By ROB DUGUAY

It’s always interesting to see what happens when two musicians from different backgrounds get together to create something. Sometimes it’s a seamless melding of their styles, while at other times, it’s a completely different sound with new sonic territories being explored. The latter can be used to describe Crash Space, which is a duo featuring Damian Puerini and Beth Killian. With Killian on vocals, the structure and arrangements put a unique spin on pop music while adding synthy distortions, mesmerizing harmonies and an array of samples. This is exemplified in the debut full-length “Space Mom”, which came out on April 28.

I spoke with both Puerini, who is a Cranston native, and Killian about the catalyst for the start of this project, the making of the debut album, and how this is just the beginning for what Crash Space has in store for the future.

Rob Duguay: What was the initial inspiration for starting Crash Space? There’s a pretty interesting framework behind it with Damian coming from the rock & roll world and Beth being involved in folk and singer-songwriter styles.

Damian Puerini: We didn’t have any intentions, we got together to record a cover song and just started making our own. It doesn’t sound much like anything either of us have listened to or have made before, so we were both pretty surprised by what it sounded like. It’s funny to us how different our tastes and styles are, but how we’re also exactly on the same page for this one thing that neither of us previously felt any desire to do.

Beth Killian: Yeah, it’s a pretty new genre for both of us. I had started dabbling in writing electropop tracks about a year ago and put out a DIY EP co-produced with my brother John Killian last June. Damian heard it and thought it’d be cool to write together. He’d been making beats and has done some similar-ish instrumental stuff with his other project Blobfish in the past, so we started chatting about it at a show and decided to get together and mess around with what we could do. At first, we were just going to get together to make a cover so I could see his workflow for sampling, using an MPC, production, all that stuff, and that was it.

The synergy was wild, and we wanted to try writing and producing something from scratch, and “Space Mom” really just took off from there. It was a surprising but really interesting sound that we both wanted to keep making.

RD: Speaking of “Space Mom”, what was the experience like recording it? Was it completely DIY fashion with you both handling the production or did you work with someone in that capacity?

DP: We recorded it ourselves on both of our bare bones setups. Some tracks we produced together at my home setup, and others were sent to Beth, who wrote and recorded the vocals at her place, both super DIY. We focused on getting the music down and sending it to producer Sammy D’Ambruoso at Andem Street Studios in Providence. He had the difficult job of working with what we were sending him, but he put a ton of work in to clean it all up and is definitely the third member of the group when it comes to recording. Our love of these songs has a lot to do with how Sammy was able to make them sound.

RD: That’s wicked cool. In terms of Crash Space being a creative outlet, what does this project fulfill for both of you and what makes it stand out from the other bands and projects you’ve been a part of?

DP: For me it’s been a total rush of making things quickly and consistently with another person on the exact same page. We just synched up and have similar workflows. I’ve never collaborated so productively with someone before, where we were both so involved with every little part of it from the music to the arrangements, lyrics and themes. There was a mutual obsession that made our time very productive.  We were both pretty entertained by how much fun we were having just making music without any plan.

When there’s no plan and you work well together, you loosen up and just have fun making things. Crash Space is just fun and easy.

BK: I’ve always been more drawn to writing lyrics and melodies, that’s where my experience is, and I only learned basic guitar when I was younger to have something to sing over. Crash Space has given me the opportunity to explore larger sounds, beats, interesting and unexpected clashes and whirrs and instrumental scapes that had been untapped before. Being able to actively co-create all of the elements of a song with someone equally as energetic and exploratory has just been really fun. It’s a creative challenge that we both want to keep going.

RD: Can we expect Crash Space to play any live shows? Are there any future recordings in the works? What does the future hold for this project?

BK: We played as a duo recently and are booking more like that, but we have a full band show coming up on June 28 as part of Schiavone Fest at Platforms Dance Club on 165 Poe Street in Providence. We have drums, bass, keys, backup singers, and we also have three EPs ready to go with another 16 songs to put out. We’ll be getting those tracks to Sammy in the coming weeks. Hopefully the future holds more songs and more recordings and more shows because we both love it.