There’s so much more to say about the album, which is why I decided to sit down with Joe and talk to him about the creative process of the album, the influences behind it and what’s next for the duo.

Martin: First of all, straight off the bat, Archetype, the new album you’re releasing with Maxwell Owin on the 9th of June is fucking insane, incredible! I wanted to start just by going back to 2017 and around the time you were working on Idiom EP. How did it all start with Max, how you met and the creative conversations you were having initially when you decided to start making music together?

Joe: First of all, thanks a lot for the compliments on the album and all, really appreciate it. We made music before Idiom. I definitely put a couple of keys here and there on a few of the things he was making. Not sure if he put them out in the end. I didn’t contribute to his debut release Fruits and Flowers, which was massive, debut project and that, but watched him make it. But yeah, we must have met around 2016, 2015? I met him when I was at college through some other people who were recording, and he was engineering for them. And then he lived in the same house as my previous girlfriend at the time, so was around a lot, and a lot of my friends were around in that house. It was on a road called Tanner’s Hill, which is what “Tanner’s Tango” is named after, and yeah we spent a lot of time together in that house I guess. When he moved house eventually, I didn’t have a space to stay at the time, so I was staying with Max for a while and Rago Foot for a while. Both of those two are very inspiring to be around, they’re constantly working on creative stuff. They don’t even sleep sometimes, they keep working! I would have to go to sleep and wake up and they’ll still be working on the same thing. But the nice thing about keys is that you can sort of do your thing and chill, and also listen to people chopping up when you’ve done. I wasn’t sown into the production back then, I was mainly just playing keys on other people’s stuff. Max was kind of my introduction to Ableton and logic in a way and encouraged me to do that stuff.

“I see Archetype and Idiom as the dark and the light kind of thing in terms of the two of them. Archetype feels like when I was riding my bike at night, it really suits that, being in London at night that it really captures that, whereas Idiom is more suited to this environment we’re in right now, a bright sunny day”

So did you produce at all before?

Not before Idiom, no. I didn’t know how to use Ableton and Logic properly, I didn’t know anything about D-A-W’s or mixing or production and sound design and stuff. I was learning from Max, basically. So when I was making Starting Today (2018), I was very influenced by watching Max work on Idiom and the sound design he was doing was really inspiring. All the extra noise, really. Not the drums, the bass, the keys or the vocals, but the things around it. A lot of that stuff is all Max on Archetype and Idiom. I tried to pull some of those kind of vibes for my own stuff, and got Max to contribute to Starting Today too.

So when you started working together, did you discuss working on an actual project together, or was it just like “I’ll contribute to your stuff, you contribute to mine”?

At the time, I just got Max to do a take of some SPD madness over what I was working on at the time. At that time we were living in a house together so at that time we just started adding a lot to each other’s music. You know, Max made a lot of music in those years that he didn’t release. Probably hundreds of tunes that never got released, Rago Foot as well to be honest. So I was kinda caught in a… don’t know how to describe it… It was beautiful and painful watching talented people have all this music. But the two of them were never really bothered about putting it out, they just enjoyed making it. It’s a very beautiful thing to be around, definitely inspiring, yeah.

It definitely sounds like it. How did you approach making Idiom initially with Max?

Max will probably tell you himself, but it was the case of me wanting to release something, what we’ve been working on basically, and we were living in this house together and had this music together. Max was working at a record shop at the time, YAM Records in Peckham, and they were doing some releases, and Max was like “well maybe if we did release it, we could release it with these guys, they seem nice. They don’t seem like a label, label”. They’re both DJ’s, Tom and Theo, bless them, really sweet guys. They liked the music and wanted to put it out, so we did. And it was sick, really liked working with them.

Me and Max, we agree on a lot of stuff musically, but our attitudes towards releasing stuff is different. I feel less complete until something is released and out of my hard drive and safe in the world and other people’s hands. But Max in some ways is on the opposite end, but to his credit, really. He’s just more focused on the musical side of things. Like, right now I imagine he’s working on his next project. A lot of artists nowadays, myself included, get too bogged down in the backend of the release, which is like promotion and what people annoyingly call content and stuff like that. It fucks with Max more than it fucks with me, but it fucks with all of us, but we just deal with it in our own ways. But we’ve had a lot of conversations about that, very interesting discussions about what it means to release something and your intention behind the release and why are you releasing it. Are you making it to release it or are you making it just to make it? I don’t think there’s a definitive answer, it’s different for everyone. But it’s interesting to go throuogh that with him and explore how he feels about that stuff.

