Sound Advice: Bob Moses

Join Bob Moses on Sound Advice, the weekly interview series covering artists’ journeys and their creative process. In this episode, we discuss the dance-rock duo’s live electronic sound, new album ‘Blink,’ using SoundCloud for music discovery and more.

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Welcome to Sound Advice, the series spotlighting artists’ creative process and their SoundCloud journey. We’ll get the inside knowledge straight from the source on how musicians, producers and creatives are leaning into everything SoundCloud offers to elevate their sound, get heard and catapult their careers. Sound Advice is now available in audio format on the SoundCloud Stories profile.

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On this week’s Sound Advice, we catch up with Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance from the Grammy-winning live electronic duo, Bob Moses. Born in the Brooklyn underground warehouse scene, in the early 2010s, and named after famed NYC urban planner Robert Moses, the production and songwriting duo reflects on their journey from dark techno clubs to giant stages around the world. The duo also looks back at one of their first pivotal moments on SoundCloud, recalling how their 2013 Burning Man live set — which now has over one million streams — helped introduce them to new audiences during a formative period in their career.

Tom and Jimmy also talk about the making of their new album, ‘Blink,’ a record that meditates on the beauty of life and how quickly time passes. We dive into their creative process, including what their approach was like while working alongside collaborators like Shaun Frank, illangelo and John Martin. Plus, we get the lowdown on some of their favorite synths and plug-ins. 

Elsewhere throughout our in-depth conversation, Bob Moses also talks about their evolving sound, their touring strategy, and how they like to use SoundCloud to connect with their community and source exciting new music. They also give some great advice to artists who are just starting out. If you want to find out even more about ‘Blink,’ be sure to check out Bob Moses’ episode of Voice Notes, where they discuss the making of the album’s biggest tracks. 

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LISTEN TO THE AUDIO EPISODE OF SOUND ADVICE FEATURING BOB MOSES

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CHECK OUT EXCLUSIVE VOICE NOTES FROM BOB MOSES, ONLY ON SOUNDCLOUD

HIT PLAY ON ‘BLINK’ BY BOB MOSES

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Things We Talked About In This Episode of Sound Advice

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The Making of Bob Moses’ 2025 Album ‘Blink,’ From Getting Into Album-Writing Mode to Working With Like-Minded Collaborators

• We begin the conversation with Bob Moses reflecting on their current tour, where they’re playing songs from their new album, ‘Blink.’ Here, Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance talk about the tracks that are proving to be highlights in a live setting, and how the audience reactions are spurring them on to the album release date. 
• It’s been 10 years since Bob Moses released their debut album ‘Days Gone By’ on Domino Recording Co., and in those 10 years, the music industry has changed enormously. Here, the duo break down how the pattern of album rollout and tour cycle has shifted, and how they’ve adapted their approach. From the impact of streaming to the growing need to create visual and audio content around an album release and tour, Bob Moses gets into the need to adapt while maintaining their creative integrity and connection with fans.
• ‘Blink’ is Bob Moses’ first album together in three years. Here, they discuss what they’ve been focusing on during this time period, and how they came round to the need to write another album. As a duo that’s always been connected to a live music scene — starting out in New York City warehouse raves, and gradually moving onto theater and large-scale venues — they’ve worked to balance their love of rhythmic electronic music for dancefloors with their want to write fleshed-out songs performed with live vocals and instrumentation. Here, they elaborate on how, after gathering inspiration on the road, carving out intentional time to explore ideas in the studio is a key step for their creative process.
• When it comes to feeling ready to write and record a new album, Tom and Jimmy agree that it’s all about finding the time, headspace and stillness needed to create and edit tracks, and develop ideas more fully in the studio. “It just takes time to get back into that zone,” Tom notes. Between their 2022 album ‘The Silence in Between’ and now, the duo also released singles like 2023’s “Round and Round” and 2024’s remix album of ‘The Silence In Between,’ so “it doesn’t feel like a three year break” to them.
• For the process of writing and recording ‘Blink,’ the duo worked with like-minded producers and songwriters to elevate their tracks. After many years of working together as a pair, they share that they know what they’re looking for in a collaboration, such as when it comes to working with regular collaborators like Toronto-based producer Shaun Frank and “gear head” illangelo.
• With this in mind, they shared advice for fellow artists: focus on elevating a few key elements in your sound, rather than spreading yourself too thin in the studio. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of choices available to you, when it comes to music technology, so approaching sessions with a leaner, more focused mindset will pay off. 

