You may have last heard from London production duo Maribou State on Vol. 1 of our Heretic compilation released earlier this year, but don’t count on them staying quiet for long. We managed to track them down via email for an interview spanning their love for vocal loops, several diverse releases in the pipeline and the evolution of London bass music. Read on for what they had to say, as well as sneak peeks of what’s to come from their studio in coming months.
First of all, thanks for taking the time to share with us. can you introduce yourself to Rebel readers?
No worries. Helloooooooo, we are Maribou State.
I’ve read that you only started producing together about six months ago, which would be right around the time we first heard from you on our Heretic compilation, but you had worked together on other projects prior to formally forming Maribou State. What initially brought you together, and what do you think makes you so compatible as a production duo?
Yeh, that’s right, just a little over six months now. We were both brought together when we were about 13. Liam sold me a skate ramp, which I never paid up for. So he then stole it back and burnt it. It then somehow worked out that we befriended each other following that.
I guess having known each other and how we both work for so many years makes us both compatible as a production duo. We are both well on the same level when it comes to making a track, which makes everything run a lot smoother.
Listening to your work up until this point, it’s clear you make a breezy, atmospheric strain of bass music that doesn’t dwell so much on being deep and dark. What influences headed you in this direction?
It’s hard to say, as much as we like the deeper and darker side of dance music, we have always preferred the more melodic and atmospheric elements of electronic music.
In terms of our musical influences we both individually listen to a lot of different artists that inspire us each in their own way, so it would be hard to pin point anything too specific.
You mentioned you just finished an EP with a “new direction.” what direction is that and what led to that exploration? Do you plan on continuing it beyond this EP?
That’s right. The E.P’s release schedule is still in its early stages but the music we have written for it has taken a slight change in direction. Tempo’s have dropped, moods have changed and a lot more organic/self recorded sounds are being used. As well as the fact that we are starting to get vocalists involved too, instead of just sampling.
One of the main reasons for this change is that it’s made the whole music making experience a lot more fun. Now beats are being made out of sounds we are recording ourselves through anything random objects we can get our hands on, instead of just grabbing a shot out of a sample pack.
And just going to add, that before the next EP drops, we have another release on Fat! in Feb, which we are both really excited for. In the process of getting a video together now and putting together the release event at XOYO on 11th of Febuary.
You often use chopped up vocal loops as the base for your tracks, including your recent singles on Hot ‘n’ Heavy and Fat!. What are your methods for finding and using such loops? what makes them so central to your output?
Personally when I hear a track, apart from the bass, the main thing that will stick in my head after I hear it is the vocal melody. So, as a general rule most tracks will have some sort of mangled vocal line throughout. It’s not a specific method or process, but at some point during the production of our tracks the choice will be made to use a session singer, pre-recorded acapella or anything else, usually in relation to how the backing is coming along.
Its also means you can see people singing along in a club when you play a track, which is always a massive bonus J.
The kind of lightfooted lovechild of house-via-dubstep that you two are pushing seems to be gaining more and more steam in the bass music world recently. Who else are you feeling within the sound? any collaborations you’d like to see materialize?
We have always been big fans of Kastle, which I know you guys are too over at Rebel. More recently though, we’ve both been loving Gang Colours and Pedestrian. Both top producers.
We have a few collaborations lined up. Unfortunately none of which we can mention yet.
We’ve just heard remixes from you for Crookers, Wretch 32 and The 2 Bears, and you mentioned that there are few more on the horizon. how do you go about choosing tunes to remix? how would you contrast your remix work with your original productions?
Choosing the right track to remix comes down to whether or not we both feel like we can actually work with it and add something worthy to the package. Its just a case of picking out parts we think we could work well and setting off from whoever grabs an idea first. If we arnt into the track then we know we won’t put in 100%, so it wouldn’t be worthwhile.
Our remixes, so far, generally sound slightly deeper than are original stuff, but only in comparison. We try and incorporate a lot of similar sounds and idea’s into the remixes from our original material to still give them our own sound.
Seeing bass music evolve in London over the past few years, how do you feel about the community right now and where it’s headed in 2012?
The Bass scene seems to have branched off in to so many different strands its hard to comment on where’s its headed, but we love where its at right now.