“As far as place itself, Max is kind of sound travelling. So he’s using the internet, as well as his travels obviously, to source sounds from all around the world”

Do you feel stress or pressure with that final part of the process? Or once it’s released, do you feel a weight lifted off your shoulder?

I kinda just throw everything at it when I’m doing releases and try and approach it in the same way I would the music. Everything should go into the music and when the music is done, you try and put everything into the promo, but it’s a lot less rewarding in my eyes to like, when you’re putting your all into that side of things it doesn’t give you much back to the musicy thing, because I’m easily drawn into social media, for example, so I try and promote my stuff but then I get dragged into the other madness that’s on there (laughs). So it’s become a lot more in and out, it’s how I try and do it. But it’s good man, I’ve been enjoying bike rides I was telling you about, that was nice. It was nice to get out of that social media thing and just cycle around and meet some people and play them the music face to face, see their reaction, you know, to the video and stuff, it was cool!

Definitely hear you on social media’s impact on one’s mental health. It’s good to stay away from that for sure. I wanted to bring it back to the album itself. My understanding is that a lot of the production off Archetype came during the Idiom sessions. Is that accurate?

I would say right after really, it’s not like there was any crossover between tunes that were on Idiom and tunes that were on Archetype. With Idiom, it was just Idiom, really, no flack, no extra tracks, just those that appeared on the project. When we released it, we just started making music again, just to make music, really. We went through a period where we made quite a lot of funky, dance music, more like the final track on Archetype. We were making a lot of music like that, house music, adrenaline for a while. And Max, as he’s kind of prone to do, just started checking out all these different genres. He was really into drill at one point, then into footwork, baile funk. He got into that near the end of the recording process. He’s naturally listening to music a lot and it makes it way into the music, so the album went through a couple of updates, if you will. Max would be like “I’ve learned this new way of approaching drums, so I want to add that to this or maybe try this here”, and it was that kinda process really, but it took a while before we were like “rah, this could be an album”, you know. But there were quite a lot of tracks, you know.

Yeah, because listening to the album for the first time, what struck me instantly was how club-centric it sounds, I suppose? It’s a lot more dynamic, whereas Idiom to me, sounds a lot jazzier and soulful. Whereas Archetype again, has a more tribal energy to it.

Yeah, I think it’s a lot darker, in terms of the sound.

Was that intentional?

Yeah, I think it just comes to how we move by feeling when making the music. And it was kinda as a response to Idiom, really. Like we’re not trying to do the same sound, basically do the opposite kind of sound. I see Archetype and Idiom as the dark and the light kind of thing in terms of the two of them. Archetype feels like when I was riding my bike at night, it really suits that, being in London at night that it really captures that, whereas Idiom is more suited to this environment we’re in right now, a bright sunny day. And they both have their place, you know what I mean? Because there are tracks in there that try and balance the sound out, you know.

Yeah, like “Don’t Tip Me Over” with Fatima or “Grief” with Lex Amor…

But “Grief” is quite somber in terms of what Max was making that beat about, his gran died at the time he was making that beat, so yeah, he was very cut off from that, spending time on his own, making the music, and he just made that beat, really. When I played piano over it, it kinda lightened the mood of it, making it less somber, but then Lex cuts it perfectly, really with her delivery, really. It’s hopeful and uplifting, when you listen to the melody and the lyrics. I don’t know anyone else that does it like her, and sounds like her.

Yeah, she has this ability to turn something heavy into something lighter and more optimistic, so yeah. And “Grief” was a definite standout for me as well. I wanted to ask about the time period between 2017 and now, more specifically COVID and lockdown. Did that influence the direction and the sound of the album at all?

