Collaboration between Max Graef and Glenn Astro. Released an album Yard Work Simulator in May 2016.

Max Graef and Glenn Astro are music lovers first and foremost – playing it, making it, digging for it, talking about it – music is their lifeblood. Less concerned with the world of online hype, you could describe their vibe as “old school”. Put them behind the turntables and they’ll smash out a proper 100% vinyl back-to-back set skipping between jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul and disco – the heart and the backbone of their sound – and have the whole room freaking out to Polish jazz-funk oddities.

It’s this commitment to the art and culture of DJing that has earned them props from Resident Advisor, Boiler Room and the worldwide underground at large. Lock them in the studio together and it’s the swing that grabs you when one of their productions stumbles and nearly trips out of the speakers. The duo revel in the exploration of the space in between beats, and the resulting loose-knit, roly-poly grooves that they coax from the MPC nestle comfortably amidst the deep-dug vinyl treasures that populate their DJ sets. Let’s be clear though, we’re not talking about simple reverence to the warmth and dynamics of classic records, and we’re definitely not talking about straightforward sampling (which is by far the easiest way to imbue vintage character into your productions). Max and Glenn’s approach to the making of The Yard Work Simulator was atypical.

“We wanted to make a dance record without the obvious components,” explains Max Graef. “It was kind of a concept album where the tracklisting existed before we produced any music. We had a list of directions and sounds for each track name and we worked through track by track. Most of the sounds and instruments are recorded and not sampled. We worked out the harmonies, themes and chord progressions very carefully.” Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.