A conversation with Madota

Behnam and Mehran celebrating their latest release ‘Pomzi’ on Saisons

Highlighting their collaboration with Saisons with an original four-to-the-floor melodic groover 'Pomzi', we had the chance to catch up with the energetic duo to discuss life, fruits, books and songs.

Their personalities are inspiring as well as their creativity. Welcome to Madota’s colourful world!

One thing you like to cook

M: Garlic zucchini mushroom pasta

B: Breakfast/Brunch! Omelette with fried veggies

Favourite Fruit

M: Mandarins

B: Pomegranate!

Favourite Veggie

M: Mushrooms

B: MUSHROOMS!

Favourite Midnight Snack

M: Cereal with oat milk

B: That lonely last piece of bread with peanut butter and jelly + cold glass of oat milk

Spirit animal

M: Whale

B: Giraffe

Your last emoji used

M: 🌹

B: 😂

A book that improved your life this year and why?

M: Artist’s Way - This is my second return to this book after almost a decade and it feels more relevant than ever in going deeper into one’s creative energy.

B: Artist’s Way - It's been life changing for me! It helped me to get in touch with my artistic child and it gave me confidence to keep exploring my creative side throughout this pandemic. 

If you could bring 3 songs with you to a deserted island, which ones would it be?

M: Led Zeppelin - Since I’ve been loving you / Bonga - Venda Poro / Moderat - A New Error

B: Kokoroko - Abusey Junction / Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath / Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

Why would you go to a deserted island? 

M: Solitude is where all the magic happens

B: Because Mehran dragged my ass there

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We are celebrating the release of a special song, Pomzi! What does this song represent for you?

For us ‘Pomzi’ embodies an inflection point of where we are with our music. In a sense it stands both as a project that brought closure to our older approach to making music while at the same time inspiring us into our new musical journey.

“There is a moment where we are completely lost in the flow of creativity, silliness and jav but constantly in the creative flow. In that state is where we are both the most creative to just record ideas and forget about all the technical stuff. It’s important to record as many ideas as possible while we are in that state of mind.”

What’s your recipe for creating such amazing grooves? 

M: Trial and error to be honest. We’re both really obsessed with making grooves that can effortlessly hold the foundation of our tracks together. Once we get to a point where both of us are bobbing our heads for an indefinite amount of time, we know we’ve hit the spot with a groove. 

B: I think the key ingredient for us is being silly! Completely stripped of our adulthood responsibilities and characteristics. In the studio, we are locked in a playground. In there our creative child is at play and there is no place for seriousness. We act childish and silly. There is a moment where we are completely lost in the flow of creativity, silliness and jav but constantly in the creative flow. In that state is where we are both the most creative to just record ideas and forget about all the technical stuff. It's important to record as many ideas as possible while we are in that state of mind. This is where all of our sketches come from. Afterwards we upload these on soundcloud and we constantly listen to them throughout the week. Next time we are in the studio, we focus on one of those sketches and turn them into work in progress tracks. Our silliness is still there but with a bit more intention. This is where the soul and the identity of the track is shaped and formed.

What made you choose Saisons as a home for your music?

M: They say with some people you just ‘know’. Well with Mikael (Kora) we just know! We’ve had the privilege of meeting and going deep with him in more ways than one. We really feel a natural alignment with the vision he has of the world and it becomes a no-brainer for us to work closely with him. We truly vibe with the Saisons family and see ourselves contributing and collaborating with the label for sometime to come.

B: Working with Kora allows us to be involved a lot more with the release process than any other label we have worked with. We can be more involved in the visual direction and the story telling of the release which is something that is really important for us. Being perfectionists we have gone through 27 master versions for POMZI alone! This shows the amount of love and care the Saisons family puts in each release and really allows us to be involved in each step of the process. I think each artist should, to some extent, be allowed to contribute more than just the music in the music release. 

Where is Madota from?

‘Madota’ is the Farsi word for “us two”. We were born in Iran but moved to Vancouver in Canada when we were young. We deep dived in the world of electronic music and the idea of DJing/producing with one of our closest friends Iman under a different alias during our early years in university. We really fell in love with the art of DJing and fantasized about producing our own music while getting to travel around the world together. After more than 6 years of DJing and experimenting with music production in Vancouver, our dream led us to move to Berlin where we founded the project ‘Madota’ in 2017.

What are your influences? 

We pull from a lot of different places. On one layer we really love traditional Iranian music from masters such as Shahram Nazeri, Keyhan Kalhor and Hossein Alizadeh, to more contemporary artists such as Mohsen Namjoo. On another layer we really love music from around the world from Balkan grooves to Ethno-jazz to psychedelic rock. If you were to walk into our chill space you would probably hear something from Bonga, Chavela Vargas, Gil Scot Heron, Marvin Gaye or something in that vibe. Call us old-school but we both love music from the past more than present.

What’s on the horizon for Madota? 

We’ve really used the time during the pandemic to explore different ways to produce music together at the same time. After about a decade of using Logic, we finally made the move to Ableton this past year. This has really given us a lot of energy and inspiration to experiment together in the studio. While in lockdown, we’ve had nowhere else to go but more inwards. This has helped us focus on further sculpting our sound and making music that is closer to our hearts. We’re in the process of finalizing a lot of tracks and finding the best time to release them out into the world. We are really stoked about releasing our first ever multi-track EP with Saisons later in the Summer/Fall. Having only released singles until now, finishing a multi-track EP has really pushed us to think of our tracks as part of a larger story. We are also excited to start working with other labels we love and respect such as Moodfamily.

We are also in the middle of planning our return back to dance floors now that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are ecstatic to announce that we have joined Lunarts - the talent agency of Woomoon & Storytellers artists - who are going to be helping us with our bookings from now on. Fingers crossed, we are hopefully finalizing some dates for Europe while also scheming our way back to the States this summer with the ZERO family & Co.

Madota - Pomzi [SAISONS014]

Madota’s creative nest in Berlin, Germany

Listen & download Pomzi here:

https://saisons.lnk.to/MadotaPomzi

Follow Madota

Website: https://www.madotamusic.com/

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/madota

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3rWj3k5gkhitnnhMCvDHZG

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madotamusic/