This week I interviewed Monophonique, a name that has been featured on the blog a few times with their tracks. Monophonique are a duo based in Belgium, who recently released their first EP on Kiez Beatz Records and already made a ton of remixes for other producers such as Haezer, The Mastertrons, The Foolish Legacy, Blaster, Dead CAT Bounce, Vakkuum and PANDAmic…
1. Hello! How old is Monophonique?
Monophonique started out as a dj project about 2 years ago. We both started to listen to more electronic music and we loved the music so much that we started playing at some local parties. A few months later we started experimenting with Reason and Ableton, getting to know how everything works and trying to find our own sound. We started producing our own tracks about 10 months ago.
2. How are you lately? Are you working on something and how is this going?
Everything is going great, our first EP was released last month and a lot of our remixes are soon to be released on various labels. We did a lot of remixes last year but now we are going to focus on a second EP.
3. You grabbed our attention with your remix on Spiderbait’s “Black Betty”. Was this the first Metalectro track you ever did? How did you come up with the idea?
The first Metalelectro track we did was our remix of “Hellmarch”. The idea was to make a very dirty, pumped up remix of it. The same goes for Spiderbait, we wanted to make it a bit more danceable but still keep those fantastic guitars in it.
When most producers make an electro remix of a rock track they only use a small part of the guitars and add a dirty bassline , the idea of our metal remixes is to make a dirty bassline by sampling the guitars . This idea goes for all our remixes, we sample the original files as much as we can to make something new out of it, even if our remixes might not sound nothing like the original we always sample a lot of it.
4. What do Monophonique consider their biggest achievement/highlight so far?
Our biggest highlight was our first EP with all original tracks, but the best is yet to come.
5. “Inspired by…everyone and everything!” Can you mention a person or story that inspired you to write a song and which song is this?
All our songs are mainly inspired by artists like Proxy, Gtronic, Boys Noize, Polymorphic, Bloody Beetroots, etc…
When we start a song we usually think of a setting that goes with it , the whole “Protoss” EP is inspired by various movies and games such as Predator, Transformers and Starcraft. This makes it easier for us to give the song the right vibe and tone.
6. Do you prefer working only with computers/sequencers or do you get your hands dirty playing and recording instruments? Do you use samples and what’s your opinion on sampling and copyright?
We currently do everything with midi and computers but in the future we would love to get some analog synths and various instruments. We prefer working with real gear because it gives the best sound, but it’s just too expensive for the moment.
We try to make all the sounds ourselves, when we start working on a new song we have 5 to 10 synths just to make different bleeps and small sounds to fill up a track . Sometimes we do take samples from various sample packs if we can’t create the sound we want. But it’s always best to make everything from scratch.
Some producers just sample an old tune, put a beat and some fresh vocals under it and try to make money with it but the right way to do it is to take an old tune, chop the hell out of it and create a fresh new song (like Fake Blood did with “I Think I Like It”). When you do sample or remix a song we think it’s important to make something new with it and give it your own personal touch.
7. What are your influences/music background?
Our biggest influences are other electro producers but we take a lot of inspiration from other genres such as rock, metal,drum n bass, house, dubstep… Our musical background goes from Soulwax to Kyuss so we listen to a lot of different music.
8. Is Monophonique your main project or do you work on other projects too?
It’s currently our main project but in the future we would love to do a project with some self-recorded guitars, vocals and synths but still make it sound dirty.
9. Are you signed with any record label? Any future plans? (live shows, release, remix etc)
For the moment we prefer to work with independent labels, this way it’s easier to do and release what we want.
We have some upcoming gigs in different countries which we are really looking forward to and most of our remixes we did in 2010 still have to be released this year. But we always keep on producing and searching for good new tracks.
10. What are you listening to lately? Any tracks/artists you recommend?
“Cabala” and “Fuck The System” from Cyberpunkers are awesome tracks which we love to play, also Vakkuum’s “Nitro” remix of Autodidakt is pretty good. Drivepilot’s “Fuck Yeah” and Aerotronic’s “Sex & Cigarettes” Waxdolls remix is standard in our set. We are also a big fan of Polymorphic and Hey Today, both have created some amazing tunes last year.
11. What do you do when you are not working on music?
Medidate in our hyperbolic chamber while watching home & away.
12. What do you think about the Metalectro blog and the music featured on it?
It’s great, Metalelectro combines the best of 2 genres and there is so much more potential in the genre. I would love to see more rock bands combining hard beats and distorted guitars in the future.
13. Anything else you’d like to mention and we forgot to ask?
Thanks for the interview.