Dusty desert duo, the Flying Mojito Bros, are back on Ubquity Records with their next collection of cleverly refried tracks. On the week of their release of the Gloria Ann Taylor’s cult cut ‘Be Worthy’, retweeked by the sun scorched duo, we sit down by the campfire with them for a little talk.

WWD: Thanks for taking the time to talk. Where are you this moment and how are you spending you day?

Ben’s on holiday with family, and Jack’s fixing a hole where the rain gets in. And both gearing up for that special road trip that is Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts.

WWD: How long have the Flying Mojito Bros been about?

We met through Ben’s younger brother, who Jack lived with. The short story is that we elected to make music that we wanted to hear but did not yet exist – we both love country rock, classic rock etc as well as disco and house – deciding to fuse the two through Ben’s talent for electronic music production and our shared passion for guitar-based goodness.

WWD: What you guys are doing is really quite unique. How would you describe the Flying Mojito Bros style of reworking?

Thank you, we’re proud of that! We’ve a shared, closely-aligned understanding of whether something sounds ‘FMB’ or not, but it’s not so easy to articulate, even between the two of us. Stylistically, the key magic emanates from Brother Ben’s production fingertips. It might be Balearic-Joshua-Tree-chug, it might be funk-driven, peak-time outlaw house. But there’s always a recognizable sonic DNA that runs through it that makes itself known. Do you hear it?

WWD: Do you both have large physical record collections?

We do, but we’re by no means puritanical vinyl bores. We love record-collecting, its serendipitous finds and the thrill of the chase, for sure. When working on edits, however, our unavoidable preference for sourcing pristine, hi-res versions of the heritage music we seek to manipulate means we always opt for the digital masters where possible. That said, if you check our Country Discotheque (light-touch edits) and Deep Crust (originals) mixtapes, you’ll hear a great many unshazamable vinyl rips.

WWD: Which one of your releases went under the radar that we should check?

Go back to the source! Our first official refrito was of family friends Black Peaches –the bad-ass-est group of supremely accomplished musicians you could hope to have witnessed play at the time. Based in London like us, they fused American boogie with voodoo, funk with fire. Our jaws hit the floor and a couple of DJ support slots for them accelerated FMB into existence sooner than might otherwise have occurred.

WWD: You look to past for a lot of your base material. Who do you think is making great music at the moment?

This of course is just as important to us as the ‘old’ stuff. An incomplete snapshot of right now:

The confidently quiet dedication to ‘slow, sustainable music’ (our view) by the likes of Joe Woodham, Scott Hirsch, Jeffrey Silverstein, Joe Harvey-Whyte, Sylvie and Bobby Lee.

Electronic pioneers like Paramida, Kusht, Osunlade, plus good old Soulwax, the Chemical Brothers, Roisin Murphy and The Orb.
Raw fireballs like Margo Price, Theo Lawrence, Sturgill Simpson and James Alexander Bright.

The never-grows-old privilege of hearing new but unreleased tracks that blow your head off – e.g. recently, Outlaws Yacht Club (watch this space), Blind Yeo (watch this space) and the latest from Mildlife (watch this space).

Music-adoring and tirelessly enthusiastic DJs such as Luke Una, Cosmo Murphy, Miche and lesser-known but equally inspiring friends.

Beyond the geographical musical borders of FMB World? Lunch Money Life, King Gizz and a great new one on Claremont 56 by Ferdi Schuster.

WWD: How did you hook up with Ubiquity Records?

We’ve had a strong relationship for several years now, which continues to grow. We crossed paths thanks to the ever-energetic Enrique there falling on some of our FMB Spotify playlists somehow and getting in touch.

He graciously couriered a care package of Ubiquity releases to us at the time that Rudy Norman had emailed us out the blue about remixing his lost classic Back To The Streets, the stars aligning to the point that that remix was released on Ubiquity.

The label has been immeasurably supportive of everything we’ve done – whether it’s with them or otherwise – and we’re grateful to call them friends.

WWD: Tell us a little about the history of this Gloria Ann Taylor track? How did you stumble across it?

It was a straight-up invitation by Michael and Enrique at Ubiquity to do it, almost three years ago now. They sent us the masters ahead of its release, explaining its conception, and we jumped at the chance. To us she represents stellar talent, an under-appreciated legacy and true grit.

WWD: Tell us a little about your treatment of the record.

Well, the main point on this one for us was there’s ‘only’ Gloria’s vocal and Misha Panfilov’s small amount of extra backing to work with, so we really enjoyed going to town adding layers of additional instrumentation. In terms of direction, even in the later years of her life Gloria’s soulful, gospel-inflected vocal still also sparkled with high-intensity disco glitter, which we chose to accentuate through our own FMB disco prism.

WWD: How do you go about finding the records that you rework? What is your main source of digging?

We never stop looking, is number one. This way, it feels like deep digs sometimes present themselves to us. And, pleasingly, the 1970s / early 80s seam of music we focus on seems unfathomably deep and rich, even after so many years of sourcing from it. It really was a hugely culturally productive period of history. Rule number two is we pay attention – like the old chestnut of following up on backing musician credits from good records, revisiting LPs we thought we’d already picked everything good out from, and always, always noting down and listening to the recommendations of others!

WWD: I see you played at the Dalston Roof Park recently. What might we hope to hear in a FMBs set right now?

As with most FMB sets, you’ll hear almost exclusively tracks that have had our matted furry paws across them. This means remixes of contemporary artists and FMB edits, in addition to pieces that we’re either keeping to ourselves in order to keep FMB DJ sets unique and special – or road-testing works in progress. What’s for sure is, in the words of a good friend, “you’ve never heard FMB until you’ve heard ‘em on a big rig”.

WWD: How is the summer looking for FMB gigs? What you got coming up next few months?

At the time of writing, we’ve Glastonbury, Secret Garden Party and a big end-of-season party at Pikes – but that’s (deliberately) all, because…

WWD: What else are you cooking over the campfire that you can share?

…we’re getting our heads down in our new studio to record fresh material.

WWD: When you are not making too good, dusty, desert disco, how do you two cowboys like kick back?

Country walks, stone pubs, cooking up feasts and talking turkey.