Image credit: Connor Heanue
Named by Radio 1 Pete Tong as one of 2021’s ‘Future Stars’ and one of Billboard Dance ‘Emerging Artists’ to watch, the electronic duo TIBASKO has a bright future ahead of them in music production. Their latest offering ‘The One/ Let Me Tell You’ via Another Rhythm / Three Six Zero Recordings showcases the duo’s affinity for electronica on the song ‘Let Me Tell You’. The duo consists of Andy Bowden and Ken Petalcorin, who are both well-travelled and incorporate inspiration from these experiences into their sound.
We chatted with rising duo TIBASKO and get to learn more about them as a team.
Tell us about your earliest musical memory?
Kanye West’s debut studio album College Dropout was all I was listening to on a family holiday to America when I was just 9. The tracks on that including ‘Spaceships’, ‘All Falls Down’ and ‘Jesus Walks’ would introduce me to a realm of music and sampling that I’d never thought of before. I didn’t truly appreciate the genius that is Kanye West until I was much older, but listening back gives me fond memories of my dad blasting that album in the car.
At what point in your life did you have that moment where you said to yourself “This is it. This is the type of music I want to create?”
Seeing Justice play at the Reading festival in 2012 solidified that I’d want to be a part of the dance music space in one way or another. It sparked a fascination with sounds, synths and melodies that I’d never appreciated before. Fast-forwarding to today and we take inspiration from the likes of Jon Hopkins, Bicep and Rival Consoles, creating beautiful and emotional dance music whilst maintaining a heavy driving beat is something we strive for in our music.
Please list some of the most influential albums on your creative outlook and output:
Tyler The Creator – Flowerboy
BICEP – BICEP
Rival Consoles – Persona
Chemical Brothers – Push The Button
Maribou State – Portraits
Nero – Welcome Reality
What key pieces of gear/software are you using to define your sound?
We’ve recently picked up a Behringer Odyssey that gives such an amazingly rich bass sound, we’re using it for a lot of our newer tracks, a staple for us as well as the Novation Peak as well as the Roland TR-8S for on the fly drums and samples.
What inspires you outside of music? What do you turn to when the creative well runs a little low?
I think inspiration can strike in all forms, art, design, culture. We like to travel quite a lot and have been all over the world individually, drawing upon cultures and lifestyles from across the globe and introducing that into our music.
I get a lot of inspiration in fashion and design.
What is your opinion on the ever spreading sub-genre vine? Are there too many? Do you think there’ s perhaps a sub-genre that doesn’t get the attention it deserves?
Genres are very misleading and ambiguous, good music is good music and I feel pigeon-holing tracks into certain preconceived genres is alien to me. Dark disco is something that I stumbled upon in Vietnam that needs more attention, amazing sounds.
Studio work and music creation or performing and interacting with a live audience, what do you prefer?
Normally I would say music creation, but given the fact that we’ve been locked up for so long, I’ll need to say performing. We’ve been craving a proper crowd for so long now!
As a music artist, it becomes apparent that there is a huge difference between the art and the business. Is there anything about the music scene that you would personally change?
100% that we should be giving equal opportunities to everyone wanting to get involved in music, it’s so easy to produce electronic music these days and everyone should have a chance to learn and be involved if that’s what they want to do.
Any new or upcoming artists on your radar? Who shouldn’t the world sleep on?
DELIRYA… amazing euphoric breaks and huge tracks from start to finish.
What can we expect from you in the near future? Any upcoming projects or gigs in the pipeline that you would like to tell us about?
We have a busy summer ahead of us including some international gigs. Closer to now we have Into The Woods festival and Detonate, as well as club nights for Good Life UK supporting heavy hitters like DJ Boring, Laurence Guy and O’Flynn.
One last thought to leave your fans with?
Stay saucy and keep supporting, we love you all x.
Follow TIBASKO:
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / TikTok
