We caught up with the Seattle based digital hardcore duo Flesh Produce on a blistering cold Sunday afternoon in Times Square, New York. We talked about NYC's best deli food and pizza, music, and plans for harcore touring. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Welcome to New York City! Have you ever played out here?

Myla: We haven’t as a group, no. This is my first time out here in general.

Karl: I’ve got some friends from college that live here who we got to visit. I came here for a high school jazz festival and a middle school trip, but never played here as part of the band.

You had two shows? How were they?

Myla: They were fucking awesome. The first night was more of an intimate underground DIY bar space with some really cool harsh noise acts. The second night was at Trans Pecos, a little bit bigger, super cool.

Karl: It was cool to play Trans Pecos, some of my friends who live here didn’t even know about it and came out.

Was it complicated shipping your gear, how’d that work?

Karl: We worked that out pretty well. We used backline snares, we shipped the sampling pad, borrowed cymbals, and packed a double pedal with the merch in a suitcase. We were walking around with a duffle bag and a big suitcase but that’s it.

Myla: We keep it super minimal

How’s the trip been, overall.

Myla: It’s been sweet. I’ve been eating bodega food over and over again and it’s been really good.

Karl: I’ve been a big fan of the bodega cats. Getting a Pastrami sandwich in the morning and playing with the cats. My favorite part of New York.

You have three albums out. I was listening to them before the show and felt a distinct evolution in sound. The first had a lot of bright sounds and melodies, by the third there was tons of bass and low end rumble.

Myla: BPM has slowly crept up, Karl can talk about his influences…

Karl: I’ve said this before but I was listening to Tobacco and Black Moth Super Rainbow and Trippy Pretty music at the beginning of this project and have been listening to more and more digital hardcore, uptempo breakcore, breakbeat stuff. I kind of want to get faster and faster still.

Do you have a different mindset between recording and playing live?

Karl: Trying to marry the two more.

Myla: On the last record especially we really tried to get more of Karl's live drums in, we did propper drum tracking whereas in the past I think he would do one mic setups.

Karl: There’s more of an acoustic kit on this last album and we’ll probably do more of that.

How’d you get hooked up with these shows out here?

Karl: Our friend Val.

Myla: They’re from New York I think and live in Seattle currently. They’re really in the digital hardcore scene and have put me on to a ton of bands I love. They just slapped the shows together for us and connected us with all these amazing bands and kind of did it all for us.

What are your plans for 2024?

Myla: We’ve got a month-long tour that we’ll be doing in March. We’re going down the West Coast and then we’re shooting across Texas, Austin, doing some shows over there. Then swinging back diagonally through Denver and going to Boise to play Treefort festival, and then heading back home.

Karl: I’m also trying to write more. It’s more inspiring to do it with my hands on various instruments than too much in the box.

How does your writing process work? Is it a jam you two do together, or is it an instrumental song that gets lyrics added later, or something else.

Myla: We’ve done several different approaches, but the most popular one is Karl making a track and then I’m writing vocals on top of it. But Karl goes through tons of different ways to write the instrumentals.

You fly back home tomorrow. Did you do everything you wanted to in NYC?

Karl: I think so. We did all the touristy stuff Myla wanted to do on her first visit.

Myla: I may want to go see Central Park….. I’m not 100% on it though. Last thing I’ll say is that for 2024 we’re seeking management and contacting small labels that will dig our shit. Lots more tours, we’ll be back as soon as possible.