James Mapley-Brittle (GRRL) and Nick Sanborn (Made of Oak) make very different music but often end up playing the same parties, thanks to the eclecticism of the North Carolina dance scene. GRRL is a longtime NTS radio resident and true tastemaker of online underground dance music, while Sanborn is an electropop savant, best known as the instrumentalist half of legendary band Sylvan Esso and his solo work as Made of Oak.

Realizing their shared obsession with peak-hour club music, the two began to get together to jam and find a creative chemistry; it didn’t take long for the shared language to emerge, resulting in the jolt of energy that became Inertia, the duo’s new collaborative EP. 

From the Inertia sessions came a massive library of analog recordings, their favorite moments of which became polished into CONFIGURATION. Nick’s expertise around modular synth design and James’ mastery of club grooves spawned an eclectic toolset of crunchy kicks, electrical zaps, analog imperfections, and danceable drum patterns.

“Our collaboration is more about capturing that raw, spur-of-the-moment energy and less about making the cleanest, most-perfecting-sounding thing possible. Noise is good,” GRRL says, discussing the pack at Betty’s studio in Chapel Hill. “Music is all about configurations. Configurations of kick drums, hi hats, notes, etc. so for this pack we wanted to make some stuff that felt kind of weird and fun, but also immediately usable. It’s like a construction kit for bangers.”