MNPL — Interview : Improvisation & Process

We spoke with MNPL about the production of their EP How to Make It Fit.

An opportunity to discuss their background, their approach to improvisation at the core of their creative process, modular live performance, and their production work.

Can you briefly introduce yourselves and tell us about your musical background?

Andrea
Andrea — first part of MNPL… or second, depending on the day.

I’m originally a pianist, I studied at the conservatory. That’s actually where I met Eliott. That was my formal training, and then everything around electronic music came later. I come more from the free party scene and all that.

And then, little by little, I moved towards techno.

For production, I started with machines, and gradually got into modular… for about three years now.

Eliott
At first, I was a guitarist. I also went to the conservatory, but for composition.

Electronic music has always been around me, whether it was more experimental stuff or not. At the beginning, I was also producing for rappers.

Then I kind of stepped away from electronic music for a good part of my studies, because I was too busy with… writing.

And when I got back into it, it was actually through physical instruments — through machines… and with Andrea, actually. That’s what brought me back into it.

And it also got me fully back into everything digital. It was really through physical devices that I found my way back to electronic music.

How does your classical or theoretical background influence the way you improvise and compose today?

As a pianist, working on repertoire, at some point I really felt the need to do something more free.

So yeah, we’re definitely on the psychotherapy side of things… haha.

I started doing a lot of free improvisation, some pretty wild stuff. And I think it was actually through more experimental approaches that we first connected.

But at the same time, having a solid musical background, I feel like I carry a lot of knowledge that’s just… part of me now. Even if I can’t always pinpoint exactly where it comes from, all the basic harmonic vocabulary, the awareness of certain technical aspects — it just comes naturally.

And that’s really thanks to my training.

What role does improvisation play in your process, compared to writing or more controlled composition?

The freedom that improvisation offers…

When you compose, you’re constantly controlling every parameter. It’s pretty exhausting — you spend a lot of time generating very little actual music.

Whereas with improvisation, if you want five minutes of music, you just play for five minutes. It’s quite liberating, especially when you’re usually in that constant control mode.

Another thing it really helps with is structure. It’s closely tied to improvisation, because when you build a set, you can go back and forth with the form, test it, see how it works in real life. Here, we’re actually building it in real time.

Having a background in large-scale forms — like contemporary or symphonic music — means we’re used to thinking long-term, with a more macro approach to music. There’s a constant back and forth between the micro and the macro.

The micro is about listening closely to your sound — are all the elements balanced? Is everything happening at that exact moment working the way it should, interacting properly?

And on a larger scale, does the overall storyline make sense? Are you managing the structure well in terms of pressure, tension, silence… all of that.

So in a way, a classical, theoretical background does help with that. Not that you can’t develop those skills differently — there are plenty of examples outside of that.

One of our big references is Coline Benders. He also has a strong technical background and really thought things through from the start. Improvisation was at the core of his work as a jazz musician.

So yeah… it probably helps in some way, but you could definitely get there otherwise.

Yeah, totally.

In the end, it’s just part of our path — it’s where we are now.

It’s fully embraced.
Yeah… fully embraced.

How do you integrate your more experimental influences into your music today?

We definitely spent quite a bit of time thinking about what we could bring in from different influences.

But now we’re not really at that stage anymore — it’s just part of it.

Things like polymeter, microtonal music…

At first, you really overthink it. You’re like, “how do I bring these concepts back in?” — concepts that come from the experimental music we studied.

And then, eventually, you just do it naturally. You’re just aiming for a sound, a result.

I think we went through a phase that was a bit more hyper-conscious, where we were constantly analyzing our own practice.

And now… it’s kind of beyond that.

How would you define your sound today, your approach to techno — especially in relation to this EP?

It goes in four different directions, across four tracks.

Exploring different styles is something that really interests us at this point. Maybe what we’d like now is to be able to choose a bit more, through the discussions we have.

It ranges from really raw, free techno rhythms — kind of mental, intense, really hard-hitting — to more hypnotic stuff.

Texture is really at the core of what we do. Yeah… textures. Things that gradually break down, that transform over time.

Everything that sits somewhere between something concrete and something abstract — that’s what we’re into.

It doesn’t always show up the same way, but we still have strong affinities with more unusual rhythms. There’s a bit of ternary stuff, some slightly off patterns, but we also go into more symmetrical structures, more complex things — sometimes tricky to handle live.

Because once you get into those complex patterns, you can lose your footing pretty quickly… but yeah, we really like digging into that.

You seem to be moving away from classic techno structures — how do you explore that balance between complexity and simplicity?

Sometimes we’re like, “okay, we need to get out of this, we need to push further, try new things…”

And then other times it’s just like, “when it’s simple, it works too.”

It’s always going back and forth like that.

And that’s also what’s great — when you reach a point where it turns into something almost transcendent.

Yeah, exactly.

With just a single sound evolving really slowly… and yeah, it can get pretty intense when you manage to do that right.

I really like anything that’s syncopated, anything that feels a bit unexpected rhythmically. That’s more where we push things — on the rhythmic side.

