Ä live may sound like a new Daft Punk project (let’s keep our hopes up for 2027), but instead it’s obviously the last creative effort of the gang behind the infamous Ä Collective. After quietly infiltrating numerous digital festivals over the past few months, they’ve finally come out in the open with their own virtual event. Among the 10 acts that performed on Twitch on Saturday night, there was also one of the FUXWITHIT favorites of the season: camoufly.
If there is an artist who has accustomed us to expect the unexpected, it’s certainly him (I remind you that he remixed Zac Efron), but who could have imagined, that for his opening slot, he would pull out of the hat a 30-minute track? Yes, track.
From its acid intro, to the Sam G vibes of the outro, ‘HYPERMANTRA’ has kept me glued to my headphones in awe for all its 1741 seconds, but at the end it also left me extremely confused and full of questions. camoufly’s touch is clearly recognizable but where do all these samples come from? How did he create it? What is its meaning? To avoid to deplete my (and your) brain looking for answers, I went straight to the source and set up a little interview. Enjoy ‘HYPERMANTRA’ as explained and presented by camoufly himself.
We love the theatrical description of the project, but in the end we’re all still pretty confused: what the hell is ‘HYPERMANTRA?’
‘HYPERMANTRA’ is a name I associated with both the project’s music & structure. The reason behind it is rather simple: it’s all made on a single Ableton project, and through repetitions & loops it reaches its final form. It’s similar to meditation: you relax, repeat a mantra and through that process you can reach new levels of your being (maybe it’s a bit more complex but… haha). Also I like the fact that the word “mantra” is easily associated with Eastern culture, and in fact some of the samples I used are from old Asian records.
A canonical DJ set wasn’t enough eh? Where did you get the inspiration from?
Haha yeah, I decided to play this instead of a regular DJ set at Ä Live last Saturday and I got a great feedback from it. That’s when I decided to put it out! For this project I drew inspiration mainly from Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma for the music and imagery, and Daft Punk’s Alive 1997 for this kind of “continuous” structure based on samples with drums, bass & synths on top.
You’re well known for your sample game, but here you’ve selected some really exquisite gems. How do your process of sample scouting work?
As for now my resources are mainly two. JP80SS, a Japanese web archive which has a ton of Asian music from the 70’s and the 80’s (things you can hardly find on Spotify). Andre Navarro, a YouTuber that I’ve found on a quickly, quickly’s Instagram Live, who releases tracks from his very rare vinyl collection on his channel.
You recently celebrated one year of camoufly. Do you consider ‘HYPERMANTRA’ the ultimate expression of the camoufly project or was this more like a one-shot experiment?
This is just something I wanted to try. I don’t think there will ever be an ultimate form to my project, maybe I’ll do something like this in the future, maybe not, who knows!
You can stream ‘HYPERMANTRA’ on Matter or Audius and purchase it on Bandcamp.
