Spiegel and Gonzales also relied on the historic spirit of the original Apollo space missions to merge their different producing styles. “We’re both very eclectic DJs and producers,” Spiegel says. “Keeping with the Apollo spirit, we wanted to celebrate the shared creative nature of our tastes and interconnectedness. I was so amazed at the ease and speed at which the world’s cultures are connected through music. You might not be directly exposed to certain types of music, but on an album, that connection can happen instantly. The power behind mankind’s musical unity inspired us to make this record.”
Spiegel also relied on Gonzales to bring artistic balance to the album. “My tendency is to be really crazy, and he’s more grounded,” Spiegel says. “So we balanced each other really well, and that equilibrium translated well to the record because it doesn’t feel too far in either direction.”
With Spiegel based in New York and Los Angeles and Gonzales in Brazil, the duo followed a regular beat-building process. “He would come for our seasonal beat meetings to compile beats,” Spiegel says. “Then he would go back and develop them in Brazil. From there, we would travel together or individually to meet the artist to record each song.
“It took a while to get the project where it needed to be. We tried a lot of different options and remixes. It took us almost six years to make the album, so we could hear the sound and feel our styles and music tastes evolve over that time. We really had to work at capturing both but not let the past dictate the present, or vice versa. We tried the best that we could to stay true to what types of music we were into now and then.”
Spiegel approached Anti- for distribution once the album was complete. “We didn’t sign to a label until it was finished,” he says. “I used my own money to fund [the album], and we had to do a ton of legwork. We kept it pretty quiet when we started it. We only told our friends and didn’t reach out to magazines. Doing it that way took a lot of work to wrangle all the artists in.”
So do Spiegel and Gonzales have any remix or producing favors to reciprocate? Spiegel chuckles, “Yeah, we both do. We’ve worked out a lot of future remixes and production deals with some of the artists.”
With five versions of album artwork created by visual artists — Shepard Fairy, Marcel Dzama, et al. — from diverse cultural backgrounds, and a tour that began this spring, Spiegel and Gonzales will take The Spirit to venues across the world. “The live show will be a mix of Apollo tracks, remixes, and clips from the ‘making of’ film and music videos,” Spiegel says.
“We’ll have [DJ Zegon] and myself working four turntables. And to keep the spirit on the dance floor during the live show, we also designed these crazy space-monster, alien-booty-dancer, and astronaut costumes. And as we tour, we won’t have our own dancing crew; we’re going to work with people and local dancers in each city and have them be onstage with us during the live show.”
Though its intention to encourage musical solidarity is admirable and ambitious, the complexity of N.A.S.A.’s mission is still its greatest challenge as visionary producers. By itself, the album doesn’t fully possess a common chord or unifying message that sets it apart from other similar dream collaborations. In order to transcend genre boundaries, communicate universal themes, and capitalize on the collaborative boundary-pushing, The Spirit of Apollo will need to develop in the hearts and minds of fans. The duo created the recorded blueprint, and now it’s time to let the fans define what The Spirit of Apollo is and hope for a combined cross-cultural resonation of the artwork, live show, and “making of” film. Should that happen, the inspiring spirit N.A.S.A. first envisioned might take on deeper significance than the duo ever imagined.