That’s where we go into more complex, messy stuff, rather than on the melodic or harmonic side.

How do you divide roles within the duo?

We do have pretty defined roles.

I’m the one handling the drums, the rhythmic section, generally speaking these days.

And Andrea takes care more of everything melodic, harmonic… and texture. He’s the one bringing in more punctual elements — like placing accents, articulations here and there.

But we do have this idea of eventually both being able to do both — not at the same time, but alternating.

I think that could really help articulate the contrast between something very straight and efficient, and something more broken, with more breaks.

That way we can share those roles more fluidly.

Yeah… he’s right about that.

In your live sets, there’s a strong sense of cohesion and a very fluid progression. How do you build that connection between you, and how does it influence your creative process?

The secret is… living together.
Yeah.

That way we can work easily, a lot, for long periods of time.

It’s just a tiny bit toxic — just the right amount of toxicity — so you can catch each other in the middle of a meal and go, “hey, I had this idea…” and then dive straight into it.

Because yeah, it’s actually important, if you want to understand where the other person is going, to have those kinds of discussions — to spend time together.

Yeah… just being together, really. Playing together. That’s probably what it comes down to.

At the beginning, we used to talk a lot more.

Like for our first set, we’d give each other signals — like, “in four loops, something’s gonna happen.” And we’d really check in with each other, like, four… three… two… one… and then do the thing.

Now we’re much less in that mode. We just feel each other more.

And I think that really just comes from experience — from playing together a lot.

During the EP recording sessions, there was very little verbal communication while building the jams. How does your dialogue work today, between the moment of improvisation and what comes after?

Now the exchange happens more like in free improvisation — after the fact.

Yeah, that’s true.

Basically, we improvise, then we debrief… and the debrief is part of the improvisation too.

It’s really an extension of the work. Having that reflective moment, a real discussion — like, “I felt it this way,” “yeah, I felt it that way.”

And then we also have an objective reference, which is the recording. That lets us go back to what we actually did, what really happened.

Because sometimes we feel like we played something terrible, and then we listen back and think, “oh… actually not so bad.”

Or the opposite — we felt like we were on fire, and then we listen again and go, “hmm… okay.”

Perception can be really biased.

So the discussions we have together are really part of the improvisation process. That’s also where something happens.

And then there are also a few technical exercises — we come up with things to work on timing, to redo certain transitions.

Because live, you don’t have time to rework that, but it gives you a foundation for how things can unfold.

It goes back to what we were saying about the balance between micro and macro.

When we work on large-scale form — the macro level — we’re not going to play three one-and-a-half-hour sessions in a day. It takes time, it’s exhausting, and the last take would just be… yeah.

Instead, we’ll work on two- or three-minute sections, or five- or six-minute sections, and repeat them several times. Like he said, that’s something we’ve really gotten into the habit of doing.

It’s not always the most fun part, but when you bring it back live, it’s really satisfying.

It makes us more confident with slightly risky moves — things we probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise.

What’s the difference between your live practice and what you produced on this EP?

So what’s the difference between a real live set and what we produced for this EP?

Well… there are things we just can’t do live. Some things are even impossible to manage in real time. So at that point, we make choices.

I kind of rediscovered Ableton while working on this EP. And when we improvise, it gives us the basic structure — which is great. It feels much more organic. We’re not thinking in terms of adding loops, that’s not how we approach timing.

So sometimes it’s not super structured, but it feels more natural.

But then afterwards, there are a lot of things where I made cuts, just to emphasize a transition, an articulation, to give it more impact. Because at the end of the day, we’re putting out a piece of music that needs to be listened to again.

And that’s maybe the main difference with improvisation. When we improvise, it’s about listening in the moment.

It’s not the same energy playing live and listening back at home on your sound system. Here, you have to think, “this needs to work when people replay it,” and maybe DJs will pick it up, play it… so the level of production detail isn’t the same at all.

But I actually found it really interesting to do. Like I said, I was rediscovering Ableton, and it made me reconnect with a lot of editing techniques I hadn’t really used in a while. That complements really well what we had as a base.

I think some people use improvisation as part of their workflow, but for us, it’s really the core of what we do.

And then we just build on top of that, with small edits, small cuts. Basically, anything that’s not impossible — but impossible for us in the moment, anything beyond what we can handle live, in improvisation — that’s what we do in the software.

Yeah… that’s it.

Did going back to your improvisations in the DAW influence the way you play live afterwards?

For example, with transitions…

Yeah, we did some build-up exercises.

There were moments where we felt like, “damn, there’s not enough energy.” Sometimes something was missing — like how to properly prepare a transition.

That’s where we really started focusing more on specific moments, bringing in elements that help drive the transition.

Yeah, exactly.

That’s something we actually worked on more after the EP, because we realized it was lacking a bit in the recordings.

And I think we’ve now integrated some of that pretty well.

Of course, it’s not the same experience — it’s really not the same.

But I think we still managed to capture that flavor of improvisation in what we recorded, because that’s really at the core of what we do.

I just hope it still feels organic, at least on that level.

