Hello, you three! Thank you for jumping on the call. My first question is actually my favourite. What lies beyond the veil?

Dimitri: Chris, I think you might be the one who is most up for that question.

Chris: I was so scared about this question. It's weird because it could be interpreted in many ways. What is the album about? What comes next? All these things. I can definitely talk about the album because I think in hindsight, we didn't write any of these songs with a set theme or structure in place at the beginning. It was only once it all came together, that it started representing, for me at least, cue points in time and a mood that it captured. It's abstract because it's meant to be abstract, but for me, it captures a time of geopolitical discourse that is still ongoing, I guess. When we wrote it, there was a lot of stuff happening. Stuff going on behind the scenes, in the shadows. Asking if there is some alternate reality where all of this blows out of proportion is apocalyptic. I think a lot of the tracks are deliberately very aggressive because we wanted to write something with a harder edge on it.

Dimitri: I think, for me, it was about interpreting the worst-case scenario of a world that we're watching unfold. What does that look like? That's why the magma visual captures some of that quite nicely.

Chris: I do remember you came to me with a theme after we discussed the album's running order. We didn't have titles for any of the tracks until the very end. When you presented the theme, it all came up pretty naturally. I guess it associated well with all the tunes. I don't know how to explain it either. It made sense to me.

Yeah, sometimes these things just happen. You don't have much influence on how things play out.

Chris: Being able to have that hindsight put it all together is quite nice, rather than putting the pressure of fitting a theme on yourself. You might throw out good ideas because they don't fit, whereas this is more, I guess, a holistic way of packaging them all up together. Plus we're always on the same page, us three. We just know what we like. And luckily, we like the same things musically and think that we're on the same journey. Collaborating becomes quite a holistic process.

You could say that beyond the veil lies this edge of Fearful and Mtwn. It's slowly unfolding and showing itself, showing the cracks and what lies beyond them.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. I like that. It's kind of abstract. It's not really handing you an answer on the plate. There's a bit left for the audience to interpret and to become part of it.

100%! As we watch you journey into uncharted territory, for you as collaborators, how is it going?

Dimitri: I feel like I've personally wanted to get away from Drum & Bass these past few years. I still love the genre but I wanted to incorporate more and more new sonics. I think it came pretty naturally to get out of our comfort zone. I know that the three of us have always listened to a lot of different genres. We've always taken more influences from other genres of music instead of always staying within the same scene and exploring and discovering new things.

Chris: Yeah, agreed. It's also worth emphasizing that there's a sweet spot with being on the edge of your own knowledge. You don't want to be completely overwhelmed with what you're doing. You want one foot in what you've learned and another foot in things to be learned and explored. That's what drives a lot of my productions. We also share a lot of music among us, especially Dimitri and I. I think that's where our collaboration stems from, sharing songs and realizing we have similar tastes. It made sense to make music together. Sometimes you just meet some humans and immediately realize these are your people.

Yeah, exactly!

Chris: It would've been stupid not to take that further. The uncharted territory thing is a strange one because now that the album is done, it feels less like uncharted territory. But I feel very comfortable with the sound that we've crafted over those two albums and one EP. So where do we go from there? We don't want to repeat ourselves.

What about you, Max?

Max: I believe personally, at some point, there was a feeling trapped within Drum & Bass. Like Chris and Dim said, if you get to chat and be with like-minded people within the same universe, you don't leave your comfort zone. So doing something else was and is still refreshing. It allows us to be free to try whatever we want and not have the pressure of being liked by a community or a crowd. Or to feel that a track we've made is good in the end. So, yeah, it's still dance music, it's still club music. It has to work. People have to dance and vibe on it. Some people will listen to it on the sofa or in the car. I do, obviously. Like Chris said, when you look at it right now, it's not no uncharted territory anymore. It makes sense. It works. So, yeah, I believe you can only reflect on the journey after you're finished.

That's true.

Dimitri: It's definitely refreshing. I think that's the keyword here.

Yeah, I was going to say that! Of course, it's never entirely unexplored territory. I think we're at a point in time where nearly every genre exists, and it's so hard to make something completely new and refreshing.

Max: Yeah, you can make it full circle as well. It doesn't have to be experimenting. It's been a while since we've made a full Drum & Bass track with Dimitri, so maybe we'll make some new tracks at some point.

Dimitri: If it sounds good and if people like it, that's a win-win.

