DJ Mag Spain Profile

DJ Mag Spain February 2023

 

It can't be easy to create a timeless anthem of the melodic and progressive music that has marked you for life, take a long hiatus of more than a decade and return with the same humility with which you started. This is the case of The MFA. In their twenties and in college they composed 'The Difference It Makes' published on Border Community in 2004. The rest is history.

The British duo formed by Alastair Douglas and Rhys Evans delivered the first jewel for which they will always be recognized. A production in which your mind simply flies and leaves a track installed in the collective memory of every clubber with a minimum of taste and musical knowledge. When someone plays it, it's impossible not to smile, and it was also remixed by a figure such as Superpitcher. There are still people who can't decide which of the two versions they like better. If you ask me, always the original.

This pairing could not have started their career better with the approval of a more than thriving James Holden who did not hesitate to include the song in that masterpiece of CD-Mixes that is the fifth installment of the Balance series. Then came tracks on labels like EQ, BPitch Control and a return to Border Community in 2009 but really there was never a formal farewell. Absolute nothingness arrived. 

Their blog, with a very basic look, stopped updating since it was where they announced their good news. They never announced a separation. They disappeared from the map, moving away from music and dedicating themselves professionally to something different (one of them got into F1). An authoritative voice such as Nathan Fake (someone very close to Holden's label orbit) said 10 years ago now that he did not expect them to get together again. Man of little faith.

TIME

A global pandemic was the link that brought The Mother-Fucking Allstars back together in the studio (yes, that's the meaning of their stage name). A project that seemed totally exhausted was reborn by surprise in 2021. With a release on the German label Traum Schallplatten titled Orange And Lemons they took up that proggry essence but adapting it to the new times, something more trackless. They had not lost the mojo with a sound that blurs stylistic borders in which melodies are not negotiated. A new beginning from

of humility where producers who were influential in the 00's now claim them as remixers, as is the case of Delone from Madrid —who recently published his remixes with this duo— demonstrating that they are still in shape and with fresh ideas.

This is not just anecdotal, they have opened social networks (with few followers, but of a quality and respect that many DJ influencers would like) and they remain faithful to their blog stuck in a 2007 design where they have recounted their news. One of them is what will be their first album called Lights Out and which will be released next March at their new home: the German label that has rescued them from this semi-oblivion.

It may be a return that nobody asked for but that will make many happy. And they may never reach the transcendence of the work to which they will always be united. But the curiosity for this debut album, which may be too late, is very intense. Because as the saying goes: better late than never. And that can not encourage us more. There is always time.

Sergio Bifeis

Translated from here