Dazed Mix: Soft Crash

Combining cyberpunk themes with surreal visuals, Soft Crash’s latest release Your Last Everything explores the increasingly blurred lines between man and machine. The joint project of body music trailblazers, BITE label head Hayden Payne and artist Pablo Bozzi, the album pair’s first full-length album is a heady sci-fi trip across dimensions, juxtaposing internal conflicts of good and evil, creation and destruction, victory and defeat.

Across eight tracks, the duo build on their Italo body palette to include electro, acid house, bleep, hi-nrg, and IDM. “Our music balances between a cold technological world that is very mechanical to one that is warm and full of emotions,” they share. 

For their exclusive Dazed mix, the duo deliver a trippy mix featuring 80s and 90s classics, Italo and synth-wave. “We wanted to record a vibey mix that would be appropriate for afterparties,” they explain. “So we made something trippier and groovier but still keeping our sleek, sexy cyberpunk style with ominous melancholia.”

How did Soft Crash come about?

Soft Crash: We met years ago when we both moved to Berlin and at the time were working as Phase Fatale and Imperial Black Unit. But we also realised we had the same passions for synth-wave and Italo. Pablo did his first solo EP on Hayden’s label BITE as well as a collab EP with Sarin as Imperial Black Unit prior to that. We found a way to combine all these sounds and influences into what is Soft Crash.

Tell me about your latest album. What are some of the main inspirations?

Soft Crash: We dove into more complex production and arrangement methods akin to groups from the 80s or 90s, somewhere between Depeche Mode and Autechre. There are also more influences from breaks and electro in addition to our love for artists like Tobias Bernstrup or cuts from Boy Records. 

Your work often explores the relationship between technology and the body, what attracts you to this theme?

Soft Crash: The attraction comes from different levels that we associate with technology as musicians working with machines and the computer as well as when DJing and then onto an everyday life level. Our music balances a cold technological world that is very mechanical with one that is warm and full of emotions. 

What inspired the album’s name?

Soft Crash: The name holds meaning coming from a quite emotionally rough pandemic winter and wondering what “your last everything” means. Marie Davidson’s lyrics on the bonus collab song really capture the deeper meaning of the title as it explores gamer experiences, life and death, and neo-romanticism.

What are some of your earliest memories of music? Have they influenced your sound at all?

Soft Crash: Even when Hayden’s mom was still pregnant, his parents would play Iggy Pop instead of Mozart to me in the womb. He remembers listening to Sisters Of Mercy or Killing Joke in the back of his dad’s jeep. So yes, you can hear some influence.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Soft Crash: We both really loved the first album of Nuovo Testamento on Avant! Records.

Any fun projects or shows lined up?

Soft Crash: Yes for sure! BITE has its first label night at Berghain on October 21st. Really excited about that. Then we go on a tour of Colombia and Mexico and return to play live at Berghain in the Säule on November 13th. Afterwards will be our first US tour together. Finally, we’ll play a 2-day BITE Nite weekender at our 2nd home KHIDI in Tbilisi on December 9/10.

Tell us about your Dazed mix.

Soft Crash: We wanted to record a vibey mix that would be appropriate for afterparties. So we made something trippier and groovier but still keeping our sleek, sexy cyberpunk style with ominous melancholia. The mix oscillates between new, unreleased tracks to 80s and 90s classics connecting the dots between all. Recorded live in Pablo’s studio.

How were you feeling when making it?

Soft Crash: Very productive, as we’ve been playing out every weekend and then during the week cranking out tracks and working. So we wanted to capture this momentum from the club and the studio here.

Tracklist

1. “Untitled” - Xeno & Oaklander
2. “Love Is A Shield (Audrey Danza Edit)” - Camouflage
3. “My Voice” - Facets
4. “Falling Sun (Bliss Inc Remix)” - Naone
5. “Never Return To Earth” - Endrik Schroeder
6. “Unreleased” - Error508
7. “Rituals” - Asymetric80
8. “Negative Soul” - Mahkina
9. “Tonight” - New Scene
10. “Reavity” -  Lavion
11. “The Snow” - Coil
12. “Spell On My Dance (Arkademode Remix)” - Farloh
13. “Arcadia” - Neurotiker
14. “Time Space Rhythm and Bass” - Dark Vektor
15. “Hologram Rose” - Soft Crash
16. “One Must Imagine Sisiphos Happy” - Younger Than Me
17. “LFO (Leeds Warehouse Mix)” - LFO
18. “All Of That (Pablo Bozzi Remix)” - SDH