To be honest, most of the tracks were finished and were there before lockdown. That period of time was kind of an opportunity to finish the tracks. I actually don’t know if the album would have happened if it wasn’t for lockdown, to be honest. Both of us were so busy previously working on other projects and busy touring and all, which also meant we didn’t get to see each other as much even though we lived together. We managed to lock in quite a lot of time in the studio, and it felt like there was a sense of purpose doing it. I was just enjoying the process, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to just make music, guilt-free, and just enjoy time off, which is pretty rare for a freelance person. Most of them don’t allow themselves guilt-free time off, so lockdown enabled that, which is weird. But it stopped, you know, after a while. I felt like I needed to get back to gigging again, but it seems like everyone benefitted from not having to constantly work during this period of time.

I know you said that the majority of tracks were done prior to lockdown, but was there anything that made you change musically on the album?

Yeah, the very end of the album, which is kind of how it starts, was bookended by Max’s signature sound and atmosphere. Initially, the final track ended with the bass player doing this harmonics thing, and we made an extra House thing out of that at the end. That was going to be the outro, but pretty late into the process, Max, and it’s something that he contributed to the project a lot, he shaped the sound and journey of the album by having a clear vision of what he wanted it to sound like. There were moments like that where I would attach myself o something because I like it as a thing of its own, but Max said that it doesn’t feel like the ending of Archetype. He tore it apart, basically and made this beautiful ambient thing, and I’m really happy it’s what happened. But maybe we’ll release the other thing as an edit, who knows?

The closer “Adrenaline / Oxygen” does sound like it has elements from Idiom in there…

There’ll definitely be samples in there, like weird little ambient effects. Max has a collection of stuff he uses a lot, and will change things around as well. I feel like a lot of the DNA of Idiom is in Archetype, just because of how Max makes music and what he pulls from, like an atmospheric sound at the beginning of a tune. There’s really a certain thing that he’ll go for, so both projects share a lot of similarities, definitely.

“A lot of artists nowadays, myself included, get too bogged down in the backend of the release, which is like promotion and what people annoyingly call content and stuff like that. It fucks with Max more than it fucks with me, but it fucks with all of us, but we just deal with it in our own ways.”

And apart from the slight differences in terms of how to end the album, were there any other major challenges or disagreements along the way, or were you aligned for the most part?

Yeah, I mean with any kind of collaboration, you’re bound to get some differences in opinion, but something I learnt throughout the process that I didn’t really give much credit for at the start, that we clocked together was that Max is very used to working on his own, for the most part. He does the programming on his own, as a lot of producers do, and I’m working in bands a lot of the time, so I’m used to being in a studio with five people and all of us chipping into how something should sound, you know. So there was a period of time where, he’ll be working on drums or something, and doing programming, or just chopping up a vocal. He’d do something that I liked, but he wouldn’t be finished with the process of what he was doing, but I would be like “nah, that’s sick, keep that!” But when he started changing what he had because he hadn’t finished the process, and it can occasionally be a bit disruptive when you’re trying to zone in and work on stuff you get attached to. And so I realised, especially at near the end of the process, that there are times where you just have to leave him do his thing, and then discuss what we like about it. But that’s probably the thing that we most, I think he would have found the most challenging. And for me, the most challenging was just being able to sit back and chill and not interrupt that process. But we both agree on so much stuff, that I’m just talking about very minor things, some of it you wouldn’t even notice when listening to the music. Max enjoys the process of making and creating the beats a lot more than finishing it, mixing, and getting them ready for the release. I get a certain satisfaction out of the last part of the process, so it works well. We’ve clocked what we both like and want to get involved in, you know?

Definitely hear you on that. Just based on what you’ve said about his process making music, do you often have sessions together?

Yeah, most of the time, actually. Max will tinker with stuff on his own, but because we live together, the whole album was created together. 

Got it! How does space and place influence the sound that you make, in the context of London?

Max and I are actually from the same part of the country, which is around Oxfordshire. We moved to London to pursue music. But what was the question? How does space influence art?

