Madben
̸
Biografía
- Born in the North of France, Madben has retained a taste for manages and a nickname that smells like the warehouse.The Lille resident has been “living” techno since his beginnings. From the 1990s, he followed this new scene closely via the flyers he found at local record stores. With his friends, he spends nights in Belgium, in Fuse in Brussels, at Kozzmozz parties in Ghent or in disused factories in Kortrijk, free and ideal territory to listen to the best sound of the time. All this the obviously pushes to join forces with other enthusiasts to organize evenings at Lille and elsewhere. After seeing and hearing big names in the genre, whether it's Dave Clarke and his dexterity from hip-hop, the madness of the lives of Speedy J or the extra-terrestrial mixes of Jeff Mills or Green Velvet, Benjamin launches. In his room, he shares his first Technics MKIIs with other buddies, spending hours trying to stall records like in Detroit. The composition will come later, a natural step after years of DJing and exchanges. In 2010, Benjamin put his savings in a rudimentary studio, a pair of speakers, a monitor, a MIDI keyboard and a computer equipped with Reason and Ableton. Passionate about the sounds of Purpose Maker outputs, Blueprint or Tresor, or the technique of other techno artisans like James Ruskin or Surgeon, Madben polishes his music and starts broadcasting it in real time on Soundcloud. Pushed by his friends, he sends demos to Laurent Garnier who immediately responds: “Mortal. » Garnier plays a title on his radio show on Le Mouv, It is What It Is. Madben plays are multiplied by 100 and he teams up with the Brest festival Astropolis, a French electronic institution, which soon to launch his own label. Starting signal. Madben moved to Paris in 2012. He learned at the same time that he surrounded himself with machines, composing his studio piece by piece, between vintage and modernity: drum Elektron Analog Rytm machine, Kill Patrick Phenol synth, some modules Eurorack or good old Moog or Modor (made in Belgium!). Total techno man, at ease on turntables, in the studio or live, he lacked a first album. It's been done since Frequency (s), released in 2018 on Astropolis Records. He establishes his light/dark techno style there by inviting his fathers (Laurent Garnier and Manu Le Malin) and artist Rebeka Warrior. This record opened the door to European festivals and clubs and led him to meet his new allies at the international: Maceo Plex recruits him in his team (Ellum audio). With her A successful first date at Berghain in 2019, a whole new horizon opens up for him. More recently he stood out during his performances at the Printworks in London, during from Awakenings in Amsterdam, Berns in Stockholm or De Marktkantine in Amsterdam for the closure of the cult club in May 2022. A month later, Madben released a first album with Trunkline, a studio adaptation of impressive and in-your-face lives full machines, without any computer on stage, of sound duet with Yann Lean. As for the next step, it was obvious: the spontaneous Frequency(s) called for a little brother. A suite in which the sound design and arrangements of pieces appear even more worked, strong of the new machines which populate his studio, now located not far from Nantes. One more step towards technical purity, but always the same desire: to be moved, to escape, with the feet continuing to type in rhythm. Whether we're talking about albums or DJ-sets, it's the same school, that of a techno that always has at heart to tell a story while making dance the clubs. The result is called « Troisième sens », like a third way away from binary choices, like of this music that does not sacrifice its sense of storytelling on the altar of efficiency dancefloor. There are surprises in the arrangements, little gifts that can be discovered over the plays, but when it's the first, the slap is obvious, primal. That's it Madben's techno: taking up the codes to take them elsewhere, declaring your love for clubbing without falling into its clichés, tracing a sacred production intelligence on the immediacy of this party carrying him since adolescence. A little Mad, a lot of Ben.