It can be a little offputting, the thought of your cuddly domestic companion coming at you with the incentive to rip your skull apart.
But issues with your jealous stalker partner aside: let’s allow a certain duo on Eatbrain introduce themselves as the worldwide digital release (next Monday) of their Must Eat ep looms…
WE ARE ZOMBIE CATS FROM PLANET EATBRAIN.
How long you been active, ZC?
We have been releasing D&B individually and together for many years on many labels. Our first collaboration was on DSCI4 recordings in 2007, since then we have had many releases, but we just didn’t give them the level of thought and attention that the ZC tunes get.
We are Rouven and Ross.
We approach our music with ZC from a whole different level than previous releases.
So many tags and genres are bandied around like ‘neuro’ and all that but to me this is Must Eat ep is simply Slamming D&B. How do you approach what you do, what do you want to put out there?
Ross: We want to keep it deep, dark, textured and moving… but at the same time simple and heavy. Other factors are things like it has to be good to mix and it has to be very clean. I think it could definately be labeled as neuro, especially as this new era of listeners will re-define what neuro means to them. But we just write to a vibe that’s in our heads regardless of what hole its going to be put in.
Slamming D&B works fine for me.
Rouven: We have a vision. We know exactly how ZC has to sound like and we follow this path. Slamming D&B is a good catchphrase.
If it’s not catchy enough, Zombies won’t dance.
Names like Mefjus are on the collab front in the Must Eat: can you tell us about the collab thing and why is it good for producing?
Ross: Riffs/songs/ideas can gain momentum from a number of starting points. When you are in the room with someone that writes with a vibe as well as technical prowess ideas can come out of nowhere, in some ways doubling the creativity. In the case with Mefjus he was friends with Rouven. They used to live in the same city for years and there was always the idea to write a track together.
Rouven: When Martin was on Australia tour he and Ross played at the same gig in Perth and they jumped in the ZC studio. They spent hours making the most ridiculous mid range noises that were almost unusable… they sorted through them and found about five or six that could be really cool in a 172 environment.
Ross: In that case having someone else in the studio when a stupidly huge sound happened, really helped the process… when both of you yell “oooohh shit! what was that?” then you know that sounds a keeper. We send the parts to Rouven and he made the drums and the mixdown.
And Logam?
Rouven: He’s another great person we collated with on the Must Eat ep. Even just talking to the guy online you get a real no-ego cruisy vibe from him and he knows his stuff, and has his own unique sound. A pleasure to work with.
And did this mean that the ep took shape over time as the collabs ‘blossomed’? Or was it planned out in advance?
Rouven: It was fairly planned out in advance, having known the guys before we collabed; our goal was to write an ep, that can stand the test of time. It still has to sound fresh in years to come. Jade and amongst ourselves tried to execute this EP in the best possible way.
My fave tune is ‘Vintage’, it’s so ugly: can you talk us through?
Ross: In the beginning Rouven started an idea consists of drums and a basic flow. I added the midrange (lots of Fm8’s) to make the drop and some sub, some extra percussion, and fx. I sent it back to Rouven and it went around a couple of times between all of us just getting little bits added and fixed up.
Logam wrote an deep atmospheric intro.
Rouven: ‘Vintage’ was the second tune we wrote as Zombie Cats and the reason why we got Jade`s attention. I send the tune to Mefjus and he said: this is eatbrain material. He was right and the idea of doing an EP on eatbrain was born.
The vibe on ‘Moments of Truth’… could you talk us through this too?
Rouven: One night I was watching Sin City and Psycho from Alfred Hitchcock. Both movies inspired me to write a track, which catches the tension of these stories. The whole track is an dedication to hitchcock´s ‘suspense’ concept. You will never know what happens next but you can be sure: something evil is coming!
The original ‘Moments of Truth’ is an eight minute journey into sound. We re-arranged it together and finished a 4.30 version, which focused on the D&B parts.
To the Kryptomedic: LOVE this style of his.
Ross: His voice is cool and has a great flow: he really added something unique to that track.
He’s originally from the US and now living in Manhiem, Germany. Unique style and flow, really works hard in the scene and lives it every day. I met him when I was playing a Trust in Music (RIP) night in Berlin, and the next year we started to collab. Big ups Mike!
In the UK I think of Friction when I hear your style, as in: DJs who love and rep this sound, so who else does?
Ross: That’s really cool thanks… Friction is a beast! We are pretty new name so we are still finding out who is playing our tracks, always nice to see a big name playing your track on bbc1 and other big station. We get a lot of support from the Eatbrain camp, and our close friends/producers.
And what channels could we hear it?
Rouven: Neurofunkgrid and UKF on Youtube have helped us a lot. We just did a three deck live mix for the latest Eatbrain podcast which is a fairly good representation of how we play live. You can check that on the eat brain recordings soundcloud. Friction played ‘Must Eat’ on his show a couple of weeks back.. we were stoked.
And what do YOU check for D&B, to keep in touch?
Mefjus, Inside Info, Jade, Billain, Qo, Disphonia, Concept Vision to name a small few. We’re still in love with older D&B Like Sinthetix/ Corrupt Souls, Konflict, BSE, Audio Blueprint/Underfire recordings… all of that to us will always inspire new tunes.
Can you tell us what the D&B scene is like where you all respectively live?
Ross: In Perth it’s pretty huge; last gig I played there was with Inside info and Emperor and it was nuts.
Slowly the harder stuff is becoming more popular, but straight down the line D&B is very healthy here.
Rouven: I used to live in Austria and I still feel connected to their scene. D&B is pretty big there and as you know a lot of great artists based in Linz or Vienna like Mefjus or Fourward. In Germany there’s a lot of promoters for instance from Berlin, Cologne or Ulm which are keeping the vibe alive.
Who did the wicked cover art?
Cover art was by the Eatbrain crew. Laszlo Tringli and coloured by Art Gutierrez. Jade helped come up with our original ZC logo.
What pet food do you buy Zombie Cats?
BRAINZ!!!!