Chris: That just really resonates with me because after finishing this album, I suddenly had this energy to make Drum & Bass again. Which wasn't there for years. Which is amazing. And then I realized, we can't help but use the same sound palette because we love those sounds. We're just changing the BPM and the structures and the arrangements that we're used to. Now I'm so tempted to remix both of our albums into Drum & Bass just because I know it'll work.

So you actually answered my second and third questions within one answer!

Chris: There is one more point about the new direction! We decided to make something that was a bit more club, like a bit more danceable. Because the first album was definitely more abstract. There are a few tracks that jump out, for sure! But it was created during Lockdown and everyone was inside. You can hear that because it's more of a listening album. Whereas 'Beyond the Veil is full-frontal aggression. Being out again in the world probably raised the energy level enough for us to absorb that and express it in the music.

Dimitri: Yeah. I also feel like the landscape of electronic music has changed quite a bit these past few years. I hear more and more mixed styles and genres within bass music. Think Garage, Hardcore, Techno, Ambient. Also, I feel like more and more people make indescribable music. You can't really categorize it into a genre. Personally, that influenced me quite a lot because I feel like there's less of a barrier now. There are no limits. I also think that in Drum & Bass, as much as I still love it, some of it hasn't really evolved much. I needed some fresh air and more aggression. I love very dark and doomy music also and I gravitated towards Ambient and more abstract heavy stuff lately.

Yeah, I love that term, doomy music because I tend to like that music a lot as well. In regards to how the music scene has changed, I think generally this genre and scene thinking has faded because throughout the pandemic people were just hungry for music and weren't really caring much about genre names. Also yes, Drum & Bass isn't really evolving except for what the Dutch guys are doing, like the Imanu's and Bunnshin's. In other news, people like Ivy Lab are pioneering a totally different strain of bass music. Safe to say they're soaking up a lot of US influence.

Dimitri: I remember a track called 'Suzuki', which is like this acid Hip Hop mixed with Footwork. When I first heard it, I was amazed. I didn't know it was possible to go into that territory and make it sound good. This track in particular was quite eye-opening for me.

Max: Nice.

Seeing as they're not scared of putting anything out that's totally out of their comfort zone, have you been scared of putting out 'Beyond the Veil'?

Dimitri: No, I personally haven’t!

Chris: You know, I wouldn't say scared, but I think there have been points, right, Dimitri, where we've been messaging each other in, like, '112bpm, what the hell are we doing?' There are these moments of doubt, which every artist has, like a sanity check.

Dimitri: The awkward moments became, I think, the strongest points of the album, like with 'Careful' at 112bpm. It became a joke because we also made one tune which is 117bpm. They're awkward tempos, but in the end, we kept them that way and built around it.

Chris: I'm glad we did.

Max: Trying weird bpm's as well as weird arrangements is part of the process of getting out of the comfort zone and trying new things. To come back to the question of being scared, I believe it's about confidence between us three. Also, between us and YUKU and Jef, the label manager. Also between us and the people who listen to our music. And at some point, if you're in confidence, you don't have to be scared.

As we're talking about having confidence in things you make, what's the album for you?

Dimitri: That's a hard question, man.

Sorry, not sorry!

Dimitri: For me personally, the album is letting go of genres completely for the love of experimentation and just creating ideas. I feel like it worked for all the tunes on the album because there is no bonus track or anything. Everything we made is on the album and nothing else. We have committed ourselves to the ideas. That was a new process, at least for me.

Right.

Dimitri: It's also very dark and aggressive, I think it's the darkest stuff that we've ever made.

Truly!

Dimitri: Yeah. Maybe that's what 'Beyond the Veil' is about. Actually, making music that we love first and foremost. And then if other people like it, that's great too.

That's a nice way to look at it. How about the other guys? How about you, Chris?

Chris: From a musical perspective, I think it's just that experimentation is woven through the entire fabric of what we know. There's also the hardware aspect of it, which for me was a big learning curve on the first album. Dimitri had everything, I went over there and we played around with all the toys, but I didn't really understand it. By the end of that album, I had a better grasp. I then was able to express myself with the modular synthesis side of things and speak the same language that Dimitri had learned.

Max brings all the pedals onto the table and it becomes this web of mad sound design. It's like a mad scientist's lab where we're manipulating electricity and seeing what speaks to us. I think it was more of a surgical honing of those skills.

Whereas 'Exordium' was quite abstract, this is far more focused and tries to punch you in the face sound-wise. Every sound went through distortion! Like with the title track, where I stuck a distortion plugin on the entire chain, like on the entire master track. By the end, it was complete destruction. At some point, I thought I had broken it. Then I sent it to the other guys asking for feedback and they told me it sounded normal to them.

