Max Reich and Simon Marlin - aka the Shapeshifters - certainly know what makes a good record and are moving forwards in their career with enviable poise and purpose. We caught up with them to find out what we can expect from their latest studio expliots and how they have developed as artists

Let’s start with your ‘breaking news’ which is four new tracks signed to Defected…
 
Simon – Yep, we’ve been working hard in the studio and there are 4 tracks which we’re going to go with.  One is called ‘Feels like the Sun’ which is very melodic, but it’s got a bit of a trippy feel to it.
Max – Yeah it’s quite melodic and uplifting and it’s quite a ‘big room’ sounding record.  It’s certainly a peak time set record in that sense.
Simon – We just wanted to do something that would be for those real peak moments in our sets when we’re DJing. We road-tested it at Pacha in Egypt and at The Escape in Amsterdam last week  and it got a really strong reaction.
 
What we’re your objectives when you we’re making this track?
 
Simon – It just came from listening to a lot of the records we’ve been playing recently in our sets, and how they’re structured. People seem to be really into a lot of drama in the breakdowns at the moment.
Max – Yeah definitely. We completely refurbished the studio, so the it was down for some time and we bought new monitors and some new gear.  I think from that we got a bit re-inspired from all these new bits & bobs, and sonically our room now sounds a lot better than it used to. It’s really important to have a good pair of monitors in the studio and upgrading has definitely improved our overall sound.
Simon – We used to cram a lot into our records and got away with it. With the new set-up we feel we can get away with adding a lot less into our records, but the end result will still have the same impact on the dancefloor.
 
Do you feel that you’ve over-produced your records in the past?
 
Simon – (Laughing) Sometimes!
Max – Some of our previous records were produced to be a lot more radio friendly I think, and when you’re mixing radio records you can have far busier mixes.  When you’re playing on a big sound system the more things you’ve got means the harder it’s going to be to get a really clear mix, and I think that’s something that started to bother us a little. Now when we strip-down and just use a few key elements it makes it sound much cleaner.
Simon – We never set out to make radio records, I think that’s just happened by default. Our main focus was always to make club records, but they just worked on the radio and we just packed a lot into our mixes – loads of strings and brass – which we loved and still love. It just took up a lot of space in our mix, so we wanted to just strip it all back and do something which was more in-tune with what we’re playing now as DJ’s.
 
Am I right in assuming then that this is a new direction in terms of sound for the Shapeshifters?
 
Simon – I think that will naturally happen because of the studio, but our ethos of ‘the party’ will always be in our records. We can’t make records for chin-strokers and head-nodders; we’re about unashamedly putting your hands in the air, and that will always be the core of what we do. New sounds in the studio inspire you to do new things.
 
So tell us about the rest of the tracks you’ve been working on?
 
Max – We have another track which is going to be released along with the first track called ‘Dynamite Disco’…
Simon – There’s a kind of new-wave disco sound to it.
Max – It’s full of energy with quick chord progressions and it’s quite tracky, and it breaks down to this harmonic, key-changing breakdown.
Simon – I always feel that it sounds like some sort of 70’s cop show lead line, you know like Kojack! But it’s ultimately a pretty cool tracky record really.
 
And the others?
 
Simon – ‘Nocturnal’ would be the one after that, so called as it’s homage to our club night which we’ve been running for 8 years now. It’s got a really nice deep groove on it and a really unusual sounding riff. We just wanted to pay homage to the Nocturnal faithful, and when people ask us about that record we can educate them about what Nocturnal has been about for the last 8 years, which is again the ethos of ‘The Party’ and of a positive attitude. We played it the other night and it absolutely kicked off, so we’re very excited about this one.
 
With ‘Nocturnal Groove’, what is your philosophy behind the actual label?
 
