Matthew Burton & Kate Rathod - Future music piracy

From Berlin to London and back to Berlin, Matthew Burton has been working his sound across international dancefloors. Over the last decade he’s worked and partied with Connect Four, Retrofit and Visionquest, but in the last couple of years after teaming up with his partner and now-collaborator Kate Rathod, his, and now their, music has found its soul-beat. Their latest release The Camp Pirate EP may have an imaginative biog of a homosexual, cross-dressing pirate tagged to it but its Kate and Matt’s relationship and their life together which has far more of an influence and impact over the record. Out on Organic Art Movement, the five dark, high-produced house grooves mark the start of an exciting 2012 for the pair. Erin Kubicki caught up with Matt and Kate to chat over their working-relationship.

How did you come to work together musically? Kate - We have been together for over five years and Matthew has taught me all I know about good dance music. It started with him shouting me over from whatever I was doing, to come bust out a melody for him. Then slowly, I got more and more involved right up until the position we're at today.

How does the collaboration work, can it get pretty intense? Kate - We've got to the stage where both of us are completely comfortable in every role within the studio. We’re always swapping and changing positions, however, my strengths lie more in the melodic side of things, whereas Matthew is more about creating the groove. Basically whenever we are in the studio, one person will be working on drums, and the other will be jamming with our Doepfer or Korg synths. With two of us in the studio, we feel this live way of working is much more inspirational. Because we're so close, there're are often little arguments about the direction of the track - they're usually solved very quickly, or if not, we just stop making music for that day.

How has the sound changed from working individually to together? Matthew - A really noticeable difference, I feel, is that our tracks are better produced now. When I used to work alone, I was often really lazy but Kate knocked that out of me. Creatively, our tracks are more musical now, more than my solo efforts were. I used to use software to make my music, but around the time Kate began working with me, we started buying hardware. So pretty much all of our synth sounds now come from hardware, which has made a big difference to our sound.

What were your influences involved in the new EP? Matthew - This is a hard one because the Camp Pirate tracks were made by me alone 5 years ago and the two tracks on the b side were made by Kate and I last year - both very different times in my life. 5 years ago I was going through a phase of making weird, trippy music and the process was more free for me back then as I didn't abide by the general rules of making music. I guess the main influence of the two tracks made with Kate are that of London. The lifestyle we lived in London was different to anywhere we had lived before and that had an impact on us and our music.

Why call it The Camp Pirate, I’ve read there’s a concept behind it? Matthew - When i used to live in Nottingham, I would wear stripy tops with ripped sleeves and dangly earrings, and friends started calling me the ‘camp pirate’. The track is basically just a piss-take of myself. I only really made it just to play to my friends. I never think long and hard about concepts for our music. For me, I don't necessarily think that concepts are important. I try not to think too hard when making music, as my best work seems to come completely naturally.

How do you translate your tracks from the studio to the live-stage? Kate - During our live act, there's not very often one full track being played. We basically bounce down all the audio from our tracks into Ableton. Once in there, we just jam and combine various elements from different tracks. We also play live pads and melodies etc from our Korg synth. The setup we have allows us to improvise each time we perform, so it can go in many different directions. Other than Ableton and the Korg, we use an MPC to play live samples, various FX units and also a vocal mic. All this runs through our 12 channel mixer. Our live act is very different to our RA podcast so I think people expect something different when we play. However our performances have gone down well, we've had some really great feedback.

RA described the tunes as ‘sexy’; did you have that in mind when making the record? Matthew - I really hate the word sexy - especially when it's describing music. The words 'sexual' or 'sensual' are more fitting to describe that style of music; so I certainly didn't have 'sexy' in mind when making the tracks. However I do think that a lot of house music falls into the sexy category, but none of it is the type of music that I like to listen to. How would I describe our music? Well the stuff we are most proud of (none of which has been released yet) falls into a deep broken beat style with a lot of techno influences. We're always changing and developing our music and trying out new things, so I think it would be hard to categorise.

You guys have a strong connection, partying and performing over in Berlin, what’s your relationship with the city? How does it compare to London? Kate - London is very different to Berlin - both have pros and cons. But being music producers, it is much easier to live in Berlin, mainly due to living costs. The crowds in London are, on the whole, trend driven but if you find the right parties, you'll find a lot of clued up people who really know their music. The way people party in Berlin is very different to London. It's more about a competition on who can stay out the longest… However thanks to places like Club der Visionaire, it's really easy to meet other producers who are happy to shoot the shit with you.

Plans for 2012? Matthew - We have a Matthew Burton and Kate Rathod EP coming out on Visionquest, hopefully before Spring. We also have EPs in the pipeline with Retrofit and Ultrastretch and I have a solo EP coming out on Back to You. But the biggest plan for this year is to start up our own vinyl-only label. It's just going to feature our own music and collaborations with other artists. Each release will have four tracks and it's a chance for us to also release our less obvious dance floor music.  

Matthew Burton & Kate Rathod The Flip Side EP is forthcoming on Visionquest on 13th Feb.

Matthew Burton & Kate Rathod - The Camp Pirate Ep on Organic Art Movement on Whatpeopleplay and Phonica

Listen to Organic Art Movement on Pulse Radio

Listen to Matthew Burton & Kate Rathod on Pulse Radio