Pure Sky feat. ESP (@espforever) – The producer duo who pull up in CDG Play, Armani puffers and MCM backpacks before dropping listeners into a bath of atmospheric soundscapes and entrancing acid lines layered over club beats. Earlier this year, Maliki and Lally released Promise, their second record and first with Year0001, and followed it up with a month-long tour overseas. Read on for a quick Q&A and click here to listen to their playlist.
What should people do while listening to this playlist?
Whatever you feel like really.
You guys just finished your second tour, congratulations. How’d it go?
Thank you! It was fun for sure. Got to meet amazing people and see some beautiful places. We played a lot of unreleased stuff this time around which felt good. Traveling and connecting with people through music is a dream, so we’re super grateful.
How did two kids from rural Massachusetts end up here? Was it fated from the start?
We’ve been homies since we were like 3 years old and always loved music. Being in the countryside we were always in our own world, making stuff, and we’ve just kept it going.
How important is connecting with nature in your creative process?
I think just experiencing any kind of, like, spontaneous beauty is important for us to get hyped to create something. Like any scenery or situation that just hits us a certain way. It could be anything, any shock to the heart.
Your soundtrack for Iseder’s’ SS25 show was brilliant. How did that collaboration come about?
Thank you so much. I think they just emailed us. The people running it were nice and it sounded cool so we were down.
The drip is crazzzyyyyy. How would you describe your personal style?
Damn thank you. I don’t know, it’s always changing so I guess it’s hard to say. I think we like to wear stuff that feels relevant but still resonates with things we were into growing up. Since we were kids we’ve loved getting fresh.
What can you tell us about how your latest record, Promise, came together?
We started working on it like three years ago, while we were living in Mass and Upstate NY. We were listening to a lot of 80s rock and R&B at the time and spending most of our days alone, working random jobs and making music whenever we had time. We had been talking with Year0001 about releasing something together and as we got more organized they started helping us put it out.
What is your internet diet?
Window shopping, YouTube, and reels for the most part.
How did you first learn about extrasensory perception (ESP)?
We googled the meaning when we were coming up with the name. We were tryna find synonyms for “psychic” and that came up.
Do you feel like your art is more at home in the U.S. or Europe?
It’s at home wherever it’s being enjoyed. I guess we end up making most of our music in the US, but we hope it can reach people everywhere.
→ Find ESP on Instagram, Spotify, and YouTube.
→ Silk is our new blogging platform for curated media.