Ingredients is back with its 16th release, the Astral Transmissions EP by Mute & Mako. We spoke to them to find out more...

Please introduce yourself...
Hello.  Mute are Andrew Villem and Ben Fields who work closely with Stephen Mako (head honcho of Utopia Music).

How would you describe your approach to making music?
Our approach is varied, each one us could start something that sparks interest from the others and we roll out from there. We love beats and bass lines so invariably we make the beats first and try and get a b-line under it sounding tasty.  Then we get musical and add as much synth work as we can, creating icing on the cake with choice samples and SFXs.

Can you talk us through the tracks on your forthcoming release on Ingredients and what you had in mind when you made them?
We love the older sounding drum & bass rather than the 'hi-energy' / 'hard on your ears' music, so I guess we wanted to capture some of the older elements of production (long intros, epic breakdowns, enjoying dynamic range in the sounds rather than harshly limited signal paths).

Astral came around by listening to some old Audio Blueprint stuff and loving some of the basslines. Lost Sector was Ben going on a sick mission with me and Andrew coming in later on. MASIFI was a late night one day session with our good friend Al Schmifto (Sine).

How did you hook up with Ingredients in the first place?
We hooked up with Ingredients when Ben Fields sent some of our stuff to label owner Clive, aka Psylence.  We were encouraged by the positive reaction we got and took it from there.  Clive is now a good friend and wants to help us nurture and grow our own label as well as putting out our music.

What else have you been working on recently?
We've been working on all manner of musical delights in the bass music guise. We've recently upgraded the studio so we're getting used to the new speakers and new desk at the moment (Adam P33a's and the Allen & Heath Zed R16 to those who know!).

Got any other releases in the pipeline we should look out for?
We've been working on our own label as we want the fullest creative control over what we bring out and don't want to feel we have to give all our best tunes to the biggest labels. We're in the studio with Break next week working on a 12" and should be hanging with Survival and Spinline in the coming months to create more music for Utopia. We work closely with Metalheadz new-boy Mikal who's a good friend of ours too.  He's busy writing album material for Headz but we're always vibing to write tunes together. Watch out for him, he's got an insane amount of badman anthems!

Anything else you want to tell us about?
Cake is great, tea is fantastic and www.utopiamusic.org is where you'll find more information. Much love and peace to everyone worldwide

 

 

Related Links:

• Introducing: Mute & Mako
• Mute & Mako Release Essential Forms
• Mute & Mako Release Essential Forms
• Mars Label Launch Night
• Ingredients Records Interview

Like it? Share it!
Sign up for more with the Kmag weekly newsletter.