From Paris with love (and music!) comes our latest VIBE.QUEST leader, Maximus MMC who delivers a mix that we would describe as a distant August thunderstorm. It is one filled with heat and booming sound, but strangely calming when experienced from a comfy chair. The mix leader is an extremely talented artist who is at the forefront of experimental bass and future-beat music. As part of the FLOW-FI artist collective, Maximus has been able to collaborate on a number of highly-trafficked tunes, but also gotten his hands on some  soon-to-be-released tracks that help his VIBE.QUEST become something special.
Press play on this great guestmix and read up on how Maximus MMC is working to help us all relaux in new ways…

Welcome Maximus and thank you for leading our VIBE.QUEST! First off, how did you get into becoming the electronic music producer we found online?

By listening to bass music and some soul and blues… Actually all types of music. That really changed lots of stuff in my creativity and inspiration… There is too much music around sometimes haha.

As a member of the collective Flow-Fi, you seem to have a great launchpad for your music. How and when did you get looped into the crew?

Back in January, I was just making music on the side. I didn’t have much contact with other producers besides when one of my tunes would play on Complexion’s The Future Beats Show. One day in January, it just happened that aywy. and I both got our tracks played in the same show one after the other. Then I dunno, we just started connecting, talking, becoming friends. The connection was real and that’s when me and him started making music. He was founding Flow-Fi at the same time and reached me out like “Yo you wanna join” and I was like “ok cool!”. There were just 4 people with it at the time.

When you collaborate with international artists, as you have with the likes of aywy. or Ekali, how do you usually approach the production process while being continents apart?

It’s funny because those two were very different artists to collaborate with. aywy. works in Fruity Loops and Ekali is on Ableton, and I use Ableton.
With Aywy, I picked up the sample (Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”), chopped it up and sent him what I thought was cool. I ended up doing some part of the drop and the second part of the track. Aywy came up with a dope-ass arrangement.
For Ekali, we met through Soundcloud and Twitter. I love southern music and I was working on this flip of “Stoopid” by Gucci Mane. I told him about it and sent him what I had so far. He replied telling me that he loved it, I sent him the project and dude literally did something crazy to it. Got it back and finished the track before releasing it through Flow-Fi.
The work flow with both guys was just amazing.

You’re the first Relaux-featured Frenchman who we’d label  “future beats” in terms of bass music production. Is France home to many followers of the niche? Any other producers from nearby that you see building it up?

I do feel that the music scene in terms of bass music is growing. It’s getting better, there are more people than a few years ago. The one person I’ve noticed the most is STWO. When his EP dropped last year, I loved it and it really got me excited and motivated to make more music. I’ve also met some people at a few beat events in Paris in which I’ve performed..

…Back in October of last year, I showed up to one of these events and there was this contest going on. You basically bring your USB stick in and you are allowed to play a minute and a half of two tracks of your own to see how the crowd reacts to your music. That was my very first live experience and I’ve connected with a few cool people, like STWO who played that night.

You are releasing an EP this fall that you’ve said will be “very deep and experimental”. Any hints on whether that might be a new style or are you thinking something more eclectic and diverse?

More of the first one. I was thinking about something very experimental, both in terms of structure and sounds that I use, craft my own synths, do experimental shit. Some people might not like it, but some other people might be like ‘wow this is like nothing I’ve ever heard’. Though I’m not sure if that will really be for my next EP because you never know when inspiration might hit…My recent releases like “Echoes of The XO” or “The Moon” were supposed to be in that EP, but I just decided to drop them. Because when you start working on something, you have this idea and you just go straight away with it. I’ve been waiting and sitting on them for 2 months and I’ve gotta let them go because inspiration is changing. It gets hard to work on old stuff when you’re evolving sometimes.

Your daytime persona is in software engineering, is that right? Do you find this particularly helpful in any parts of your music career?

Yes, though what I’m doing right now as work is not really related to music, but at some point I’d love to connect my work and my passion for music. I’ve been a software developer for 3 years now and it would be awesome to have a daily job in music-related companies such Ableton or Native Instruments. I feel like I could work with the user experience and come up with other creative solutions for artists.

What was the vision or idea behind the mix you’ve lead us through during this VIBE.QUEST?

My guideline for this mix was to built something that sounds different. I feel like there’s so many mixes out there that really have the same sounds, same music, same everything. To me it’s cool music, but there’s so much great other stuffs around that could be put on. Of course I have some bangers in there from friends of mine, but I also wanted to put other upcoming artists that we don’t often see in mixes.

Any words, shoutouts, things to share!?

I want to thank everyone who listens to my music. I try to express what I feel and live on an everyday basis through my tunes. I want to thank everyone for supporting me over the months and I am really looking forward to the future to see what is coming up for me and also for Flow-Fi. I think it’s going to get very interesting! Shout out to Flow-Fi and all the artists on there, especially AYWY for putting me on there, my family, and of course you guys for reaching out to me in a cool way.

Thanks again to Maximus MMC for chatting with us and sharing some of the music he loves. Be sure to follow him on his various music and social media streams! Soundcloud Twitter Facebook Instagram Bandcamp