The Hip Hop and House headz conquering Berlin
Interview by Ian Fleming
Mat.Joe are a German duo from Berlin who are held in high esteem amongst their peers currently. A constant supply of top releases in the last 12 months have really made people sit back and take notice, so we thought the time had come to sit down with the guys and dig a little more. Here’s what they had to say…
Hey guys, introduce yourself to our readers for anyone that doesn’t know…
Helloooo! Helllooo! It’s Matze & Johannes aka Mat.Joe from Berlin. We’re best friends who fell in love with electronic music. Our project Mat.Joe started in late 2011 and we’re known for a signature sound that we call “Crispy Urban House”.
What scene did you grow up with in Germany – or were you listening to music from other places in the world?
We both grew up in the skateboard scene listening to Hip Hop, Rn’B, Funk, Soul, but also to Punk & Rock music from all over the world.
Everyone knows the quality of the scene in Germany you are part of now? What makes the German dance sound unique – is there anything, you think?
There’s a lot of good music on this planet. We guess it’s the energy and the hunger of an artist that builds a lot of dope tunes!
Tell us about the new EP on Mother Recordings, what inspired or influenced it?
It’s the typical sound we love. Groovy house music with a funky urban touch and the special crispiness!!
What gear do you use – hardware or software, and why?
In our home studios we’re working mostly with software but we just increased our hardware equipment so let’s see what will happen.
Any key bits of kit that really defined this new Mother release?
In “Make A Living” we worked with real brass elements and “Swipe The Card” contains a Rhodes Piano.
Was it written with a certain place, terrace, club or party in mind? Do you work like that?
Swipe The Card was built when we hung out on Matze’s balcony thinking about Ibiza, sun and gettin’ nasty! I think it works for that setting perfectly!
And how did you get acquainted with the guys at Mother? How does it feel to be putting on a label that has been making big noises with their last releases over the last 12 months?
Nhan is a homie that we know right from the start. We love the label and he asked for some tracks…so we did our first EP with the tracks “God Damn Wait” & “Home Newde”, which worked pretty good. So we all thought: let’s do another one!
As a DJ, are you similar in vibe to the music you make? Do you play similar stuff?
Yes, it’s really important that you play and love your own music. We always play our new tunes for a while and when they feel good, we send them over for Mastering etc.
How long did it take you to find your own sound and get happy with it?
We started with some typical deep house and changed to a more groovy and techy sound recently. It’s also very important for us to have different platforms to release on. This way we can maintain the production flexibility but you can always hear the Mat.Joe formula: CrispyUrbanHouse.
Plans for the rest of this year?
We’re working on some new tracks and projects e.g. trying out our own vocals and other weird ideas. There are also a lot of good places and shows that we really look forward to so we are really looking forward to everything massively .
http://www.soundcloud.com/matjoe
Mat.Joe’s ‘Swipe The Card’ is out now on Mother Recordings
Grab it here – https://pro.beatport.com/release/swipe-the-card-ep/1625332