Yeah, because listening to tracks like Lost in the Function, for instance, or Rago’s Garage with Shabaka Hutchings, two of my favourite tracks on the album by the way…

I’m glad to hear you say that, the same with me pretty much. I was like, I fucking love this, like this is my ballpark, you know, Shabaka going in on some crazy weird language, man. The type of stuff that’s difficult to transcribe. I dunno, angular is probably the word to describe it and not the usual thing that I’m used to hearing him do either in terms of when I hear him play with Sons of Kemet with the clarinet, it’s a totally different sound. And maybe for a lot of people, this will sound mad, like it’s proper dance music. And then this intense solo went off. I love it, man, it’s one of my favourite tracks for sure.

The DNA of it sounds very South London. Musically, are you influenced at all by your surroundings, landscapes, what you see on a daily basis?

Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing that I feel like I probably wouldn’t have come across in the same way if I didn’t live in London would be dub and soundsystem culture. So that’s influence on everything that came after it, in terms of dance music, not only for me, but in general, and that inspired our music as well. Also, a lot of legends live and come from London. Jah Shaka used to live down the road from me and died recently, may he rest in peace. People like that and their influence definitely makes their way onto the album. I would go to Shaka all the time. Tracks like “Pedal Bike” and “Ikigai” with Mala – tunes like that definitely have their kind of blueprint on it. And then Max is a DJ as well, so he’s tuned into quite a lot of. the ever-changing thing that is dance culture, and what influences are coming from it mainly from Africa. To be honest, but from other parts of the world as well. So working with him on this project, I just ended up listening to music I would have never listened to before. I definitely learned loads about all kinds of dance music. Max got obsessed with it. Drill as well. I like some of the beats and the emcees but it didn’t speak to me in the same way as hip-hop did from America, or dub at the time. But he showed me all that stuff and I was like “yeah, I understand the beauty of it.” But it’s what people need, a match that opens up new genres to you, you know? Because he’s a very open-minded person. Just because something doesn’t sound difficult to make in terms of complexity, even though what he does in terms of layering is very complex, he really shows you how incredibly hard it is to make and catch that sound and stuff. That’s definitely what I got out of the process a lot.

But as far as place itself, Max is kind of sound travelling. So he’s using the internet, as well as his travels obviously, to source sounds from all around the world. He played a lot of the duke on the album, a Middle Eastern instrument that a lot of people know the sound of because it gets used to death in American films when they wanna show a Middle Eastern scenario, and they use that instrument to symbolize that, but it is a very, very beautiful instrument. Max bought it, learned how to use it, took some online lessons I think, and started bringing it into the album. So everything Max and myself are experiencing at. the time is sort of going onto the album in some way because it was made over such a long period of time. We change so much as people in six years, going from 24 to 30, like you and life changes a lot, and it’s interesting. It’s like a long diary entry at the time for me and Max, you know.

Very interesting to hear you say all that! As far as influences on the album, would you say it was mostly what Max showed you during this time, and your growth as a keyboard player over the years?

Yeah, definitely. With Max and Rago Foot I was just getting a lot of practice, I guess. Just playing in sessions with producers. I spent years just making beats with them, not necessarily full sessions but just hangs, you know. But beats are being made, the keyboard is there, making music in a non-pressured environment. It was really good for me, in terms of getting to grips with my thought process behind playing. I feel so comfortable in these environments to play compared to sometimes when I’m on stage, when you’re a lot more nervous and anxious, a lot less in control of yourself. It’s like chatting with your best mate instead of a job interview or something. It’s way less overthinking your actions or thoughts when you’re in that kind of setting. You start to realise that it’s inside you, the way that you feel, not really to do with the surroundings, but when you’re in front of other people and stuff, sometimes there’s a different mindset that goes with it. So I try and combine the two and get a sort of middle ground where everything is just relaxed and peaceful, though it did take some time to learn.

That’s a really interesting perspective on things. I wanted to touch on the features, because they obviously add a lot of character to the album as a whole. How did they come about? Did you have specific artists in mind for these tracks?

