Deep Dive: King-Mob – Arabesque

In art, an Arabesque is a style that often involves intricate and repeating patterns. Maybe that was an inspiration for the song of the same name by New York duo King-Mob?

But what better way to find out more about Arabesque, than by asking the band to take part in our Deep Dive series? A big thank you to guitarist/vocalist Aodhan O’Reilly and drummer Gabe Katz for taking part.

Genesis of the song and lyrics

The instrumental elements of the song (loops, most of the guitar) actually began life as an instrumental/soundscape-type piece that was written for a Samuel Beckett festival, snippets of readings from Beckett’s plays being read over the top.

After experimenting with putting various beats behind the textural layers of the choir, it slowly evolved into a heavier, rockier type of piece. Our lyrics tend towards the impressionistic.

Instrumentation and recording

We tend to work in three stages: first, make beats/loops and essentially a backing track; second, go into a studio (in this case, Kirton Farms, Upstate New York) and record live drums and guitar over this backing (normally limited to a couple of takes); and then thirdly, take all these tracks away and start to deconstruct and splice the whole thing together.

Sometimes we end up completely rearranging a live performance after the fact; sometimes we end up removing the initial loops and ambient parts and going with the live performance, basically unedited.

Where does Arabesque fit within your wider body of work?

This is the first track off our forthcoming EP; we’ll be dropping 2 more tracks before the EP is finally released. Hopefully, the new EP is our most realized work, in that it combines the electronic and live elements of the band in a somewhat coherent whole, as opposed to distinct moments of each as parallel aesthetics.

What are you up to in the coming months?

We normally tour as much as we can with a new record, but on this occasion, due to personal commitments, the touring will be more limited. That said, we’re playing all over the East Coast of the US in the next few months, albeit in short bursts. Then it’s on to the next record!

Arabesque and more music by King-Mob can be downloaded on Bandcamp and streamed on Spotify and SoundCloud. To keep in the loop with the band’s upcoming EP as well as announcements of live dates, make your way to Instagram.