You're trying to find that edge, to find where it is going to fall apart? And always pushing it a little bit further. That's what this album means to me!

Amazing. How about you, Max?

Max: To me, it's a continuation of the previous work. It shows the new influences in a way. Chris just talked about distortion. Maybe that's because everyone has been listening to heavily distorted stuff lately, but it just reflects like it has been said previously in the different answers for the different questions. I don't know. It's just a natural way of creating stuff and going a bit further every time. I don't know. On a personal note, my wife listened to a couple of tracks and she said she liked them.

Are you on your path then?

Dimitri: Yeah, there's no other way.

Max:

Yes, we are! My wife is a dancer. Not a professional, but she teaches contemporary dance and modern jazz. She told me she would like to try dancing on one of the tracks to make something with a student. Maybe that's to scare the students *laughs*. She never said anything about the music I make since early on. Which would be a good decade.

Crushing.

Max: It's just not her music. She likes to listen tho. So yeah, that's comforting actually. We talked a lot about confidence and audiences listening to music. Seeing that more than half the preorders already sold in just a matter of a few days, is comforting too, it's great. It means people like it.

Quite an achievement! My girlfriend is a dancer too, and she comes from a more Hip Hop edge. She's also a trained theatre actress, so knows how to put things in a scene. And I always tell her that I think super vibrant, deep Dubstep is perfectly made for contemporary dance dancers. Often times a meditative experience!

Dimitri: I think it's interesting when you talk about stuff like a meditative experience because over the years I've listened to music I always strive for that state. When you listen to music and you're very deep into it. I feel like, over the years, it's harder and harder to discover music that takes you to that state. I noticed that distortion is a good way to bring intensity to your sounds. I feel like it makes shit sound so intense and organic. It's almost unpredictable. You feel like it’s grabbing you, like being destroyed unpredictably. This kind of sound design resonates a lot with me because I can get to that state of being completely immersed in the music Maybe I'm crazy for that. I don't know.

Feel that! So you've mentioned modular gear and going over to Dimitri's place. How do collaborations between Fearful and Mtwn work?

Dimitri: We've met a couple of times when Chris came to Belgium to actually work on tunes. We mostly ended up making sound design. I guess that’s because we all work best when we are in our home environments. We have common tastes and we make similar music but I feel like it's hard to work with someone else in the same studio. Some people can only work like that, which is cool. But personally, and I think Max too, it's best when you have your own moment in your own studio, being able to try stuff, not wanting to bore the other person. I feel like when Chris came to Belgium, it was more interesting to work on sound design and ideas. It works best that way. Other than that, we mostly exchange ideas through the internet.

Gotcha!

Chris: Yeah, there's like points in time where I need a day to just try something and if it sucks, I haven't wasted someone else's time and it's a safe space to do that when I'm on my own. That's actually because I take a lot more risks. I end up with better things, like more interesting results. Sometimes I hit a wall or I just don't have any inspiration. But then Dim and Max will provide me with that inspiration and that's magic.

Yeah, sitting there and watching someone whilst having the urge to add something isn't satisfying. I can imagine it's quite interesting to collaborate between three minds.

Dimitri: Yeah, I felt like the dynamics between all of us were more about creating a new context. I remember making this very long sample of 15 or 16 minutes of distorted bass and various sounds. At the same time, we were working on this tune called 'Dark Patterns'. I do remember struggling to think of a second part of the tune. And I remember Chris just sending me the full tune where he took bits of the sample and just used it completely out of context to make sounds for that second part of the tune. And even though we made the sounds, I would never have imagined that they could be used that way. You can apply this to the rest of the tunes and the general dynamic of our relationship. When one of us gets stuck with ideas or sounds, then the other actually manages to do something different and flip it on its head. Some of the tracks have been completely changed and destroyed for the best with that process.

Chris: It's almost like we remix each other's work, right? So you keep remixing and you're like, what am I going to hear? And the trust has built up between us to the point where I know it's going to come back better, so I can't wait to send it off. I'll do as much as I can, but I don't get annoyed when I hit that creative block anymore because I'm like, cool, this is the point where it gets sent over to you guys.

Dimitri: But you'll get something in return.