I wouldn’t say the O the ghost features were the most natural, but he’s a good friend of ours and makes music all the time with Max, they have albums and albums together. For some of the vocal stuff we wanted, he was just hanging around and would just be singing something, and we’d say “oh that sounds beautiful” and lay it down on the track. Lex is also a really good friend of ours and at the same Max was working on a tune of hers off her debut album Government Tropicana, and while Max was working on “Grief” he was like, “why don’t we just shout Lex about this beat, maybe she’ll do some vocals for this”, and she did it and absolutely smashed it. The Rocks FOE one was kind of, very serendipitous really, a word I learnt from Max. I don’t know him personally, be he randomly hit me up on Twitter while we were making the beat and asked if we wanted to make music. And the tune (“4Seasons”) we were working on at the time sounded perfect for him, really. Max also said he would love the opportunity to work with Rocks FOE as well, so it was great all around. He’s also helped to shape to an extent Max’s sound throughout the years, having been involved with the dubstep heads for quite a long time. It just happened naturally, you know? Same with Mala, Max introduced me to him. I wasn’t really aware at the time of the connection to the dub stuff, but I’d definitely heard the music before I got into dub and never really made the connection. Max is the one who holds that link between dub and dubstep to his heart, a lot more than others that may not be as aware of the foundations of it. At the time we were working on Archetype, Mala and I were working on A Way Back as well. Mala sent me a whole lot of stuff, probably around the start of lockdown, and some of that stuff we ended up eventually using on “Ikigai”, you know. I mean, everyone on the album, really. Shabaka I’ve known for a very long time, and we’ve played quite a bit. But he’s just a friend man, and he’s connected to various people in my life, so again everything felt really natural and he smashed it!

“That’s the concept that started to come together in our minds. Mood wise it’s the inverse of Idiom. It’s more chaotic, basically and less of that kind of peace, though there are moments on it where you find that as well”

Everyone did! And yeah, that project with Mala was exceptional, the live show too at the start of the year.

Thanks man, it was one of my favourite gigs to do, as well, was special.

Is there a big difference between how Mala works and how Max works?

Yeah, a huge difference! Almost different sides of the spectrum when it comes down to layers. Layers, really are the big difference between the two. Mala’s stuff is very minimal a lot of the time but in an incredibly beautiful way. He can do a lot with the little, and that’s a massive skill within itself. Max also kinda does that a little bit. He gets massive pleasure in taking something as far as it can go in terms of bursting at the seams with information and things, and then beginning to strip that back and, yeah it’s just two very beautiful processes you can hear in the music. They’re sick!

Absolutely! Obviously, I mentioned that the album is incredible, but I was wondering whether there were tracks from those sessions that couldn’t make it on the album?

We did a lot of sessions for the project and had a lot of ideas and tunes that just didn’t feel like they had the energy that you were describing earlier. It just sounds a lot darker than Idiom throughout the start of the process. And I think Max, sound-wise was just getting away from House at that period of time, so just making a lot more broken-beat music.

So the intention really was to make the sound completely different, from the sound on Idiom…

More like the inverse, I would say. That’s the concept that started to come together in our minds. Mood wise it’s the inverse of Idiom. It’s more chaotic, basically and less of that kind of peace, though there are moments on it where you find that as well. Just reflecting the times we’re living in, even pre-Covid.

Lastly, I wanted to ask what’s next? I know you have your Fabric show on the 9th June…

Yeah, we’re playing at Fabric, gonna be there with a live band playing Archetype probably for the only time ever, to be honest, in terms of a live band. I don’t want to say never, never, but definitely for the near future. And yeah, we’ll be there with a lot of incredible DJ’s and good friends of ours. It’s going to be a wicked night, and yeah I’m excited! After that, I’ve got music to put out, but right now I’m not really thinking about it for the time being.

Are you thinking of performing Archetype without a band in the future?

Yeah, I mean we’re performing at Glastonbury, so we’re gonna do a DJ set there, so we’ll play some of the music, and we’re playing another one this summer as well. But Max has got albums to finish, man. So he needs to finish them, I’ve got albums to finish, so that’s what we’re going to do now I think.

Thanks for your time, mate! Again, everyone needs to listen to Archetype…

Thanks a lot for coming through and doing this! I just wanted to big up Joker as well, he did the mixing of the album, and he was a big part in the eventual sound of it. We were like, “yeah, he’s the guy to mix it” and he didn’t disappoint! Wicket person to work with.

Big up Joker!

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Pre-order to Archetype by Maxwell Owin and Joe Armon-Jones below via Bandcamp. Released via Aquarii Records, 9th June! Again, tickets to the Fabric show

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