You chose to build the EP from improvised jams recorded on the fly, to preserve that spontaneous, instinctive live energy. What did this approach bring to your process?

I was talking about honesty, actually.

Thinking about it again, it’s really about saying: “this is what we have, this is what we can do.”

It works really well to avoid getting lost in overly intellectual, endless projects, and just go, “okay, this is it,” and start from that material.

And it’s also something where — I’ll speak for myself, but I think it applies to both of us — it’s hard to make decisions.

Yeah.

So if we were just producing, it could go on forever. Especially as a duo, I think it would take us a crazy amount of time to get to something we’re truly happy with.

Whereas here, it’s always the same thing — constraints are a creative tool.

Like Andrea was saying, doing something at a specific moment — that’s it. That’s what it is. There won’t be anything else.

Well… actually, there is something else, in the sense that — I don’t even remember how many takes we did together…

15? 16?
—yeah, 16.

So of course, there’s still some selection, some curation in what comes out.

But in the end, it’s funny — we’re both very close to what we do, and at the same time, very distant from it.

Because like we said, all the production work — the mix Thom did, the mastering — that adds another dimension to the final object, to the track you end up listening to.

Yeah… exactly.

Can you talk about how you listen back to and analyze your sessions, especially with the perspective that recordings give you?

About this idea of deep listening I mentioned earlier…

In a way, I think the music we make isn’t really virtuosic — at least not in the traditional sense. There aren’t that many technical gestures involved. Sure, you have to count, you have to stay in sync when something happens, but it’s not that hard, really.

The virtuosity is more in the listening. It’s about being in a state where you can truly hear what’s going on.

And being able to move back and forth between yourself — what you’re doing in the moment — and something a bit more distant…

— (MO) It’s actually a very complex exercise.

— yeah, in the listening…

— (MO) taking a step back from what you’re producing live, while also listening to what the other person is doing, and being aware of what the audience might be feeling or hearing.

For example, playing as a duo creates a kind of safety. It means you can rely on the other to handle something while you regain focus, or prepare something on your side.

But at the same time, you still have to stay aware of what the other is doing. So part of your brain is always dedicated to reacting to an external input.

And again, it’s not better or worse than playing solo — it’s just different. But yeah, it does require a certain mental flexibility.

And I think that’s something we’ve really improved on: placing our attention in the right place within what we’re listening to.

How did you choose the titles of the EP, and what does it represent for you?

Since we were talking about texture — which is really at the core of what interests us — that’s also what guided us when we were working on the EP, especially when it came to choosing the track titles.

There’s this idea we like exploring: the contraction and expansion of time.

How you can have elements that let you hear the beat at its actual tempo, but also step back a bit and hear it almost in half-time — to get a different perspective on temporality.

That’s why all the titles are linked to this idea of compressing or expanding matter. Because in a way, we’re playing with matter itself.

It’s really about sculpting time.

When you improvise in real time, your material is sound, but your primary medium is time. And you’re shaping it as it unfolds.

That’s something we tried to approach a bit more conceptually when choosing the titles, and I think that conceptual side will grow even more in our next releases. It’s something we’re exploring deeper and deeper.

Yeah, it’s really about starting to understand what we’re actually doing.

I remember reading an interview with Pierre Soulages — I’m paraphrasing here — but it was something like: “I learn what I want to do by doing it.”

And I think that’s exactly our approach. Experimental, not in the sense of trying to make something weird, but in the sense of experimenting — getting your hands dirty to understand what really draws you in.

And through that, you kind of find yourself… you discover a part of yourself in the process of making music.

What’s next for you? What are your upcoming projects?

We’ve had a pretty busy summer — a lot of cultural experiences, a lot of learning. We’ve got a few dates lined up, and then I think we’ll go back to working between live and production, and see how things evolve from there, with a better understanding now of what this kind of work really involves.

Also, thanks to the team — the people you don’t see on camera. So yeah, big thanks to them.

In terms of the tools we use, we’ve reached something fairly stable. There are always small additions, small changes… I mean, that’s the whole point of modular — you move things around, it’s meant to be flexible. But overall, the system has been pretty stable for a while now. Even the patch itself.

One thing we’d like to explore more is working over a longer period of time — really producing tracks regularly over the course of a year, and then curating from that full body of material, rather than just a few intense days of production.

The idea is to find a stronger aesthetic thread, and allow ourselves to be more selective, with stricter criteria, to refine our artistic direction. That’s probably one direction.

Yeah, although it obviously takes more time.

We’re also thinking about separating the more experimental side of what we do from the techno side. Because in the end, MNPL is mostly techno now.

So maybe creating another branch of the project, more focused on performative work — light installations, more unusual sonic approaches, with a bit more freedom.

For example, Andrea is a great harmonist, but that’s not necessarily what comes through the most in techno, where harmonic changes are more limited. So having space to explore that more deeply, to enjoy it more, in something less formatted… maybe less danceable too.

Well, we’ll see… we’ll see.

We’ve had some live experiences that might actually suggest the opposite.

Yeah… yeah.