A Conversation With Tibasko

Dubbed as one’s to watch by DJ Mag in January 2019, Hertfordshire-based producers Ken Petalcorin and Andy Bowden, collectively known as Tibasko setting their sights to bring their grooves into dance floors across the UK. While still only in their early stages having formed in 2017, they have already carved their own mark into the music scene, finding their unique sound in complex melodic patterns, prolific sampling, twisted drums and underground beats. Their tracks have already received support from a range of prominent DJs in the electronic music scene, including Denis Sulta, Big Miz, Hammer, The Black Madonna, Krywald & Farrer and more. Dance Rebels also had the chance to have a chat with the guys too, check it out below:

Hey Tibasko, welcome to Dance Rebels, how are you? Where are you both from? And how did you both initially connect to form Tibasko?

Ken: Hey guys – thank you for inviting us to chat, we’re buzzing to be here! We’re both from the sleepy town of Welwyn Garden City, based in Hertfordshire. We first met in secondary school where we were best mates with the same group of friends for about five/six years before we got stuck into the Tibasko project. Before we kicked things off, I’ve been producing music that leans towards the indie/R&B side of things for about two years and I knew that Andy had been DJing whilst at university.

Andy: It was around November 2017 when I was in a process of rebranding my DJ alias when I asked Ken if he wanted to collab with me, and we managed to make a complete a tech-house track in one evening. The next day, it got signed to a smaller label based in Birmingham. It was then that we realised how well we worked together musically, and so we decided to make a proper thing out of it. 

 When in both your lives did you realise that you wanted to pursue music as a career full-time? What’s been the most challenging part of trying to forge a career in the industry too?

Ken: I think Andy and I have always dreamed to have a full-time career in music. Personally, I never thought it was within my grasp as I’ve had quite a few failed attempts before. Prior Tibasko, I’ve been in musical projects that never really blossomed, from an indie-rock band to my solo project whilst at university. However saying that the continued success and support that we’ve both received as Tibasko has motivated us to dream big and pursue music as a full-time career. 

Andy: Yeah, totally agree with Ken. Whilst I was DJing throughout university, I was quite involved in the electronic music scene within the Birmingham/Worcester area. I knew it was difficult to pursue a professional career in music solely based on DJing and I’ve always been interested in producing original material. I think for us, the most challenging aspect of trying to forge a career in the industry is trying to discover that sound that makes us stand out from everyone else. It’s taken us a long while to find what type of music we wanted to make as well as our unique selling point as artists, but I think we’re slowly getting there.

 Speaking of challenges; COVID-19, how has it affected your career? I would imagine its limited bookings to zero, so how have you been coping/adapting through these current obstacles in life?

Ken: Yeah that’s spot on. COVID-19 has hit the live music sector hard – so pretty much all of our shows this year got cancelled, which really sucked. But to be honest, it hasn’t been all doom and gloom. I think like many other artists, we’ve taken this opportunity to focus on our productions and hone our craft.

Andy: Over lockdown, we learned how to work together by utilising what technology has to offer, specifically making tracks over FaceTime. We also created tracks separately, where we’d shoot stems across to each other. It’s definitely not an ideal process in terms of the workflow, but our output of music has massively increased.

 On a more positive note, August 7th you’re dropping ‘Reverie’ via Another Rhythm, how would you describe the track? What’s your favourite part of the track too?

Andy: Yeah that’s right! ‘Reverie’ is the follow-up track to our previous single, ‘Solum’. We wanted to inject a lot of emotion into this track, so it features a big pulsing bassline, a driving arp, lots of pads (as we always do) with a backbone of breakbeats. But for me, my personal favourite bit of the track is the vocal hook, it’s so intense and powerful – I feel like it glues the whole track together well.

Ken: I’m the same with Andy on that. We’d been working on ‘Reverie’ for the best part of about a year and it was just missing something. When we heard that vocal hook, we knew it was the perfect thing to tie the track together and bring in the spark that helps to convey the heartfelt emotions of the track.

