Internauts is a collection of funky fresh vapordance tracks created and dedicated to our very own internet family! The term internauts originates from the 90's and is a term, using the words"Internet" and"Astronaut", used to describe a frequent and savvy user of the internet. Carpoolparty is bringing the party to you. Hailing from Greenville, SC, the husband and wife team of Danny and Mary Olquin throw influences from the last 40 years into the blender and plan on sharing the contents with whoever joins them at Hattie’s Tap & Tavern on July 8 for their first ever appearance in Charlotte. Mary Olquin took control of the driver’s seat to answer our questions via email.Please enjoy this Q & A from Tangents Magazine:Tangents: How did Carpoolparty come together?Mary Olquin: Danny and I were working in a studio together in Provo, Utah when we first started the group Carpoolparty. We had started many projects in the past. When we first met, we were each acoustic solo artists, and when we came together, it took us about three years to establish our sound. In that time, we tried writing and performing acoustic music, then indie rock, then jazz, and then electronic. Then one night we were at a club in Salt Lake City, enjoying some grime music, when we heard about vaporwave. It changed our lives. It has opened the door to a completely different world of music. We scrapped our almost-finished electronic album and dove into the sound that has really made us who we are today.Tangents: Vapordance. Describe that. Olquin: Vapordance is a genre that is heavily influenced by vaporwave, with the differences being that vapordance includes original vocals and a dance-like beat. Vapordance, like vaporwave, consists of ethereal sounds made from a blend of ’90s subcultural references, such as television ads and old-school computer sounds, but adds more funk, hip hop and disco influences. Vapordance is meant to take you to a different place while having fun.Tangents: Was the hybird of influences planned or did it come together through writing for the band?Olquin: Our sound was deliberately influenced by popular genres from the ’80s and ’90s. Everything from our beats to our lyrics are meant to invoke a sense of pseudo-nostalgia. We like to keep our sound evolving, though, by always looking to the latest underground music trends that help us further define our genre.Tangents: How do you pull off these sounds live, especially performing as a duo?Olquin: Where possible, we like to do sound, light show, visuals, fog, the whole thing on stage. We play beats through Ableton, and Danny plays synth and melodica. And then we both sing and dance. It’s really fun.Tangents: Do you all write together, or do you bring songs into the band separately?Olquin: Our writing process is pretty streamlined now to where, first, Danny will work on several beats at a time. We’ll listen to the beats over and over and then put them away for a little while. In that time ideas will pop into our heads about what to put over some of the beats, and then we’ll work on those and we’ll see how they turn out. We might then put the music away again while we go listen to some new artists or albums or work on other projects. Then we take out our unfinished songs and see which ones stick out to us as far as adding lyrics. We typically record vocals as we write them, to capture the emotion behind the music and lyrics while it is still brand new. We try to keep the process chill and laid back, and you can find us working on new music any hour of the day. We are literally in our studio 24 hours a day some of the time. Either that or we write and record on the road.Tangents: How often do you play live? Have you played Charlotte before? Olquin: We’ve been recommended Charlotte as a good place to play, and we’re happy to be coming out for the first time this summer to Hattie’s Tap & Tavern. We play regularly and will be touring through most of the rest of the year and into 2018.Tangents: What plans do you all have coming up? More shows? Recording? Olquin: We will be promoting our new EP, “Internauts.” I am excited for people to hear this new EP. It’s been about a year since our first album “Hot Tapes” came out, and I think that people who love “Hot Tapes” are really going to love “Internauts.”Tangents: How have you found your audience, so far? Through the Internet or live shows? Olquin: We have an online family that we connect with on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. It is our Internet family, made up of fans we call “Internauts,” a real ’90s term for people who are Internet savvy. They’re really cool people. We also meet a lot of new people at our “IRL” or live shows and when we perform on the street.Tangents: Where does the name Carpoolparty come from? Olquin: It popped into our heads, and it felt just right. We actually didn’t know at the time of naming the group that we would be having so much fun on the road with friends like we do now. We even wrote a lot of our first album and recorded our first music video while living out of our car, which was really liberating. Those late nights writing music at fast food places or truck stops, waking up to the sunrise, practicing outside at parks, and being able to visit friends wherever, are good memories.Tangents: At the end of the day (or night), Carpoolparty is ... Olquin: A subconscious familiarity moving your body in the form of vapordance, making funky and fresh aesthetics for their fellow internauts or likely chilling at a truck stop playing video games and eating snacks.