[Release] Dinaire+Bissen - Better Off Alone [HalfwayHaus]

 

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Long-time collaborators Victor Dinaire and Georg Bissen are heralded for their prolific decade-long collaboration that has yielded dozens of original and major label remix releases, and has garnered them millions of streams and hundreds of thousands of compilations sold.

Coming together as Dinaire+Bissen, the formation of their own label, imprint, and subculture brand HalfwayHaus was a natural evolution of their collaboration. The name stems from the fact that their music cannot always be easily placed neatly into one of the myriads of EDM’s subgenre, which we're seeing proliferate here in 2024.

This release, only the 3^rd on the imprint, speaks volumes to their sound and style, and when it dropped in our inbox we had to reach out to know more about the reboot of this iconic classic.

What was the inspiration to reboot such a massive classic?

The inspiration came to me quite randomly. I have a close friend of mine, his name is Steve. I used to live with him when I was in San Diego and for the last couple of decades we have this mutual relationship where we would one whenever we would come across an interesting artist or a song, we would share it with each other.

And one night, a couple of years ago, he sent me this YouTube link to this cover of “Better off Alone”, and when I listen to it, I was blown away. I must have listened to this link 10-15 times in a row back-to-back to back-to-back, and I was just amazed by this different context to a song that you know was massive 20 or so years ago.

But this kind of gave like a different perspective to it and for some reason it just touched me. So I contacted Bissen and I sent him the link and he instantly fell in love with it as well, and immediately we just started coming up with ideas, and it was just one of those projects where, you know, we were so emotionally invested into it. But the idea is easily just flowing and it was quite a pleasant project.

As an artist that's been in the industry over 20 years, how is the creative process renewed and invigorated as you put out new tracks year over year?

The creative process for me fluctuates. You know, there are points in time when the creativity is just flowing. I mean, ideas come on top of ideas and that spurs off even more ideas and more inspiration, and then you run into situations where creativity is kind of like a dry faucet, you know, and things aren't flowing.

A lot of the times when you run into stuff like that, I like to take breaks, whether it's, you know, stepping away from a project or even stepping away altogether for a period of a day or many days or even a week or two. It really just depends on the situation, but over the last 20 years, I mean it kind of goes up and down and some things that kind of, you know, ignite creativity and inspiration.

I might come across an artist or a typical track or, you know, a new a new synth or  new sample pack, and you start playing through with, like, you know, the new toy that you just bought to add to your studio collection. A lot of time, things like that start generating ideas and then all of a sudden you got something going, and it really is a fluctuation. 

So you know it, it was the same five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago - for me it's  always just been kind of like a fluctuating process.

Can you share what moments stick out from the collaboration process with Georg to bring this track to life?

So Bissen and I, we've been working together for around 15 years. We've done close to probably like 50 projects, you know, originals, remixes, work for hire and whatnot, etc, and we have a the reason why I like working with him so much is because we have a lot of compatibility with, you know, obviously tastes and just like certain behaviors and whatnot.

So we have a methodical approach to how we work on, no matter what the project is. In particular with this project, what's stuck out the most in this collaboration, and this happens once in a while, but you know it happened quite early in the process.

We were probably a few hours into the first session and we were, you know, we began lightly arranging the track and we didn't even have half of the elements of the breakdown even invented yet, if you will. It was one of those situations where, you know, even though you just see kind of like a skeleton of what's going on, you could kind of see the whole picture ready in your mind.

To me, that was kind of magical, and we knew we had something there because all that's only happened maybe like a handful of times when you're not even halfway there and you're ready, see how it's gonna play out in the end.

So to me, that was the defining moment where we knew, you know, it was almost at a point where it was kind of writing itself at that point.

What is your favorite part of your version of “Better Off Alone” from a production perspective, and what makes it different from other tracks that you've produced?

My favorite part of our version of Better Off Alone is definitely the breakdown. For me, that's where all the magic is happening. It’s just a moment where we're really proud of what we did with this track from a production perspective.

What makes this project different from the other stuff that we worked on working on this one? We had we always had in the back of our mind that the original was such a massive track. It was an international sensation. I mean, for decades, I mean, the song was incredibly popular. It was on the radio, was played in clubs - the bar was set really, really high and on top of that, we are aware that there's been, many remakes over the years.

It was a challenge for us to we need we wanted to make something meaningful, something that kind of stood on its own, and the one thing that the original and all those countless remakes have in common is they kind of had a certain similar feel to it…. more of a positive kind of cute, simple type of message and we wanted to challenge the listener and kind of change the feeling or the context of the song.

We wanted to offer an alternative kind of perspective to the lyrics: Do you think you're better off alone? We wanted to cast a little bit of melancholy or doubt or something different. We wanted to flip the script on it, so we had a lot of these factors in our mind while we're working on it, we wanted to do something that was special, that was different from everything else that was out there covering this track.

So what's on the radar for yourself and Georg and HalfwayHaus in 2024?

2024 is bringing a multitude of cool and interesting opportunities for us and for myself as well.  We're in the midst of taking HalfwayHaus to a new level.

We have an exciting list of releases planned for the rest of the year and Better Off Alone just came out, and so far we're thrilled with the responses we've had so far in that on the DJ end of things.

If you live in the Austin, TX area for 10 weeks starting in June of 2024, I'm going to be teaching DJ Summer camp and 101 lessons in Austin, TX. The website is djfuturestars.com

I'm going to be teaching summer camp for the youths Monday through Friday and I'm also going to be doing one on one lessons for anybody who wants to learn the craft of deejaying.
So djfuturestars.com for that and thank you so much for having me on your show - I really appreciate it.

What we love here at the Church of Trance is that this release was a 3 track EP: the original mix & 2 additional remixes from Greenway DJs & Tom Samit. The Original version sets the stage with the beautiful melodic breakdown and the drop that will send you soaring. The Greenway DJs remix brings a deeper vibe with an amazing synth breakdown, some exciting discordance, and a growling bassline. Then finally the Tom Samit version brings a chillout vibe across the double drop, both with their unique breakdowns. 

For the April Church of Trance we just can't stop playing the Original Mix and you can find it  live on Afterhours.fm the last Friday of the month at 4P EST, and then the following week on the Trance Jesus Soundcloud / YouTube pages.

Label: HalfwayHaus
Release Date: March 28, 2024
Buy/Stream: https://www.beatport.com/release/better-off-alone/4485703