Monsieur Frazier Wants to Keep You Close: Los Angles native Monsieur Frazier started DJing during his sophomore year of college when he was living in Isla Vista and going to school at Santa Barbara City College.
“It was something that I felt called to do, and sort of just figured out on my own how to do it,” he says. “As far as producing goes, that was a few years later, about a year after I dropped out of school and met my long-time production, and business partner, Micah Smith. That was about 2011-2012, and it also pretty much got serious right after we met and started working together.”
The artist says that it’s difficult to describe his sound today because he’s influenced by so many things, but he does his best.
“I’ll say that it is still very much rooted in what I was making in 2012, which was a jazzy/soulful, deep, and funky house,” he says. “However, add that now with a healthy dose of breaks, acid, techno, bass, UK garage, hip hop, and rap, contemporary R&B, disco, and even some indie dance, lo-fi, and bedroom pop, and there you have it! Sounds chaotic, but I love trying to make these things work under the bed of ‘traditional dance music’ like Chicago and classic New York house, and Detroit techno and electro. Not all at once of course, but bits and pieces of some of these sounds here and some other sounds there.”
Despite the pandemic and lockdown, Frazier believes this is a healthy time for electronic music in L.A.
“The L.A. scene has always been super close-knit, and very supportive, but now it’s even more so than before the pandemic started, and it’s so beautiful to see the creative collaboration every time you go out,” he says. “Everyone is just genuinely happy to see each other, and everyone wants to see each other win and help each other out. There’s obviously always going to be a little competition, and that’s natural, but nobody is pulling any shady business or doing anything crazy to screw each other over. The scene is still small enough that if you don’t treat people well, word will get around town and people won’t support you. But at the same time, the scene is big enough to show that everyone can still have a fun, successful show and get their piece as well. In addition to being a DJ and producer, I co-founded and run an event brand/artist collective called Understated, which I started in 2016 with two of my best friends Micah Smith and Zach Piehl. Coming back after the lockdown has been tough, but we’ve been able to make it work with the help of our friends who also throw events and we’re willing to collaborate with us, which speaks to the nature of our scene.”
His new single is “Keep You Close,” featuring Nick Garcia.
“There are some pretty distinct, but subtle themes and concepts on ‘Keep You Close’,” he says. “Lyrically the song is about a girl that I was seeing that I liked, and things ended very suddenly and abruptly, and although we never really got past the ‘dating’ phase, I was pretty bummed when it ended because I liked her, and I thought there was something there, so the lyrics are me just trying gas myself up, and to show myself some self-love. Sonically, the song is mine and Nick’s attempt to make a U.K. Garage track, with touches of acid house and hip-hop. I was very inspired by rappers like Pop Smoke, and how he took U.K. drill rap and worked it into the American rap scene, I think it was brilliant how he was able to do that, and I thought why can’t we do this for dance music as well.”
Looking ahead, Monsieur Frazier has plenty planned for 2021.
“Aside from putting my EP out, which has just dropped today and I am so unbelievably excited about it,” he says. “I have a few more shows lined up to sort of close out the summer, and after that, I plan on spending the remainder of the year very much in the studio. I’ve had shows almost every week this entire summer since mid-June, which has been very fun but has left me very little time to work on new music. So I am very excited to get back to that.”
Monsieur Frazier Wants to Keep You Close: The “Keep You Close” single and the self-titled EP are out now.
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