Childhood friends turned high-fidelity merchants of acid-flecked breaksy churners and further spaced-out floor epics, Corey Kikos and Maryos Syawish, better known as Sleep D, have been doing their thing for the past seven years with acute taste and remarkable steadfastness, putting out some of the Melburnian underground’s finest club offerings in the process. Qualities that were yet to be tested through the full-length format, which is now done, and in undoubtedly splendid fashion.
Following up to an array of choice releases for their own imprint, Butter Sessions, and local friends’ label Analogue Attic, Corey and Maryos turn up this month on Anthony Naples and Jenny Slattery’s Incienso with their eagerly-awaited debut long-player, ‘Rebel Force‘ – a most compelling digest of their ebulliently baroque and cross-pollinated musical universe. Along with the premiere of the album’s prime mover, ‘Danza Mart‘, be sure to peep our quick-fire chat with the pair below.
Interview by Baptiste Girou
"When we make music we try to fully let go and create sound and feeling with our instinct"
Hey chaps, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. Your debut album ‘Rebel Force’ is about to land on Anthony Naples and Jenny Slattery’s label, Incienso. How did you experience this first incursion in the full-length realm?
We didn’t set off with the intention of making an album to begin with. We were working on a bunch of different tracks that didn’t really fit into the traditional 12″ format we’re used to, so we thought what can we do with this?
We realised we had a solid foundation for a bigger body of work that painted a nice picture of the different moods and grooves we work with. Diving into an album was the next logical thing for us to do and we followed our instinct with it, the experience felt quite natural.
How did this shift from the single format to the album effect your approach to production?
‘Rebel Force‘ was realized during a time when we were playing live in various locations and contexts over the 2018/2019 summer. Improvised gigs, collaborations, club nights, festivals, early morning downtempo sets… etc.
Working in a long format gave us room to experiment with these different vibes and tempos we were focusing on. Although we’ve already dipped into releasing a wide range of sound, we wanted to present our sonic spectrum as one piece.
Did you assemble the tracks with a particular narrative in mind? If so, what story were you aiming to tell?
When we make music we try to fully let go and create sound and feeling with our instinct. We reflected on ‘Rebel Force‘ after it was complete and asked ourselves this same question… we realised that the story is simply our own.
It’s all the sounds that excite us, touching on some of the different moods we find our selves in… sometimes joyful, sometimes challenging.
Why not publish it through your own label, Butter Sessions?
Over the summer we both agreed we want to focus on our own music a lot more. With that we decided we didn’t want to release the album on Butter Sessions. Most of our releases have had minimal input from anyone else.
On top of producing it we usually mix it, master it, do the artwork, release it, distribute it and promote it. We wanted to break out of that for a moment and collaborate on the process. Working with Jenny and Anthony has been super nice and refreshing!
We’re proud to share one of the album’s highlights, ‘Danza Mart’, along with this interview. Can you tell us more about the track’s conception and recording process?
This track was first made for a live set at an RA party at Revolver in Melbourne. It went through many phases and mutations and eventually evolved into its current form.
This happens a lot with our tracks, some start from a live jam, then the structure is refined, sounds are recorded into Ableton and all the bells and whistles are added. For this one we wanted to bring back scratching samples to house music.
What are the next weeks holding for you? Any release party lined up?
Yeah! We’re doing a tour around Australia in November with our dear friend Kuniyuki Takahashi who collaborated on the album, he’ll join us for a few of the gigs. We’re currently working on a new live set for that. Also working on the next few Butter Sessions releases and parties.
‘Rebel Force’ is scheduled for release via Incienso on 18th October. Order a copy from Juno.
TRACKLIST
A1. Red Rock (IV Mix)
A2. Central
B1. Danza Mart
B2. Twin Turbo
B3. Jazz
C1. Fade Away
C2. Reggatron
C3. Special Sector
D1. Morning Sequence ft. Kuniyuki
D2. Pearlescent Skyline