Mount Kimbie’s Summer of Exploration
Kai Campos and Dominic Maker, also known by their musical moniker Mount Kimbie, are two soft-spoken men from England who make some of the loudest tunes that were played during Panorama weekend on July 29. Meeting for this interview Sunday, they sat on opposite sides of a couch and listened intently when the other one spoke, often nodding in agreement. But don’t conflate them — they’re completely different people in both manner and speech. Campos talks in long, flowing sentences that rove around and explore before returning to the crux of his argument. Maker, on the other hand, is concise and to the point.
The latter band member recently began working on a new discipline: making beats for rappers. Together with longtime collaborator James Blake and hip-hop legend No I.D., Maker helped write and produce the song “Many Faced God,” featured on Jay Z’s “4:44” album.
Although Maker has said he doesn’t listen to much music outside of work, his foray into rap has forced him to study some of the history and nuances of the genre; now, he’s listening to more music than he ever has.
“I don’t know that world very well, so I need to become more familiar with the things that are going on and the techniques people use,” he said. “It does feel a little bit like research. Another project for James and I, we’re working with this guy Swavay, who’s a really great rapper from Atlanta.”
Maker moved to Los Angeles, but Campos still lives in London, where the two began making music in 2008, during the height of dubstep. When asked about how the electronic music scene has changed since then, Campos said, “It’s hard to say, when sometimes it’s just you getting old.
“When we moved [to Peckham in London,] it was 2007 or 2008 and it felt like the music scene was rooted in the actual location,” he added. “The Internet was massive already at that point, but because of the Internet today, it’s really hard to pinpoint a scene that’s being in a geographical place anymore. I think that is really cool for middle-of-nowhere towns, but there is a loss of something as well, where there are all these mutations that come out of it. And that takes out the individuality. It’s hard for me to identify exactly what the London scene would be. But there’s still amazing music being made, you just have to find it online.”
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