Name: Malik Abdi aka Kombé
Nationality: Swiss
Occupation: DJ, producer, multi-instrumentalist, label co-founder at Somatic Rituals
Current Release: Kombé's Foreign Exchange is out December 1st 2023 via Somatic Rituals.

If you enjoyed this Kombé interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit him on Instagram, and Soundcloud.
 


Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in production and technology?

Not a particular experience, but I guess listening to early eurodance or dancehall from CDs that my dad burned for me haha. I kinda was always curios how these “electronic” sounds had been made and noticed their difference.

Then a friend of my mom, Günter Müller, introduced teenage me to Reason by Propellerhead and I just started messing around with it, leaving it again, kind of not understanding anything and then picking up producing a few years later again. It’s a funny story because I never knew the music of Günter Müller but rediscovering it now, blew my mind because it’s such great music and kind exact my kind of textures and mood.

With electronic music and through software Idiscovered a whole universe of possibilities that was unfolding in front of me. I was still playing the drums and double bass during high school but after the discovery of production and sound technology I wasn’t interested in pursuing that anymore.



Were you interested in the history of production and recording? If so, which events, albums, artists, or insights stand out for you?

Focusing on dance music, which my work evolves around, as part of our label Somatic Rituals – I like to think about personal history and milestones of pieces and tracks that shaped my taste and inspiration. I remember teenage me going deeper into the history of dance music where I discovered who influenced who and how it evolved into where my work is situated in.

It is important to understand the history. When I understood that Techno originated from black roots it opened a whole world for me. It’s this going back in time and looking what came before me interests me about the “history of production”. Back then we always listened to the BOOMCAST mix series by the Parisian label CLEKCLEKBOOM. This was our musical teaching lessons to then discover whole catalogues and scenes through these mixes.



Now my interest is not only focused on dance music. Regarding history of production I like to find pieces like Halim el Dabbhs haunting “Wire Recorder Piece”, one of the earliest pieces of electronic music.



Or even listening to Herbie Hancocks – “Nobu” as a proto techno beat can really put me in a state of awe as the time they were produced.



But at the same time especially regarding dance music I like to stay in contemporary sense and at least try to add something new and not be too nostalgic.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness as things become more professionalised and how do you still draw surprises from equipment you may be very familiar with?

For me it’s all still very playful and about discovery & world building. I’m still learning and shaping my craft and finding the right ways to express what I want through my music. Kind of like learning a language. By adding more to your vocabulary, the more expressive and creative you can get.

Like I love learning new techniques, ways to achieve a certain sound and overall curiosity. This state of staying playful with sound design is very important for me and I try to always get things that just “happen” if that makes sense.

For your own creativity, what is the balance and relative importance between what you learned from teachers, tutorials and other producers on the one hand – and what you discovered, understood, and achieved yourself? What are examples for both of these?

In a way in think, I kind of only realized of late the importance of widening your set of tools, workflow and overall way of thinking about sound trough collaborating with others.

For a long time I was just making sounds by myself but I kind of learned how exchange is super vital, sending tracks to your friends, producing with others and sharing techniques. You can really learn anything from tutorials right now which can also be overbearing at times and stand in the way of your own distinction. Everyone needs to go through their own experience with it though.

I always enjoy doing studio sessions with Lino, ½ from Atrice. They are one of my favourite producers right now. During every session I learn something new, like the ways he uses plugins not like they are intended to be used and just messes with them till he squeezes something totally unexpected out of them.



Also working with my closest friends and labelmates Mafou and Mukuna is always super inspiring. The way they always find the grooviest percussion patterns. Its always the test of tunes to see their reaction: if their heads bop, the rhythm is right haha.

How and for what reasons has your music set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear and software for you?

So I mostly use Ableton and a lot of plug-ins and samples I gathered over the years. Also a lot of samples I make myself during specific “sound design  sessions”, where I focus on creating sounds rather than writing music. Sometimes I also use samples generated from gear I borrowed from friends, like my friend Jules gave me his Lyra 8 for some months.

I also have and use a Dave Smith TEMPEST Drum Synthesizer, which was the base for the track “Thrid Pillar” of my upcoming EP on Somatic Rituals. I really like the weird drumsounds it can generate and to play around with a lot of modulation options. Also a Moog Dfam and a Moog mother.

[Read our feature on the Moog Dfam]
[Read our feature on the Moog Modular]

My friend Agonis from Amenthia gave me his old modular case, so now I’m gathering modules to dive into that world. I never want to go fully into gear but I think it can be super refreshing to start from certain sounds “outside of the box” and then continue your world building in in your DAW.

I use a lot of processing in the box where I sometimes stack effects on top of each other and see what happens haha. During the time I produced my upcoming EP I was drawn to more metallic dissonant sounds so a lot of OTT, spectral resonator and FFT style plug-Ins.

Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that and the relevance of limitations in your set-up and process?

YES of course SOPHIE is 100% right. I think the endless possibilities of electronic music are what made me fall in love with it the first place and the cathartic release making it can bring.

There is also another side to it because dance music has certain rules. So sometimes it can be also confusing to have all these possibilities at hand but still to have to put things in order while finishing tracks.

My limit comes in that I usually have a certain rhythmical pattern and feel I want to incorporate mixing that with an everchanging palette of reduced and not too suggestive sounds. That gives me a certain structure I want to move in.

In relation to sound, one often reads words like “material”, “sculpting”, and “design”. How does your own way of working with sound look like? Do you find using presets lazy?

As I mentioned above, I dove deeper into designing sounds. But at the same time I want to add that a track is nothing without the right energy or soul as I want to call it. In that sense I will put that over the importance of sound design.

It’s important to me to have a distinct characteristic in sound. Which to some point also happens automatically since our ears are unique and the choices each one takes regarding to writing music are as well.

For example, we could all use the same tools to make music but the individuality of taste and will make it sound different. Track and feeling always should stand above sound design. So, if a preset fits, I don’t find it lazy because in the end context matters.

To some, the advent of AI and 'intelligent' composing tools offers potential for machines to contribute to the creative process. What are your hopes, fears, expectations, and possible concrete plans in this regard?

There is no fear at all rather than welcoming these new tools than can be used. Like if you take vocals for instance. LALA.AI is a super cool AI based Vocal Remover & Instrumental AI Splitter. I always use vocals as an additional rhythmical or spherical element. I then process little snippets through various granular synthesis-based effects.

New AI tools can only forward creativity. Our world is dominated by more and more technology. So it’s also the artists' response in reaction to this change.

Techno and dance music was always supposed to sound futuristic. Taking these new tools further like the breathtaking new Lee Gamble LP Models.



On it, he fed synthetic voices through neural networks to dissemble and recreate inhuman, highly emotional, and beautiful pieces.