Chris: Yeah, it'll be good. I think that's the main thing. And we're always pushing to make it better. Like that one track, 'Mutual Destruction', it went through four different versions, completely different tracks. One sounded like an Industrial Techno tune. Another version was an Electronica-ish wishy-washy thing and then it just went completely the other way. I was constantly trying to reinvent it because something wasn't quite right.

It had so many pads at one point, Max had made all these industrial sounds and it was just like this project was just getting insane. I needed someone else's brain to take over and make sense of this and hear the things that I couldn’t anymore.

Yeah, right. I get that.

Max: I think the way we work here, like everyone in his own place, makes the general dynamic. I believe when you are in the same room with someone else making music, you are definitely influenced directly at the moment. Personally, that's not really my thing. I've never felt confident working with someone else in the same room except Dim, and in this case, obviously, except Chris. But like Dim said, when we saw each other, it was just mangling the modular and sound design.

Taking the time to experiment with things and to try an error, I think that's what makes the dynamic generally between us, I'm sure. I'm convinced it wouldn't be the same if we were to see each other, let's say every week or every month. In the end, as much as I love seeing Chris, I don't think it would sound exactly the same. I would love to see you more, Chris, don't get me wrong.

Chris: Haha! When we meet up, we just play. We experiment and we just hit record. Like you said, if we just sat down and tried to finish a track, we'd maybe get a track done. But we recorded like four or 5 hours worth of sounds in that one session, which then turned into a whole album. A lot of the sounds we create, we end up using after hearing them out of the context of the original session. When you're on your own and each person hears those sounds differently, that's where the weird melting pot comes in. I love this process because it allows me to just create. There's no ego or social anxiety that can build up. Working with people in the studio it can feel like you don't have ownership over the song if you haven't been on the controls.

That's where the magma comes in, right?

Chris: Yeah. I need to have my 30 minutes on the computer so that I can say to myself that I've written the song. I think that's a dangerous byproduct of being in the same room. And that creates a power dynamic where you're collaborating, but you're kind of fighting for your space. And that's not always healthy.

Max: I don't think there's always someone that will try to lead the way at some point, maybe for half an hour or for an hour, and you're just sitting next to him looking and wanting to change things, you want to try things. But he has the mouse.

That's how I felt when collaborating with a friend recently.

Max: I always felt uncomfortable doing that. As much as I love the guys we collaborated with, I'm thinking of Yuri aka Mzine. Scepticz, it never worked for me. I love these guys. I love seeing them.

I was going to mention that collaborations always have to do with ego and trust.

Max: Exactly.

And letting go of ego first and foremost.

Max: That's what hardware helps a lot when you're in the room with other people. Dim's modular synth is huge, so we can all be involved. Everyone is doing something, even the slightest thing, everyone is directly involved in the process of making music, even if you don't use that sound in the end. I think that's the magic of making sound with hardware. But yeah, the ego part is really uncomfortable.

Dimitri: I think there's never been any ego fight or something between us.

Chris: Yeah, between you guys, for sure. Right. Your brothers.

Dimitri: Years ago maybe haha!

Max: Yeah. Maybe he's a bit jealous of my hair, but apart from that, there's not much to say.

Dimitri: That was cold. I'm jealous of the plate reverb tho.

Max: Yeah, the famous plate reverb.

Yeah. Okay. Nice. One last thing before I let you off the hook; how did the Riko Dan collaboration take place?

Chris: We had a Dubstep-ish track and we knew we wanted vocals over the top of this 112bpm weird Grime thing that we didn't really know how to classify. And TRAKA generously put us in touch with Zane (Riko Dan). We wanted him to be involved, but there was this doubt that maybe he wouldn't get it because it's a weird tempo, and it's like a soundtrack or score on either end. The intro and the outro are very euphoric and dark like a film sketch.

So because of that self-doubt, we sent him two tracks. One of them was kind of more of a straight dubstep track.

Dimitri: That was 'Stalker'.

Chris: Yeah, he had the option of both and we were secretly like, please pick the weird 112bpm track. Luckily, he immediately replied and picked the one we’d hoped for. And his vocal delivery was exactly right, exactly what we wanted. We wanted someone to just go really aggressively in and yeah, it was a beautiful moment when we got those vocals through.

Yeah, I can imagine. It's also like, I don't know, like some sense of knighting when someone like Riko Dan gives you his vocals.
Chris: That's a confidence builder right there. When you want to work with someone you respect, you kind of make yourself vulnerable by letting them critique your work. Even if they aren't directly critiquing it, their response speaks volumes.

Truly! Thank you for taking the time guys!