Purveyors: Heartfelt electro indie pop that is absurdly likeable
File next to: The Postal Service, Tanlines, the Hidden Cameras
Playing: Thursday April 24 at Tattoo Queen West for WL 596 a.k.a. NICE.

Toronto twosome Most People (ne: Brandon Gibson-DeGroote and Paul McEachern) have been gigging steadily around the GTA for a few years now, charming audiences with their slightly off-kilter electronic pop variation. There is slew of new music on the horizon from these Wavelength vets as they've decided to embrace the (slight) comeback of the cassette for a new hand-crafted EP series.

Wavelength is very proud to feature the world premiere of the first in the series, Stay Forever Here in The Night, right here on the Wavelog. We caught up with pair recently for a chat on formats, formulas and the advantages of working in small, small group.

First question: tell us about your upcoming cassette.

Paul: Our cassette is the beginning of a series of cassingles we are releasing this year. This one is called Stay Forever Here in the Night and it's a lively, feel-good EP EP we wrote over the winter. We're going to be performing it in its entirety at our upcoming release show, along with some fun complementary projections and an additional synth player.

We've been hearing about "the cassette renaissance" for a while. Why are you guys jumping aboard?

Paul: Well, we were resistant to it at first, but when we decided to record this EP, we thought these songs would be most appropriately enjoyed on a more nostalgic platform. Also, CDs are basically mute nowadays and cassettes are way cheaper to make. Keep in mind, we are going to be including a download code so people can rock out in the digital world, too! We just want to be able to sell something tangible to people that they can take home with them.

Fun! From the pics on your Facebook page, it looks like it's handmade packaging? How many are you planning for the series, with general ETAs on the next batch of releases?

Brandon: Yes, our good buddy Mike Pereira (Zords, Beetzwax) has designed the album covers and will be screen-printing/colouring them in himself. There will be six different covers, so y'all will have plenty to choose from. We are aiming for 4 EPs for 2014 and we'll be spacing them out by a few months each. So, the next one will be mid- to late-summer, and then around October and so on.

Are most of the songs written already? May there be a loose "songs inspired by winter" or "songs inspired by summer" theme?

Paul: We have written most of the songs that we will be releasing this year. Each EP will have its own personality and aesthetic. We thought it would interesting and fun to create short albums that have a complementary theme/vibe. It gives us the freedom to really get behind each one as a separate entity.

For example, we wrote this upcoming EP using a 707 drum machine and a Korg M1, and we focused on using consistent guitar and vocal sounds. Our next EP will be more dance-y feeling and have higher energy. We are going to include several remixes and whatnot as a bonus, too. We will eventually build a full LP but for the moment, we are focusing on creating and exploring each EP individually.

Very cool. Sounds like replicating each EP on-stage will take a different set-up of instruments?

Brandon: Yes, somewhat. We still write our songs within the context of our band, and our live performance approach, generally speaking — which is just the two of us and a computer that we control with our footsies. That said, we have already broke from that model for this release, because we will be having a synth player on stage when we play the songs from this EP. So I guess we can say that we will have to take each release and assess what would be the most exciting and suitable way to present it. Also, we're very much into collaboration, so we are always open and excited to work with people, both within the music and also the art, etc…

Have you guys ever come close to adding a permanent 3rd (or 4th, 5th) member to the band? Could you see that in future?

Paul: We haven't really consider that yet at this point. We really enjoy the challenge that comes from writing and performing as a duo. So as we mentioned before, we really enjoy collaboration and as we come across more amazing musicians, we're very excited about working and creating and performing with people in the Toronto music scene.

Were you guys around for the original cassette "heyday"? Did you own anything on cassette growing up? I'm sensing you're a bit younger than me (I was born in '77) and I think I caught maybe the last 10 years or so.

Brandon: I definitely was. In the past, it was all about the mixtape. I used to record the radio all night to catch Mods and Rockers on CIUT at 2:00 am. The tape was the only way to share music with people, and when you got a mixtape, you were forced along for the ride. It's not like a CD where you can just skip a track. And you can't forget about the famous Toronto rave tapes. Before the Internet, that was the only way to find cool electronic DJ sets.

Paul: That's why we really enjoyed making this cassette. As people will discover, the cassette version of our EP is truly a mixtape. Our digital download will be a straight three songs, but the tape is a fun little journey of constant audio. And maybe a little surprise on the B-side.

Most People play NICE (co-presented by Wavelength and Dalton Higgins) on Thursday, April 24 at Tattoo Queen West.

— Interview by Cam Gordon (Completely Ignored)