A lot of you might be unfamiliar with Mannequins On 7th Street but that’s about to change. Later this month the young Belgian duo will release its debut EP called Superblue. This is the story of Alexander Lambrecht and Tim De Fontaine, two young boys from the outskirts of Brussels, who met in Antwerp and formed a group in London.

ITU: Where and when did you meet each other?

Mannequins On 7th Street: “We met each other in the Fall of 2012 at the Jazz Studio in Antwerp. It was then that we realized that we had a lot in common as to our musical influences as well as to our ambitions. We started playing together and found out we also wanted to create the same atmosphere, the same universe, in our music. We also have pretty much the same views on life which makes it eaven easier.”

ITU: How did you come up with the bandname and what’s the meaning behind it?

MO7S: “Our bandname is the title of a poem by American poet Tamar Yoseloff, from her book ‘The City with Horns’. We are very much inspired by the chaos in cities, by the way people get caught up in a rat race without giving much thought to what surrounds them. A lot of people look lingering in the void, avoiding each others looks. It’s about people being alone among a crowd and personalities being blurred by consumerism and advertising. ‘All dressed up, and nowhere to go’, mannequins are a kind of metaphor for this life we experience in the city, where we sometimes forget to question its meaning.”

ITU: How would you describe your music?

MO7S: “It’s quite hard to describe as I think we’re still in search of our ‘sound’. We like songs to be relatively simple and we love the ‘blue’, hence our EP title, as our ambient colour. We like to experiment with electronic music, but try to keep imperfections in it as it is quite easy to have sounds sound very blank and ‘perfect’. We try to mix organic with electronic to keep it real.”

ITU: Why did you decide to move to London?

MO7S: “We came here to get more opportunities, get into the hype and to be aware of all the new stuff coming out since we are both very passionate about the London music scene. We are also studying music here, taking songwriting and production classes, courses that are very hard to find in Belgium.”

ITU: Who are your biggest inspirations?

MO7S: “We both have a strong love for jazz. Some artists we are listening to at the moment are Flume, Chet Baker, Say Lou Lou, Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Shlohmo among others. We are very much inspired by movies as well. The track Sofia is inspired by the film Vanilla Sky. If you listen closely, you can hear Penelope Cruz’s voice saying ‘open your eyes’ as she does in the movie.”

ITU: Who would you like to work with in the future?

MO7S: “Many people. Anybody we have a musical connection with.”

ITU: Have there been any offers of record labels already?

MO7S: “We’ve had quite a few proposals. We’ve been in contact with EMI and Virgin and Transgresive but we are still considering our options.  as we still have a lot of work to do. We started intensive rehearsals to start gigging soon and our debut EP ‘Superblue’ is dropping in September. We’ll see what the future has in store.”

Mannequins On 7th Street is currently working on their debut EP ‘Superblue’ which is set to release November 25. Don’t forget to like their Facebook page to stay up to date with the duo.