 In terms of releases, what track do you think put you on the map musically, the one which got all the top DJ’s attention etc? How many hours a week do you spend on fine-tuning your production skills too?

Andy: I would say that our first ever EP, ‘Alma’, was what put us on the map. We didn’t expect it to blow up as much as it did. We made it in a tiny room in Ken’s house and just self-released it off our own back. A few days after releasing it, we got emails from Spotify telling us that the lead track had been added to multiple huge editorial playlists. We also found out later that the EP sat number eleven in the Beatport Deep House charts. Fast forward a year later, and it’s got more than one million streams.

Ken: I’d also say that ‘Vertigo’ helped to put us on the map musically. It was pretty crazy as it received support from huge names such as Pete Tong, Above & Beyond and John Digweed. It was also really amazing when we found out that Pete Tong included ‘Vertigo’ in his Essentials Selections in April 2020. It just seemed nuts to us as we made the track in a little room with nothing but a laptop at the time, it was just something that we never even thought would happen.

 What other plans do you have for the rest of the year release wise? Any exclusive spoilers you can let our readership know about?

Ken: We’ve been waiting patiently to show you the next few releases, coming out after ‘Reverie’, for over a year – so we are buzzing for those to drop. After that, we’re working on some new music we honestly believe is some of our best. We’re really aiming to bring about a new age of Tibasko music over the coming months and into next year and beyond. We’ve always been constantly evolving as an act, and this next step is something we hope is going to connect in a big way.

Andy: To name the more recent releases, we’ve got a two-track EP with Waze & Odyssey’s WO Street Tracks which is more club-focused, whilst retaining the classic Tibasko sound that we have. We’ve also got two tracks coming out with Stress Records that we’re super excited about. We think they’re both really great for the clubs as well so hoping we can get the chance to do so. We’ve also got a few remixes forthcoming for some exciting artists so definitely look out for those.

 If you could give one piece of production advice to any young artist, what would it be? And also, what is your favourite production plug-in ATM too?

Andy: My advice would be to keep practising and churning out as many tracks as you can. They might be pretty awful at first, but we promise that there will come a point where everything just clicks. I’d also recommend that new producers/artists start by sticking to one DAW and learning that inside and out. Once you feel you’re pretty confident with a track in its production quality, send it off to record labels and top DJs, even if they seem out of reach. You never know, something might stick!

Ken: Not really technical production advise but I think it’s also important to say to any new artist/producer that they should do their own thing and not get discouraged by the lack of “success” or praise. Making a track that represents you artistically takes a lot of time and I know a lot of producers who have been at it for years before anything landed. I think having a passion for music and enjoying the process of producing a track are the most important things that will inevitably push you towards “making it”. For the more technical side of advice, my favourite plug-in is the Fabfilter Pro-Q3. We literally use this in every track and it’s definitely the best EQ plug-in out there at the moment.

 Finally, if you could collab with any artist on a track, who would it be, and why? And if you could premiere the track in any club, where would you premiere it? And why?

Ken: Bicep are artists both Andy and I aspire to be like, so they’ll be a dream collab pick for us. You can probably hear the inspiration we take from them in our music. They have an amazing way to conveying powerful emotions into their music without adding too much. They really hone in making all the individual sounds in the track sound special which I think is a great music philosophy to have.

Andy: A total curveball pick to collaborate with but also another artist we love: Hans Zimmer. He’s a total wizard when it comes to creating really dynamic arrangements and similarly to Bicep, he’s incredible at creating an authentic feel in tracks. If we could premiere the track in any club, our pick will have to be Printworks in London. Ken and I have been there a couple of times and it’s a dream venue we’d hope to play at one day. The space is utilised to well to create an immersive clubbing experience. And that’s not even mentioning the insane sound system and the huge amount of lights to amplify the entire experience.