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Published:
Jun 05, 2018

Night one at the California based Lightning in a Bottle festival was the nine year anniversary of The Glitch Mob's first commercial album, Drink The Sea, and we both had a little time and energy before their set to sit down and chat about their past, present, future, and artistic vision. They performed with their new hybrid stage/instrument, The Blade 2.0, along with the insanely loud, but beautifully engineered PK Sound speaker, that melted faces via their immersive experience. Their new show had so much life to it, and was nothing but a good time to be a part of, and it's clear they won't be taking a break soon.

Indie Shuffle: So you guys have been at it since the mid 2000s — are you planning to tour until you’re 95?

Boreta: Music is a calling, it’s a way of life, and yeah, we’re not stopping anytime soon.

Yeah, and you’re all pretty technological dudes, and I’m sure there will be the technology to keep you going until then.

Boreta: The geekometer is definitely high.

Ooah: We actually plug our bodies into The Blade when we play.

Boreta: In twenty years, we’ll actually just get into a cryogenic chamber and play with our minds.

Hopefully your pineal gland won't be too clogged by then.

What’s your take on the slough of producer kids trying to be live performers and did you guys receive shade for it when you first started doing it?

edIT: First off, to all the producers trying to be live performers, I think that’s a great thing. I think evolution is always good. Hats off to everyone out there trying to do it, too. Yeah, when we first started out it was kind of at the peak of the whole CDJ thing, so performing on stage with a laptop to a lot of people was very unorthodox. And obviously, there was the whole stereotype of “what’s that guy up there doing? Is he up there checking the internet?”

Boreta: And just to be clear, this was vinyl, CDJs, and CDJs playing compact discs. this was pre USB sticks.

edIT: You know, our whole thing from day one is we would tilt our midi controllers to the crowd to show people that we were actually playing. To break down that wall of "what are those guys doing up there?" That’s what we continue to do to this day is to be as transparent as humanly possible with the audience, and try to play our music in a way that when we hit a button, or a pad, or whatever, they hear music come out and there’s an energy transfer there. 

What are some of the things you’ve done away with on the old version of The Blade and what can people look out for on The Blade 2.0?

Boreta: We’ve done away with the LED wall behind us. so we had video playing, and we removed that and we’ve added more drums and more ways for us to perform live. Not having a video there allows people to really just focus on the performance and allows us to get more into it. And for us, especially because we put so much energy into making this very nuanced live performance and figuring out a custom way for us to perform our songs. Taking the video away just allows us to focus more on that, and we’ve added more drums, so the show has become more dynamic and more kinetic.

How long was having an immersive instrument for your live performances like the blade a vision for you guys?

Ooah: The Blade and the way we perform now has just been one constant evolution of the same thing we kind of figured out years ago. It’s just evolved in different ways and the actual physical way everything is set up now is just what we’ve found to be the best way for us to play. It’s been a part of the vision since day one.

Can you talk about what inspired you to make VR a part of your new musical experience?

Boreta: Yeah, absolutely. So with the new album, there’s a cohesion to the vision, and we worked with a friend of ours called Strange Loop and their whole studio. They created a video for every single song, so there’s a visual accompaniment to the whole album that you can watch from start to finish or you can see them in pieces, and there’s a narrative there. He also is someone who is at the bleeding edge of technology and he made it using VR software called Unity, a game engine. So at the same time we were making these videos we thought, “wait a second… we can actually make a whole VR experience out of that.” It happened super organically, and we also believe that getting into the music is really the goal of the whole thing. Whether it’s the live show or whether it’s the way we mix and master the music so it sounds immersive. It’s really just so the music has the best chance of effecting you. VR is the new way to do that, and we’re kind of in a new frontier of getting to experiment with this. This is going to be one of the longest music experiences that’s been made for VR to date. You’ll be able to go into the album with friends and have a little journey into the record.

Was it hard to translate your music visually as being audio people or do you guys work with any visual mediums?

Ooah: I mean none of us are visual, video guys, or make that kind of stuff, but we can talk about what goes on in our hearts and our minds and our souls about the music as much as possible, and hope that translate to whoever we’re collaborating with. Whether that’s vocalists or Strange Loops and his whole team about the visuals or lighting designers. When we worked with Strange Loop, the symbiosis of it all came together and it all made sense.

How do you feel about how trend-centric and commercialized dance music has become and do you think it’s constructive or destructive to the scene?

Boreta: I think with any evolution there’s a lot of construction and destruction, and I see it more of an evolution. Things just change. While there was something very special to be part of a movement that was a genuine underground in the beginning of the rave days. That was special, but I don’t lament those times, because at the same time I’m happy this thing that we love so much is really accessible to everyone. And of course, there’s some negativity that comes from a creative standpoint. Things can start to feel the same, festivals can get overblown, but really the fact that this art form we love is accessible to everyone, we’re absolutely behind it. Music technology has gotten better, and we want more people in the process of creating them. I think it’s going to make people and the festivals get more creative, so the good stuff boils to the surface.

Your last two albums had four year gaps between releases, as did this one and the last. are you guys into numerology or am I looking too far into that?

*laughter*
edIT: No man—
Boreta: Maybe numerology is into us.

Well, your albums also had a remix album to follow a year after— should we stay tuned for a remix album for this one?

Boreta: Absolutely. That’s in the works and that’ll be out sooner than later.

Do you guys go to books, videos, forums to further your craft, and do you have any resources you’d suggest to artists trying to develop their sound?

Boreta: As far as resources, I personally post a big booklist once a year of all sorts of stuff I’m reading creatively. My favorite site to find books is on Brain Picker. It’s a really good site, but also if you just google Boreta book list, it’ll come up because I try to find things that are somewhere in between creativity and spirituality and music. Those are all of my favorites.

What are your biggest takeaways from playing bigger festivals like Lightning in a Bottle for example?

edIT: Every time you get an opportunity to play a festival, you get an opportunity to play your music to a much larger audience than you would normally get to play at a headlining show. So you’re essentially introducing people to your musical world, and yeah, that’s really what festivals are all about. Obviously, at a headlining show, those are mostly your fans who are here to see you, they’re die hard, they’re there to support you. At a festival it’s a great opportunity to introduce a bunch of new people to your entire world and what you’re all about. and that’s what we’re here to do, and we’re really excited to show people The Blade 2.0 and share our music with people.

Ooah: Yeah, and this is the first festival of the new show.

edIT: And yeah, its the nine year anniversary of Drink The Sea and it’s really a great moment for us. 

Photo credit: Jess Bernstein

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