Simon – The philosophy on the label is to bring new people through, and to use the success we’ve had to sign records that we like. We don’t care if anyone else likes it, as long as the two of us and Lola like it, it doesn’t matter. It’s all shades of house, whether it is tougher or whether it is completely melodic.
Max –It’s quite versatile. We’ve been releasing all sorts of artists, across all different genres in house. When we were out touring regularly we felt that ‘Nocturnal’ was suffering a little bit as we didn’t have enough time to spend on the A&R side of things and the running of the label on a day-to-day basis.
Simon – But now we’ve put everything under the Defected banner and the guys are helping us out on that side of things. It’s freed us up and has made us really excited to sign people again. We were worried that we were signing stuff up and not really working it to its full potential, but this new set-up takes that worry away from us. Now we can concentrate on finding new talent and giving them what they deserve rather than it being all about us.
 
Let’s talk about the Frankie Knuckles track and the Nocturnal Grooves album…
 
Simon – Well, with the Frankie track, we’d had this track that we’d made a while back; a song we’d written with Jena G called ‘The Ones’. The original vibe to it was meant to be a nod back to ‘the day’; that classic House sound but with a modern twist. Our relationship with Frankie is well documented; he heard it and said, “Wow, I’m really into this”, so we suggested that we do something with it together.  We felt the track was missing some of those Frankie ‘moments’ which only he seems able to do. We gave him some reference points from some of the stuff he’s done that we love, such as those inimitable string and piano sounds, and we sent him a copy of our backing track. He sent it back to us with some of his vibes on top of it and we then took it apart and reconstructed it and it’s turned out to be this beautiful classic House sounding record.  I’m really excited to have done it.
Max – It’s a bit different to what we do today, but we come from that background anyway so it was so nice to do something like that. It really reminded us of what we were doing when we first started making House music.
Simon –We’re going to do it under a pseudonym aren’t we? Like a new super-group! (laughs) There’s no name for it yet though, so answers on a postcard please..!
 
So tell us about this new album that you’ve got…
 
Simon –Martijn Ten Velden was the second release on our label –  he did an E.P called the ‘Sure-shot E.P’ made up of  ‘Revolution Sure-shot’, ‘Climax’ and ‘The Future’. We used ‘Climax’ on this CD. It did really well and he’s gone on to do really well; he’s still a very good friend and we hope to release something else with him soon. We have another good friend know as ATFC who’s going to release a track called ‘Here I Come’, which is a no-holds barred club banger! We always love working with Aydin. Mark Trophy has released something called ‘The Bug’ which is a really cool record, very different; that’s the diversity we like with the label. We’re looking to branch out even further with this guy called Pookie who’s from Serbia who we worked with for while and he’s now going to release something. He’s that kind of guy who’s just so hungry and so talented that you know eventually he’s going to make it. If we can help him to do so and give him a conduit into the world, that’ll be something that we can be proud of. Then there’s a couple of exclusives, such as our remix of ‘Empire Of The Sun’ which we’re really, really excited about.
 
Why is that? What is it about working with them on this track which is so interesting for you?
 
Simon – Two reasons I think: one is how it came about, and the second because we think it’s some of our best work. We first heard it in Vegas in November last year when Anton played it to us. He said; “These are some new guys from Australia, have you heard this?” We were in a Mustang driving through the desert with the top down, and he played the original version of it, and it was just one of those moments when we both looked at each other and said “This is great. This is a really interesting sound”.  It’s uplifting but it’s really intelligent at the same time, and those things don’t come along very often, so we said that we had to get involved with this. 
Max –Sometimes when you get asked to remix certain songs you may not be feeling it, but with this you could immediately start hearing what you could do with it. It’s incredibly inspiring to hear something like that.
Simon – It was nice because we didn’t know how much hype was going to come with them, so it’s become a bit of notch on the bedpost so to speak. But we’re doing it because we loved it so much, regardless of the hype, and that for me is what makes it such a special record for us. The fact that we feel we’ve done some of our best work on it as well, and it’s just enhanced which was already there. To hear it upfront and to feel it before anyone else is a great feeling.