Born and raised on opposite sides of the southern British coast, Dominic Maker and Kai Campos are the two London based Southbank graduates behind Mount Kimbie.
The band are at the forefront of a branch of electronic music that has veered away from but kept its dustup roots, offering a lighter, hazier style of digital music full of a soft dreaminess. Following relatively successful EPs ‘Maybes’ and ‘Sketch on Glass’, Mount Kimbie found rightful accalaim with 2010 release ‘Crooks & Lovers’. Two and a half years later I get the chance to talk to Dominic about the band’s then upcoming record ‘Cold Spring Fault Less Youth’ and an American tour. Finally free of an ominous legal dispute, York Vision is proud to be able to share a section of this article with you for the first time, six months after the event.
https://soundcloud.com/mountkimbie/sets/cold-spring-fault-less-youth-stream
What is your studio set up?
We have a Tempest Dave Smith drum machine which we’ve got running through a Reeva peddle and then we have a tape machine to play it back in. Aside from that we run fruit loops. Actually in this process we spent quite a lot of time out of this studio and in one just down the road from where we were, run by a guy called Andy Ramsy. He had a vast selection of vintage drum machines and synths which we were able to run riot with. We had a lot more to our disposal this time round.
How do the two albums differ?
The instrumentation. We use a lot more vocals than we did on the first album. To me they sound like a natural progression, but I”m sure to a lot of people they sound like completely different sounds. It was such a big gap of time between the release of Crooks and Lovers and getting to the studio and writing this we had to start again really, reset and find a different sound.It took a while to get into the groove of it and find out what we wanted to achieve.
Do you have as high hopes for Cold Spring Fault Less Youth as you did for Crooks and Lovers?
We’re in a good place because we were set up really nicely by the first album. In terms of pressure there wasn’t really any at all. The only pressure was pressure felt was put on ourselves. To be honest we were really excited.
Have you got to meet anyone at Warp Records?
We’ve met Square Pusher and Darkstar. Squarepusher we went on tour with for a while. Most of the artists on warp seem to be hermits, they all live in their little bubbles. Don’t really socialise.
Is there anything you’d like to remix?
There’s some stuff we want to do with King Krule and aside from that, there’s not really anyone that comes in mind. Remixing for us is something that comes secondary to writing our own music. Unless we hear something we really feel we can bring our sound to and want to work with, we leave it alone. We’ve had a number of offers in the past and we’ve turned them down, purely because it doesn’t feel right to remix the song.
For my journalistic benefits, could you pigeon hole the type of music you make?
Not really to be honest. With this album there’s such a diverse range of sounds. One thing we’ve heard someone else say is contemporary folk music which kind of works. If explaining it to my grandparents I say electronic music influenced by pop and indie music. It’s a tough one. Can’t really put into one genre.
How are you feeling about the American tour?
New York is always really good, same as San Fransisco. There’s a few places we’ve never been to, like Detroit and Cambridge. Just excited to get back out there. We love going out on the road in America. There’s no where on the schedule we’re dreading playing.
How is your music received in America?
Really positively. They’re very vocal audiences and seem really open to the sound. Obviously there’s a shit ton of all-out dustup, but other than that we get a lot of the people who don’t really fit into the jock environment. Everyone we met was warm and welcoming. I feel like we’ve got a strong fanbase out there now which has always been important for us because from the first moment we went out there we loved playing in an environment of that energy.
Have you bumped into anyone in America making similar music to you and Kai?
You bump into a lot of beat makers who use a lot of similar samples, but I guess its more of a hipster thing. I think just the way that the music’s patterned out is different. But there are people like Shlo-mo and shigatto on the west coast.
Have you played anywhere particularly memorable?
Pretty much every single gig has been memorable. We played in Russia which was distinct for slightly different reasons, it’s quite bleak out there. Singapore and Japan were awesome. Just a complete culture shock. They react to music in a completely different way than we do in England.
Do you have any music recommendations?
I love the new Darkstar album, the new Pangea is really, really good. Apart from that I’m just having a break from any sound. We’ve been playing so much recently that our eyes have taken a fucking battering. Just been listening to mellow electronica.