The Glitch Mob

Releasing one of the year’s premier electronic-music albums, pursuing an epic tour schedule spanning Coachella to Lollapalooza to Ultra – apparently all that wasn’t enough for The Glitch Mob. If anything, it’s just proven to be the beginning… The Los Angeles-based trio comprising Justin Boreta, Ed Ma, and Joshua Mayer continues their movement into 2011, gearing up to commence on June 23rd one of the group’s most involved tours ever, as well as release some of their most innovative new music yet. It’s all a triumphant extension of the excitement that followed upon last year’s release of Drink The Sea, the Mob’s debut artist album, which rose to unexpected heights amidst already heightened expectations, with fans following as the band pushed into uncharted boundaries, yet still emerging victorious.

Put out via The Glitch Mob’s own Glass Air imprint, Drink The Sea represented the group’s growth up from the underground into a full widescreen vision. From the cosmic cover art by Sonny Kay (famed for his haunting imagery for Mars Volta) to the cathartic, psychedelic, unclassifiable grooves it holds inside, Drink The Sea would launch a whole new phase in the group’s evolution upon its 2010 worldwide release. The album’s first single, “Drive It Like You Stole It,” sped to the top of the most popular songs on Hype Machine's charts, clearing the road for a number of successes to follow. Drink The Sea would land at #15 in its first week on the Billboard Dance Chart, while the Mob became the #1 most added on CMJ’s “RPM” charts, debuting in the top ten. Drink The Sea would also rise into iTunes’ top Electronic Album charts, hitting #1 numerous times throughout the year, and still maintaining its position within the top 20 today, cementing it as one of the year’s best-selling independent electronic albums. That success allowed The Glitch Mob to perform headlining tours built around major international festival appearances that, in addition to Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Ultra, spanned Sasquatch, Camp Bisco, Electric Daisy Carnival, Electric Zoo and Nocturnal Wonderland as well as Wireless Festival in the U.K. and Parklife in Australia. “After writing Drink The Sea, we spent a lot of time touring – two national tours, Europe, and Australia,” Boreta says. “While on the road, we were bursting with inspiration and ideas for the next phase in the evolution of our sound.”

This was the year where The Glitch Mob learned the expanse and commitment of its community like never before when the band initiated a wide-ranging charity project via Drink The Sea’s ambitious remix project to benefit post-earthquake Haiti. Over two volumes, landmark artists such as King Britt, DJ Vadim, Eprom, Salva, ESKMO, and Kastle, among others, remixed Drink The Sea’s original material into 24 tracks to sell through Download To Donate and Causecast, ingenious charities started by Linkin Park to bring funds via music to aid tragedies around the globe. “That was a milestone for us – our first foray into getting our music involved with a cause we believe in,” Boreta said. “We realized there's no better time than the present to use the power of music to create awareness.”

The Glitch Mob supplemented this activity with a series of staggering remixes for other artists, including an official remix commissioned for Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy Reconfigured project, joining the likes of Moby, M83, Boys Noize, Com Truise, Photek, and Pretty Lights. Other recent official Glitch Mob remixes included those for TV on the Radio, Linkin Park, and Ed Banger’s Krazy Baldhead; those tracks, along with original material from Drink The Sea, found themselves in key placements for television shows (“CSI,” “Damages,” “America’s Got Talent”), film (Captain America, Tim Burton’s “9”), and commercials for GoPro and Fiat, among others, injecting Glitch Mob’s subversive presence into mainstream pop culture. As such, The Glitch Mob similarly tweaked expectations in mixtape mode with the follow-up to their beloved 2009 Crush Mode (“Grab the Crush Mode mixtape. One of the first things to really get my blood going,” raved New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones). For 2010, the Mob collaborated with clothing line Mishka to present Drink The Sea Part II, which featured familiar acapella raps and vocal samples from the likes of Jay-Z, Nas, Lil Wayne, Drake, Dr. Dre, Mobb Deep, Fabolous, Young Jeezy, La Roux, M.I.A. and Daft Punk tailored to Glitch Mob beats. “We explored a lot of new techniques musically and technically,” Boreta says of the post-Drink The Sea projects. “They also effectively served as a creative exercise in envisioning where the next album will go.”

