Hailing from Nova Scotia, situated almost exactly midway between the equator and the North Pole, Canadian duo Southern Shores make lush studio-house mixing a diverse range of tropical beats with more down tempo chill-wave. Their latest release, which comes out on New York/London based label Cascine today, showcases Ben and Jamie’s trademark sound at its best with tracks like Breathe experimenting with a solid, base-heavy drumbeat, warm steel-pan synths and muted vocals whilst Natural High plays a much more nostalgic vibe blending early 90s echoes with clipped hip-hop samples. Definitely one to watch over the coming months, we caught up with the coffee loving collective to find out more about their musical upbringing, where they go to get away from it all, and what’s good for breakfast.

Tell us a little bit about yourselves. Where have you come from? Where are you going?

We come from Halifax, Nova Scotia. We now live in Toronto but harbour secret desires to return to Berlin where the Shores were born.

Talk to us about how you got started in music? What did you grow up listening to?

I’ve been playing guitar since I was young and Jamie spent his high school years producing hip-hop beats. We came together accidentally yet organically over a shared desire to make interesting music. As children our music diets consisted mainly of Bob Marley, Van Morrison and Paul Simon.

How do you go about putting a new track together? Is it quite a laborious process or does it just come organically?

Making new music is a very casual affair at the beginning, a lot of throwing ideas around quickly, not taking anything too seriously. Working intuitively yields the best results. The refining process generally takes much longer but we’re always working on not overproducing and letting tracks retain as much of their initial fire as possible.

What’s …

… the story behind your name?

It came to me one day out of the blue and had such a nice ring to it. It sounds like an escape to somewhere beautiful.

… that one track you just can’t help playing on loop?

Right now we’re addicted to ‘Tell All Your Friends’ by Chad Valley. His new record is incredible.

… good for breakfast?

Massive orange banana blueberry smoothies with Greek yogurt.

… your local watering hole?

Get Well on Dundas and Ossington. Great beers and free arcade machines.

Where …

… do you go to get away from it all?

Nova Scotian cottage country, be it the south or north. So much beautiful space.

… do you look for new ideas?

In film, in music, in friends, in nature. In the shower. While walking, running, biking. Over coffee in the morning, over beers at night.

Tell us something we don’t know.

We’ve started work on the next record already and it’s so much fun.

Listen to Southern Shores here:

http://soundcloud.com/southernshores/tracks

Interview by Thomas Curry