Events

The Glitch Mob formed roughly two years ago, but members of the group have been performing together for years, darting up and down the West Coast, sharing gigs, and inviting one another onstage to tag-team at the decks. The formation of an actual unit wasn’t so much a carefully planned endeavor as it was a natural next step for the four. “We were all doing the same thing,” says Boreta. “We were playing similar types of music, making music on our laptops, and decided to try it together.” Though the group is often associated with the whole L.A. IDM-via-hip-hop scene that’s led by Flying Lotus, Daedelus, Samiyam, and others, (perhaps with good reason, seeing as the whole lot tends to name-drop one another’s acts in every other interview they give), he’s quick to point out that the Glitch Mob name was initially a joke. “We just threw it out there and it stuck,” he says, adding that it was actually meant as a friendly-but-firm jab driven towards the whole scene. “A lot of times people call what we do glitch-hop or glitch music and we reject that.”
It’s not the only label they reject, and if breaking down boundaries is the credo of this band, then nowhere is that more evident than when it comes to classifying their music. It’s not dubstep. It’s not hip-hop or glitch-hop, and don’t even think about calling it lazer bass. Though tracks like their remixes of Nalpa’s “Monday” and Matty G’s “West Coast Rocks” bear certain common denominators (heavy synth layers, loads of feedback, earth-shattering basslines), all four members are steadfastly against trying to wrestle what they do into a specific genre. Rather, they would like their music to be seen as a catch-all genre that could appeal to multiple audiences. “Our music speaks to a lot of different people and we don’t want to forget any of them,” says Mayer. “We don’t want to get stuck in some world where we only make a certain kind of thing. We want to be playing next to the hottest emo band and next to the biggest hip-hop acts.”
Kratz has, perhaps, the loosest definition of what The Glitch Mob’s sound is: “We want a new name every time. If someone asks us what the name is, I want to be like, ‘Well, what would you call it?’ And then I’d be like, ‘Okay, well that’s what we’re calling it.’”
It’s this sort of attitude that also propels the group when working in their studio (endearingly referred to as The Mob Compound). Because each member produces music as a solo artist as well, different sounds are brought to the table by different people. The pretty melodies usually belong to Mayer, while the expansive synth layers are often Boreta’s. Kratz, in his own words, “brings the booty,” and Ma is the undisputed drum master of the crew. Currently at work on a full-length album, the group is bringing all of these elements into play, but also exploring new territory that’s right in keeping with their mission of eschewing any and all constraints. “It would be very easy for us to come up with 10 bangers and put that out as a record,” says Ma. “That would be a no-brainer, but what we really want to do is put down a document of where we were as artists at this point in time, and we want it to stand the test of time.”
Which is to say, fans can expect not just the bass-heavy dancefloor numbers as seen in their remix work, but also mellower, more experimental cuts that might not necessarily be suited to a club. Essentially, the group is taking the same carefree, anything-goes approach that works so well in the live setting to the studio, along with a willingness to take risks and a fierce determination to steer clear of classification. “We’re not constricting ourselves to anything, which is why I don’t know what to call this thing we’ve got going on,” asserts Ma. “To us, this is just the music we write. I don’t know what to call it. I guess just call it Glitch Mob.”