After all this banner activity, The Glitch Mob is gearing up yet again. This summer finds them preparing to release some of its most groundbreaking new music and commence yet another tour that, in its multimedia production and sonic gambits, takes everything that the band has done onstage to new levels. On July 5th Glitch Mob will release a double-sided single – a salvo for the group’s upcoming full-length in 2012 that features moody synths, vocoder funk, and heraldic melody and body-moving percussion, all imbued with fractured longing and melancholy amidst the slamming rhythms. “We took what we learned from Drink The Sea and ran in a new direction that felt right to us,” Boreta explains. “Over those two tracks, we wanted to explore two very different feelings while keeping them in the same world – creating songs that are immersive in a live environment, but really make a great headphone listen, too.” Even before that, Glitch Mob begins a summer tour on June 23rd that finds it both finding communion with its strongest following while exploring untapped zones to build in even newer, fresher audiences. “We love performing,” Boreta notes. “We were so inspired from spending so much time on stage last year that this will be our first attempt to materialize everything we learned.” America and beyond: you have been warned….

The Glitch Mob and FabFilter

We have always been a fan of Fabfilter. Our favorite plugin is the Fabfilter Pro-C. This has been our "go to" compressor for sidechain compression. Due to extremely fast attack and release times, the Pro-C can create extreme pumping sounds to more traditional rhythmically timed pumping sounds. Although we are big fans of vintage emulated compressors, the Pro-C is our staple modern day compressor. It's extremely versatile. Great for everything from extreme sidechain compression to controlling peaks to bus compression. We use the Pro-C on practically every song we write.

Links

www.theglitchmob.com

www.facebook.com/theglitchmobmusic

www.twitter.com/theglitchmob

Professional compressor plug-in with versatile side chain and routing options, high-quality sound and an innovative interface.

→ Read more about FabFilter Pro-C 3

Other featured artists

Thomas Warren is an accomplished mixer, engineer, and producer hailing from London and currently based in Los Angeles. With an engineering degree from The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences, Thomas embarked on his career at Westlake Studios in LA, where he had the privilege of c...
→ Read more

Miles Walker is a Grammy-winning mix engineer that has worked on records with multi-platinum artists and producers worldwide. He has studied music at North Carolina School of the Arts for High School before following his passion for recording music at the world renown Berklee College of...
→ Read more

John Hill, originally from Houston, Texas, is an LA-based producer and writer who first gained prominence by producing and co-writing Santigold’s debut album.His forward thinking, outside the box productions have led him to collaborate with a diverse array of artists, from MIA to Rih...
→ Read more

Gethin Pearson started out as a teenage music fan and working in a record shop. Gethin has always been obsessed with how songs make him feel and how records are made. Whilst pursuing individual and band based projects, Gethin began exploring creative ways to record in a converted coal she...
→ Read more

Robbie Nelson is a Grammy and MPG award winning engineer/mixer. Notable work includes Beck (three Grammy's including best album), Birdy, Rumer, Amy Macdonald, Rae Morris, Sarah Brightman and Jarvis Cocker. After starting his career under legendary producer Mike Hedges at the equall...
→ Read more

Tom Elmhirst is a multi Grammy Award-winning mix engineer. Elmhirst’s experiences at SARM studios and with Trevor Horn have clearly influenced his current workflow. Toms most notable recent works include artists such as Amy Winehouse, Adele, David Bowie, Beck, Frank Ocean, Florence and...
→ Read more

David Catching / Rancho de la Luna David Catching is the owner and operator of Rancho de la Luna Recording Studio in Joshua Tree, California since 1993.David recorded and toured extensively with Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, earthlings? , Mark Lanegan , Mondo Generator, Mast...
→ Read more

Erik 'Blu2th' Griggs Erik "Blu2th" Griggs has worked with many artists, from playing bass and keys for Aretha Franklin to singing with Take 6, to producing and writing with Babyface and Dr Dre. His discography includes No Air (Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown), The Dreamgirls soundtrac...
→ Read more

Jamie Lidell has been releasing music लगातार since his first techno 12-inch record in 1995. His discography includes seven LPs—two as one half of the cyber-soul duo Super_Collider and five solo albums on Warp Records—alongside numerous features, including a recent collabo...
→ Read more

The Glitch Mob and FabFilter

Links

Other featured artists

Artist overview