“Make the crowd jump”: How Mathame made ‘To Hope’

‘To Hope’ was made in Tulum. How did being there inspire the type of track you made?

We made ‘To Hope’ during our second visit ever to Tulum. It was one of the best weeks we’ve spent there with our friends. We weren’t used to being in such a sunny place during the winter as we came from Europe, so the sun and warmth in Mexico was very inspiring, which reflects in the track. ‘To Hope’ is full of sun and brightness. The smile of the people.

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What equipment did you use and how did that influence the creation of the track?

We actually created ‘To Hope’ in one session that lasted only two-three hours using a laptop with a bunch of plugins. Matteo came up with the idea for the progression and Ame then helped with the arrangement. Matteo retouched the main lead after and Polybrute Arturia was used to make it clear and give it some warmth.

The track was created fully digitally. You’ve called ‘To Hope’ , your own “version of a party track”. What did you mean by this?

‘To Hope’ is the type of track we would personally love to listen to at a party. Any good party is one that involves the crowd jumping and clapping their hands so for us a party track must have a certain energy that can cause a crowd to move in this way. When we first got the idea for ‘To Hope,’ we had the goal of making a warehouse clap their hands so we started thinking about how we could achieve that effect. Matteo actually was inspired by the mainstream bridge in 'We Will Rock You by Queen' and how easy it was to capture the listener with the rhythm.

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How has it been going down on dancefloors?

When we play our tracks for the first time, we are always nervous to see if people like it or not. We first tested it at Afterlife in Tulum, straight from the laptop and we immediately knew it was a special track. We were expecting people to react but that first reaction was really unbelievable. We also remember getting goosebumps playing it in Beirut and NYC. Since then, we’ve been getting amazing reactions everywhere and have seen that our goal of making the crowd jump was achieved.

‘To Hope’ is out now via Astralwerks Records