Pablo Nouvelle

Milambi ft. Angelique Kidjo Beating Heart, 2020

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Eclectic beatsmith Pablo Nouvelle has entranced listeners with his unique house and downtempo sounds on labels such as Armada and Black Butter. We hooked up with Pablo to discuss Milambi, his collaboration with award-winning West African singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo, and find out more about how he makes his way-out sounds.

You made the original idea for Milambi during the filming of a video for Armada, how did that come about?

“I was in Amsterdam visiting Armada in 2018, and coincidentally they had just finished their studio. I had the honour to be the very first one to do a session in there. They were like ‘we’re going to film it, you just do whatever’, so I was there trying to have an idea and get something going while people were running around me with cameras. It wasn’t really going well and I wasn’t on my computer, I didn’t have my plugins or synths. Because I didn’t have any plugins that worked for percussion stuff. I just got on the mic and started to make some drum noises and stuff with my mouth. They all seemed very impressed and were like ‘oh my gosh, this is so organic’ but I was just desperate!”

How did you feel about the track after you’d finished the video?