Recorded in minimalistic home-studios and finished over a distance of 80km - Dom Maker has recently left London for Brighton - 'Crooks & Lovers' is a remarkable achievement, its eleven short tracks serving as a welcome reminder that open-minded ingenuity will triumph over jaded routine and technical finesse any day.

Twelve hours before they take to the stage at Berghain, we meet Dominic and Kai outside a café in Berlin Friedrichshain, where they patiently endure the scorching heat and jovially get ready for their forth interview in a row.

Don't Think About Dubstep - An Interview with Mount Kimbie

One of the most immediately striking things on the album is your rather confident use of guitars. Is this a tribute to your indie music past, or were you simply bored of pushing buttons?

Dom: No, I think we both grew up in a guitar music environment. Kai is very much into hip-hop as well, but I was certainly purely indie. I've had maybe a total of two months of guitar lessons, but I always liked playing the guitar, as well as the drums. So did Kai, but neither of us is a virtuoso.

Dom: The introduction of the guitar wasn't a planned thing, we didn't think: Oh, it's gonna be really controversial to use a guitar, it was just something we felt like doing and we wanted to remain honest.

Kai: We were playing live a lot as well, using a guitar. And we also use it for writing songs.

The last time you played in Berlin was in January for Club Transmediale, and we've heard that you've finished many of the tracks for the album after you've been to Berlin. A coincidence?

Dom: To be honest, us finishing the tracks after we went to Berlin was purely down to the fact that we had no time left before - everything was so hectic. But for me being in Berlin was amazing. The environment really inspired me to make that kind of sounding stuff, and I did so for weeks afterwards. None of it was what I wanted to release or anything, but it did get to me. Whenever I'm here I get that feeling, there's just something about the place that I think is amazing.

Kai: It was about the time that I was more interested in looking at the history of techno, so I went through a lot of obvious Berlin stuff, Basic Channel for instance, and that was very interesting. Techno on the album is pretty much there.



At the moment it seems like dubstep is going through a development that techno went through some 15 years ago - it's rapidly diversifying, breaking open. A lot of people see you guys as representing this openness. You are both from London - how where you influenced by the local dubstep scene and how is that scene changing?

Kai: The main reason we got together is that we both liked what was going on in London at the time, around 2006, and we were going to a lot of parties then - a lot of early dubstep, like Marlow, DMZ and fwd>>. I went to DMZ last week, and it was like going back in time - the DJ booth moved, and that's about it. It was still amazing though.

It's like any dance music you know - it diversifies until people don't know what the word means any more. It destroys itself, and then something else happens. I guess we just want to remain relevant in a way. Doing that means not to think about dubstep but just about yourself.

Another stylistic element of 'Crooks & Lovers' is that songs often change halfway, in terms of atmosphere, structure, sometimes even genre. An example is 'Field', which starts as a filtered dubstep track, and abruptly turns to post-rock at some point.

Dom: Our initial recording of 'Field' was just the beginning intro. We could have used that as a track in itself, but we always write extra bits for playing live. Kai played that guitar on top of it, and that's how it turned out. It wasn't a conscious decision to fuck with people's heads.

Kai: I did it in the kitchen. We were just getting ready to send off the masters and were mixing down the main loop. The guitar wasn't to be on the record, it was just going to be be a live thing. So - I had nothing better than this (points at iPhone), planted it on the table, got the guitar, and played it in. In the end we decided to include it on the album like this.

A lot of young producers coming from the UK are quite literally recording their tracks in the kitchen, whereas a lot of people that have been in the techno business for many years have built up these humongous studios with tube amps and what not. How is your recording situation - do you guys share a studio?

Dom: We have two different studios, but they are both terrible. (Laughter)

Kai: I've had mine in the kitchen, for a little while, but it had the worst sound. Now it's in the front room, but it's just as bad really. I'm looking for a place in London, but it's expensive and I'm not really there much at the moment.

Dom: At the moment I don't live in London, I live in Brighton, but I intend to move back after the summer. Then I'm sure we're going to find a space. We've always been in need of it because of the live show, and we need a place to rehearse.

Kai: But I don't want a 20.000 GBP studio, just a space.

Dom: A shed will do.

So you pass stuff back and forth? How have you been working for this album?

Kai: For our early tracks we've lived quite close together, in South London. I'd come round to Dom's and use his computer or he'd come round and use mine. Them Dom moved down to Brighton, so we either send stuff via the internet, or, when we have a gig, we have a rehearsal and I come down to Brighton. We always end up writing something there as well. So this has definitely changed the way we've been writing a lot.

So it's not two guys sitting in a room and sweating in front of a computer?

Kai: No, we've done that, but...

Kai: Especially with using a computer, where production and writing is almost the same thing, you sometimes want 45 minutes by yourself to EQ something, which you can't do with another person in the room.

Dom: It can be nice to have the other person in the room at the same time, as you're making something. Personally I'm always conscious that the other person is there, and you're like: Ok, I need to be better! (Laughter)

Kai: We never say, let's make a post-dubstep track today.

The video to 'Would Know', directed by Tyrone Lebon. All music by Mount Kimbie below.