Mount Kimbie On Fish Brain Skate Videos, Burning Down The Kitchen And King Krule
Mount Kimbie have been on your playlist and I bet you didn’t even know it.
Hailing from the UK, Mount Kimbie began as two lads, Kai Campos and Dominic Maker, growing into a four piece band (adding in Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pell) as their popularity and sound has grown. While well known in the underground, it has been their collaborations with King Krule and slowthai that catapulted them into a new demographic of fans, including us. As they head out to Australia to play RISING festival in Melbourne, we caught up with the band to see how life has been, amongst other things.
How has life been since the release of The Sunset Violent?
Well, the record came out around April last year and then we were touring. I can’t believe it’s only been a year actually. It feels like a lot has happened. Before that it had been years since we released anything, so it feels great to be back out playing shows after such a long break. Also playing this record which was geared towards us playing it live has also been a lot of fun. This last part touring is the last hurrah of the record so we’re really happy to be doing it in Australia.
How has the process of bringing The Sunset Violent to a live set been?
When you’re making a record, you just try to make it interesting and try not to worry about that too much. We had gone from being a band at the beginning of our career that wasn’t playing gigs in the same way. But now as we are older and more into our careers, performing and being in a band has become more and more important, which I think has seeped into the music. The thing we were excited about doing really came from the experience of playing together.
How is the band dynamic now that you’ve added two more people?
Really good. We initially bought them into help with our live shows, but Andrea and Mark have been contributing a lot with the writing and recording in general. Andrea’s voice has become a feature more than we sort of envisioned when we first got her involved, but it’s been brilliant. We also have a bassist when we play live, Tyra. So, there's five of us on stage and it means that the sound is a lot bigger, and it makes travelling around together a lot more fun.
You’re very well known for your cross-genre collaborations and features, especially, I would say with King Krule - is it harder or easier to complete songs when you’re adding another person’s opinion into the mix?
It’s a bit different with Archie because we’ve been doing things with him for such a long time, so it doesn’t really like a feature to be honest. In terms of having someone else involved, to be honest it doesn’t come naturally to the band. It always takes a bit of time to warm up. I don’t think we have that many features but it’s something we’d like to do more of in the future because there are a lot of people who excite us. I think the experience we had with Archie was so good and our music does lend itself to other voices.
Can you tell me more about what it’s like working with Archie, just because I am such a fan of him.
Yeah, I mean he’s been around since the second record that we ever made. He feels like another band member who just never shows up (laughs). But he’s very positive, always has lots of ideas and is keen to try stuff. I think one of his best qualities as someone in the studio is that he doesn’t tend to overthink things and wants to get stuff done in the smallest number of takes. Quite often the early takes are what you want to capture. Empty And Silent is literally the first take.
Wow.
Yeah, he had a few words written down and then we were just feeling the energy of the room and trying to shape the song around that. Obviously, there’s a bit of editing stuff out because it was a pretty loose jam. We toyed with the idea of rerecording, but we decided not to because at a certain point you’re going to lose something in the rerecording. So, the song that ended up on the record was his first reaction.
That is amazing. I love that song so much too. Another song I love is Dumb Guitar, particularly the lyric ‘another date I’ll kill myself’ just because I guess I am single and dating so relate hard (laughs). Do you have a personal favourite?
(Laughs). My favourite is Fishbrain because it was one of the last ones to figure out and finish. I tend to chisel away at an idea for a long period of time, to come up with a natural fit for a concept and then lock into lyric writing. But with Fishbrain, at that point I had got a bit better at letting it flow. It was one of those songs I didn’t really focus on or stress out about. I just had the instrumental on in the background, sitting around at home. The concept of the song actually happened really quickly, in like a ten minute time frame of random things. I was watching a skate video and someone did a trick called a fish brain. I was also making dinner at the time and I was worried about setting it on fire and I just was like oh shit I think that might it. Whenever I think of that song it just has a good feeling of just happening, yeah.
That is a great backstory (laughs). This is a bit of a weird question and semi related to fish, but I was just wondering if you spend a lot of time around the ocean at all? Because when I listen to your music, that’s what is reminds me of a lot. Are you ocean people?
Well, we both grew up pretty close to the sea on the south coast. And yeah, I hadn’t really noticed it with our music but then with this record I feel like it did really pop out, sort of like a texture or something. There’s a sort of swaying that happens with the sound a lot.
That is exactly it!
Yeah, well where the record came together was in the middle of the desert, so absent from the idea of the sea. I think there’s something of a longing in the record in the fact that we were so far away from it. You can really feel that when you’re in a desert, how far away you are from fresh air and it was definitely one of those things that kept coming up, almost dreaming about a different landscape.
I do really hear that. Starting out in the London’s underground to now playing much bigger shows, do you prefer a bigger or smaller crowd?
I personally think there's merit to both. I mean, the bigger crowds have been sick because we can usually make the show look as you want it to look with all the lighting and just the stage in general. But the show we just played in Leeds about three days ago was quite an intimate setting and it has its own energy. I love both of them for different reasons.
What do you define as a good show? How do you feel after a good show?
I think it's easier to tell if you've had a good show when it's smaller, for sure because with the bigger shows, you can have this slight disconnect between the experience that you have on stage and the experience people have in the audience. But with the smaller ones, it's much easier to share the same experience. But you can also have a bad show and it still go well for the audience. Nothing beats the feeling of when you’re on stage and you’re nearly through the show, maybe you’re a few weeks into touring and it just starts to flow. It’s this moment where you’re aware that what you’re doing with the five of you on stage is much bigger and you can feel it in the audience. It sounds cheesy but that’s pretty powerful stuff. You can’t quite put your finger on it, which is why it’s so elusive but it’s so great when it happens.
I think you just summed up what live music is. Is there anything weird you’re looking forward to when you come out to Australia?
We’re not really there for long but maybe something that isn’t related to the sun because every time we come out it’s been so hot. It would be interesting to see what is offer on indoors.
Hmmm that might be tricky, I feel like our whole ecosystem relies on us being outside (laughs).
Just stand looking at the Opera House from a bar then.