The British band Mount Kimbie has been ignoring the rules of genre for over sixteen years. When I talked to them, it appeared as if the contours of their individual sleep schedules were just as expansive as the range of music they output. Before our call, Dom Maker had just woken up. Afterwards, Kai Campos headed to bed. This seems fitting for a group whose work has stretched from post-punk to post-dubstep to many points in between. Their metamorphic 2024 effort, The Sunset Violent, introduced Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pell to the mix, and the subsequent touring schedule brought Tyra Ornberg along for the ride. Recordings from their appearance at Germany’s Metropolink Festival last July are out now—an evocative glimpse into their status shift from duo to band. I spoke to three-fifths of the touring lineup about this soul-capturing live record and what it means to them. The Sunset Violent (Live in Heidelberg) is out now on Warp.

Why did you choose Heidelberg as the setting for your live album?

Kai: We were going to pick the best performances of every song, and stick them all together. So we were listening to every recording of every set—there's a lot of them—and really umming and ah-ing about which one to go with. You know, one thing's better on one night, and then another thing's better another night. And we just had this really all-around good vibes show in Heidelberg, and decided to do it another way where we release the recording from one whole night from beginning to end. It was a really good moment for us playing together. It’s just a good vibe, so we decided to go that route instead.

I was gonna ask about that, because lately I've been seeing a lot of what I call Frankenstein's monster live albums, where people select tracks across multiple dates. And I think it’s great, but I really like when you get that snapshot of one moment.

Kai: Yeah. I think it instantly makes more sense, actually, because the sound of different rooms or different places has such a massive impact on what the recording feels like. And if you constantly change that, it kind of takes attention away from the music a little bit. One night allows you to acclimatize to that sound. Releasing just the one performance is a slightly older approach, and I think that seemed cool as well.

You had been on tour for a while by then. Were you feeling road worn? Were you nervous for this festival at all? Or were you comfortable after having so many dates under your belt?

Dom: I think we were pretty comfortable. It was quite a small festival, in a sort of art gallery in an old warehouse. There was an old tank from the World War out in the crowd where we were playing. I mean, Heidelberg’s not that big of a town. So it’s a small sort of community thing. We actually thought that the gig was going to be pretty crap. But it was brilliant. By that point we had played a lot, so I think we were in motion. We were just really good at playing the songs at that point. It was a really deceptive place to play, and actually sounded really good, and people were hyped. As soon as there’s that kind of feeling from the crowd, it’s really easy to play really well. 

Do you have any memory of finishing that set and saying to each other that it felt like a special one?

Dom: Yeah. It was actually the only time in our whole career where we did two encores. We went out, and we did the encore that we normally do, and then we went off again, and the crowd still wanted us to play another song, so we replayed one of the songs from the earlier on in the set. That was a pretty good indication that it was a really good gig. It felt like a really good gig the whole time.

Tyra: It felt like it was going to be so chaotic during the day, and then we played it, and it ended up being just the opposite. It ended up being the best one. It made it feel even better, because the expectation was different.

We're all in different time zones right now. When and where are you guys rehearsing?

Kai: [Heidelberg] was at the end of our summer run. Tyra was new to the band, and we also hadn't played for ages. So we actually did at least two weeks of rehearsals in April of that year. Was it a month? I can’t remember. That kind of gets you to a certain point. And then there’s really no substitution for doing gigs. You learn so much more from a gig than from a week of rehearsals. So we were in the sweet spot where we had rehearsed a few months before, but at that point it was just getting up in the morning every day and playing songs. 

We were really free with it, and it felt like we were playing around. Again, with the size of the gig, it was one of those things where we were just having a laugh onstage, and I think that came across in the performance. The audience played a massive part in that as well, because they were the kind of audience you don’t get that often. One of one of those gigs where you really feel like you share something with the crowd—it’s enough to keep you going, and remind you why you do it for quite a long time afterwards.

Did your opinions ever differ on setlist order?

Dom: We have recordings of each gig, so we were changing the set quite a lot. We wanted to keep it fresh. Sometimes we have differing opinions on it, but most of the time we came to the same idea. 

Kai: They’re pretty minor differences of opinion. The range of music we’ve released over the years means that we've changed the way we play certain songs to fit the band more. We want the sound of the band to be fairly cohesive throughout the set. So some of the older stuff just makes more sense together. And then a lot of the newer stuff makes more sense together. There's just a few minor tweaks. The level of them wouldn't make that much difference to an audience. Obviously, we're super involved in it, so you get obsessed with the fine details.

Do you always agree on arrangements? Did anyone have to fight for a particular choice?

Dom: No, we all get on pretty well, and we have similar taste. So there's not a lot of infighting about stuff like that. There's not many situations where one person is left feeling sad that they didn't get a choice. Most of the time we build up the songs together in rehearsal, and we're not really kind of going off grid ever in a gig. It's always kind of how we've learned to play the songs. There'll be little nuances. We try out stuff, especially recently. We've been building up a new song that we haven't finished yet, and we add in different sounds, and Andrea [Balency-Béarn] might try some different chords, or Marc [Pell] a different fill. But most of the time no one needs to fight to have their idea heard.

Even though the live set is pretty faithful to the album, are you ever forced to improvise?

Dom: Not really. The only time we improvise is when something goes wrong, and we have to talk on the mic. We don't ever improvise.

