samples, with real instruments, plug ins with analog synths. Everything runs through a vintage Neve console which helps add the grit and glue it together.

“Wish I Never” really started from ‘that’ break. Anu dug it out and as soon as I heard it, with Tawiah & Priscilla Renea in the room, it just came together really quickly. We did a quick jam on the Moog Source for the bass and immediately Tawiah and Priscilla had the hook. We threw down some organ & guitar cuts and the track was done. She’s an incredibly talented artist and got the feel straight away. It was probably a typical grey London morning and we were imagining ourselves in a hot summer park in NYC!

“Stay The Same” is the dub of “Wish I Never”. We picked out that “pay the rent” line and worked it like it was ’95…You can hear those influences – Todd, the swingy NY house dubs that morphed into UKG. Tracks like this are real fun to make, making little edits and breakdowns. This is all about that bassline for me though. Working the syncopation in the parts until it’s impossible not to move to it.

3. Can you name any specific tracks, songs or producers that were the source of inspiration for the EP?

The three tracks might seem diverse and very different to the casual listener, but we’re sure the heads who like to dig a little bit deeper will be able to join the dots. “Wish I Never” is back to the late 80’s – Soul to Soul, Family Stand, Neneh Cherry, Mantronix etc. Whereas “Third Round” & “Stayed the Same” are two sides of the mid 90’s where new kids from Europe were influenced by the US masters – Crymadoure, DJ Falcon, Motorbass influenced by Todd Edwards & MAW dubs etc. The common link though is the love and passion for ’70’s black music and how later generations have tried to rework that. We’re all about trying to bring those influences up to date rather than creating a slavish “period piece”.

4. What are your top 5 favorite throwback dance tracks?
Listing just 5 is pretty damn hard!

Val Young – Seduction

Marley Marl – The Symphony Pt. II

Steve Poindexter – Work That Mutha Fucka

St. Germain – Alabama Blues (Todd Edwards remix)

Cassius – La Mouche (DJ Falcon remix)