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Using SoundCloud to Collaborate Across Different Cities, Sticking to a Creative Vision And Bringing Meaning Into The Songwriting Process

• An important element of the creative process for ‘Blink’ was that, for the first time since they formed Bob Moses, Tom and Jimmy are living in different cities. Split between their native Vancouver and New York City, the duo often worked on ‘Blink’ through online sessions, sharing private SoundCloud playlists of their track ideas and fleshing out their writing, before booking studio sessions to work on songs in person. Here, they talk about this balancing act, and how maturing as people and artists has allowed them to work well in this style. 
• While keeping in mind their own advice about not being overwhelmed by technological choice in the studio, Bob Moses always explores new gear to work with. Here, they discuss some of the plug-ins and synths that they gravitated towards during the making of ‘Blink.’ They share how these options allowed them to stick to their vision of simple, rich, organic sounding electronic music that has “a stereo chunkiness that makes it all sound expensive.” 
• They also share insights about their time working with John Martin — a record producer and songwriter who’s also worked with dance giants Avicii and Swedish House Mafia — on their new tracks like “Time of Your Life” and “Keep Love Waiting” featuring CRi.
• Over the course of making ‘Blink,’ they come to appreciate these sentiments more. Here, they explain the themes and lyrics of the album, and how they kept coming back to the realization that life passes quicker than you often appreciate. 
• On tracks like “Last Forever,” they write about wanting to hang onto a beautiful moment while knowing that it can’t last, and on title track “Blink,” they explore the desire to have a meaningful life while knowing that life is just “a flash in time.” As fathers, they’ve connected even deeper with these themes on ‘Blink,’ and have come to appreciate their lives, music and work together in greater depth.

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Bob Moses’ Roots in NYC’s Dance Music Scene, Coming Up on SoundCloud and Building an Engaged Community

• Bob Moses’ roots in dance music grew deep in the NYC nightlife scene. During the 2010s, they played warehouse raves and clubs across the city, and particularly in Brooklyn. Here, they talk about some of the strongest memories of that time, including what they learned about performance and insights on how to craft a great dance track that will resonate with an audience. 
• Shouting out some of the artists that came up with them in the NYC scene — Nicolás Jaar, Art Department, Tale Of Us, Jamie Jones, Black Light Smoke, Wolf + Lamb and more — and venues like the now-defunct club Output, they reflect on how being part of a strong underground community of artists and fans has had a profound effect on them as musicians today. As Jimmy puts it, it’s “a classic case of high tides raising all ships.”  
• One of the ways that Bob Moses grew their audience in those early NYC days was through SoundCloud. As they explain, the platform is a “huge part” of how they got started, and allowed them to directly reach their fanbase in a “pre-streaming, post-download” period of change in the wider music industry. Here, the duo talks about how they like to use SoundCloud to interact with fans, share new music, dig for new music, work on music together by sharing private playlists over direct messages and more. 
• A key moment in their SoundCloud journey was their 2013 set at Burning Man. When the recording of their live performance was uploaded to the platform, it took off like wildfire and gained them a new legion of fans. The success of that set on the platform showed them, in their view, that community is the most important part of music. As Jimmy points out, “The last thing you want to have is lots of streams but not sell tickets. You have to get people to care.”
• When it comes to more recent uses of SoundCloud, the duo shares how they like to find remixes and bootlegs of their own music on the platform to play in their DJ sets. Among other things, they share how SoundCloud allows them to stay curious about, and engaged with, new music and also, importantly, allows artists to control their own narrative.

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Bob Moses Give Their Younger Selves Creative Advice

• As electronic artists, they are keenly aware of how quickly and often trends can come and go in their field. Here, they talk about how the center themselves and the Bob Moses sound amidst those changes, how they find a confident balance between staying current and not being swept away by fads, and the importance of authenticity in their world. “A lot of what you criticize about your own sound is actually what makes you unique,” Jimmy shares. “People can smell inauthenticity, so you have to just do you.” 
• With this self-reflection in mind, they both offer advice to their younger selves: no one truly knows what they’re doing, so follow your gut and your heart, focus on what you can control and try your best to enjoy every moment in real-time. There’s no fast track or quick trick to make your music better — it takes time, hard work and a lot of luck to get your music to a good place.

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Links and Extras

Follow Bob Moses’ journey on SoundCloud.
Press play on Bob Moses’ 2025 album, ‘Blink.’
Listen to Bob Moses’ episode of Voice Notes here.
Check out Bob Moses’ 2022 album, ‘The Silence in Between.’
Go back to where it all began with one of Bob Moses’ earliest tracks, 2014’s “Grace.”
Explore some of Bob Moses’ favorite artists from their NYC warehouse days, including Nicólas Jaar, Tale of Us, Art Department, Wolf + Lamb and Jamie Jones, to name a few. 
Listen to the Songs For Hoodie Season playlist on SoundCloud.
Never miss an episode and follow the official Sound Advice playlist on SoundCloud.

Getting The Most Out of SoundCloud

Learn more about using DMs to connect with fellow artists and potential collaborators.
Learn more about how to make a custom playlist on SoundCloud.
Learn more about unlimited uploads, available with an Artist Pro subscription.
Learn more unlocking access to unlimited distribution, available with Artist Pro.
Learn more about getting heard with SoundCloud’s updated algorithm, available to Artist and Artist Pro subscribers.

To discover additional features a SoundCloud Artist or Artist Pro subscription offers, visit here. To catch up on past installments of Sound Advice and make sure you don’t miss out on future episodes, visit here.

_{CREDITS Host: Vivian Host, Executive Producer: Mike Spinella, Producer: KC Orcutt, Audio Engineer: David “DibS” Shackney, Coordinator: Trevor McGee, Editorial Associate: Lauren Martin}