Kai: This most recent record was such a straight line between the recorded version and how you would play it live. Much more so than the previous work. There's always really detailed stuff that you can't replicate on stage as well as you would in a recording. You try and do it in a different way, which is more about energy of human beings playing together rather than studio trickery, and that's the only difference. Treating the band like a band, and the record like a record, basically.

The vocals on The Sunset Violent are a real highlight for me. They're far less buried than in some of your previous work. Were more people singing the words back?

Dom: Definitely. It's been nice having songs with proper lyrical content, and people have been singing them back. We had it before with “Marilyn,” a song of ours that people really connected with, and it’s nice to have more like that, that get a bit of interaction with the audience. 

Kai: I really look forward to the moment in “Fishbrain” in every set. 

How has the transition been labeling yourselves as a band?

Kai: It’s not hard in any way. We were playing gigs from the minute that we were putting records out, and so it was always the two things going on at once. Where you know. Certainly at the beginning me and Dom were very studio based when it came to the recordings, but the live side of it was always a different approach, and trying to lean into different ideas and strengths. So over the years, those two have just melded a bit more than they were in the past. It’s been a pretty steady change in that way. It wasn't like a struggle or anything like that.

I'm not a gear nerd, but I'm sure there are quite a few reading this. You’ve leaned heavily into rock. What's your favorite piece of equipment to use on stage? 

Tyra: Oh, I don’t have much fancy stuff. 

It doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to be your favorite.

Tyra: I like my bass. It’s a nice bass. I’m good friends with it.

What is it? 

Tyra: It’s a Fender Jaguar. I only got a Jaguar because Kurt Cobain had a Jaguar.

My dog is named after Kurt Cobain.

Tyra: That’s nice. 

Kai: Is it called Kurt Cobain, or just Kurt?

Well, his name is Cobain. We call him Cobie, typically. We only use his full government name when we’re mad at him.

Dom: I like my in-ear system. Actually, my favorite thing that I've got is a little … I don't actually know what the name of the instrument is. What is that called?

Kai: Potentially a vibraslap?

Dom: Yeah, a vibraslap. I use a vibraslap, and I hit it twice in one of our songs, and that's the only time it gets used. It's a really cool wooden instrument. There's a ball on a metal rod, and you hit it, and it hits this little cowbell thing on the bottom. Makes quite a cool sound. It's meant to be like a rattling fishbone thing. I use it during that song “Fishbrain.”

Kai: I don’t know how nerdy to get. I’ll just say the MS-20, which is a synth that I’ve always used on stage. However we change this up, that thing always stays. It’s just a classic.

Do you have an all-time favorite live album?

Kai: I have to say I haven't been a great listener of live albums in general, but there’s this Sam Cooke live album, Live at the Harlem Square Club. It’s incredible. Some people are such performers that it’s difficult to get a studio version as good as the live performance. You can really hear the energy in the room, and just how spectacular he was. 

Tyra: I don't think I have a live album that comes to mind. Got some live live sessions, but no live albums. There’s this one I really like by this Belgian metal band called Brutus. They have a live session of their song “War.” That's really good. It’s cool because the drummer is the lead singer, and there’s so much energy in it.

Dom: Mine’s The Mark, Tom and Travis Show. The Blink-182 live album from 2000. I’ve listened to that shitloads. 

That's not an answer I was expecting, but I love it.

Dom: I think it’s brilliant. 

They’re so great. I love pop-punk because of the pop element. Less so because of the punk element, otherwise I would just listen to punk music. 

Dom: Good point. I loved that sound when I was growing up. It’s probably the only live album I’ve ever really heard or listened to. It was sick. Hopefully there’s a little bit of that energy with our one where you're hearing a record in a slightly different way, because every single song on that live record was altered either massively or slightly. Even the lyrics. And it was just genius the way that it came about.

Kai: I just remembered there’s a good Pulp bootleg on Bandcamp of them playing live before they blew up, at this working men’s club. The songs on that I don't think like ever got released, and they're really really good. It's called Hull '86 Missing Tracks, and it's the best Pulp material.

​​What makes a good live album? Why should people listen to yours?

Kai: Well, we've realized here that none of us are connoisseurs of the live album genre. But I guess, what Dom said, is you hope it presents a different energy of the tracks. There's an element of frustration that you can't tour the record for a year and a half, and then re-record the album, because there's so many things that you learn playing the songs. You have so many things you learn about the songs when you're playing them live with other people. There's some aspects of it that are just infinitely better than the recorded version. And then to get a perfect recording of it that you release as an album is difficult, but I just hope that we’ve got a version of us on a good day doing that and having a nice time doing it. Hopefully that comes across.

Dom: It's cool to have a document of those periods of time, because that whole touring cycle went by in a flash. Because you're so in it, you don't really have a lot of time to kind of sit back and appreciate what we're doing, and the kind of experiences we're having on stage with our friends. A lot of my family and friends don't really know what it sounds like, so now I can direct them to a way of hearing why I'm not with them all the time.

Kai: I think for us it'll get more and more valuable as time passes. The records are one thing, but it's really good to have a document of that side of it, which is such a massive part of it. I think the sound of the band came on leaps and bounds this year. And in no small part to Tyra, joining us and working so hard on it, and all of us working really hard on it. It’s like an extra little celebration of the record and all the work we did on it.