Interviews
Astels Interview
Astels speak to Real Sounds about their collaborative process, modern production, and the new era of “Workin’ All Night”.
13 Sept 2026
Ahead of their show at The 100 Club on Thursday 24 September, Astels speak to Real Sounds about their collaborative process, The Meeting, and the new chapter opened by “Workin’ All Night”.
Astels play The 100 Club, London, on Thursday 24 September 2026. Tickets are available from Real Sounds.
Astels began as a meeting between a singer and a multi-instrumentalist. When you start a new song, where does the first spark usually come from, and how do you know which of you should lead it?
When we start a new song, it can come from a sample, a vocal idea, a couple of chords … we do not have any formula and we really share the whole process together.
Your music draws from the 1980s and 1990s, but it never feels like simple nostalgia. What do you think makes an older musical language feel alive in the present?
We take a lot of our inspirations from the past but we really embrace modern tools and production tricks. We mostly work with modern hardware that surely impacts our sound, and it’s a blend we’re looking for.
You first found a wide audience through filmed jam sessions. What did that immediate, spontaneous format teach you about the kind of musical chemistry people respond to?
Our social media engagement has never impacted our music. We chose in the first place to share the music we wanted to make so the people would follow us for what we really are. It then helped us not thinking about what kind of music we should do, but only how we could share it.
How does a song change when you take it from a loose, instinctive jam into a finished recording with a defined arrangement?
To be fair, we usually put on jam videos out of the tracks we made beforehand. Those jams are just a video format we used on social media but not our actual way to make music.
Your debut album is called The Meeting. What does that title mean to you — musically, personally, or in terms of the different styles that meet in the record?
‘The Meeting’ album is the starting point of Astels, it represents our encounter in real life and through music. We mixed both of our musical backgrounds through it, and the process of doing it teaches us how to work together and find our sound.
The album moves between funk, R&B, jazz, house, pop, and hip-hop. When you are building a track, how do you decide which element should be at the centre: the groove, the vocal, the harmony, or the atmosphere?
We don’t ‘decide’ it, it just comes naturally from any idea we have and we don’t try to force it in any way. If Camille is having a vocal melody idea we both find great, then we’ll build the song around it. Same for a bass line, or chords…
“Workin’ All Night” is your latest release. What were you trying to capture with that song that you had not quite reached on The Meeting?
With Workin’ All Night, we wanted to start a new Astels era, with much more confidence and straightforward in the music, arrangement and lyrics.
You will play London’s 100 Club in September. What does preparing for a live room with such a strong musical history bring out in the two of you?
We feel really blessed, also the London public is always so good to us and we cannot wait to be back !
What are you listening to at the moment that has made you want to get back into the studio and try something new?
Artists who inspired us lately are Dezzy Hollow, Sabrina Carpenter, Pink Pantheress and ANOTR !