Twin DJs and producers Matt and Chris Drake, aka MC4D, unveil their debut album ‘COMPASS,’ a genre-defying blend of Folk, Indie, and electronic music forged on the road and in the studio. Electro Wow sat down with the pair to unpack the creative journey behind one of the year’s most ambitious debuts.
1. You’ve been making music together since you were kids. Does being twins actually change how you work creatively, or is that just a cool story people like to tell?
It’s definitely had a big impact on our creative process! We’ve always been super close, both in supporting each other and in competing with one another. The built-in competitiveness of being twins certainly pushes us to be the best we can be, and when it comes to making music, we’ll never let each other settle for an ‘ok’ idea when we know we can make something great.
We’re never afraid to give each other honest feedback or tough love, and that’s gone a long way in making us better artists.
2. When you first started your debut album, what did you think it was going to be, and what did it actually turn into?
When we started the album, we thought it would largely pull inspiration from artists like Avicii, Kygo, Matoma, and Gryffin that originally got us hooked on EDM. There are certainly a lot of those elements in the album, but we ended up incorporating a much more diverse range of influences from the Indie and Folk artists we love at the moment (Noah Kahan, Smith & Thell, Michael Marcagi, to name a few).
In songs like “Be Here With Me Now,” “Still Got Time,” and “Feel Alive,” we think those influences really come through and give the album a lot more range and diversity.
3. Why did you call it ‘COMPASS’? Is it about direction, finding your sound, or something else entirely?
It’s a bit of all of those! We’ve been a very active and outdoorsy family since we were young, and we’ve always wanted to find a way to incorporate that love for nature and the outdoors in our brand and music. We decided to drive, hike, and film through dozens of state and national parks to promote the album, and we wanted the album to truly feel like the perfect upbeat soundtrack and guide to the summer road trips and beautiful settings we encountered.
In that sense, the goal was for the album to act as a sort of ‘compass’, and hence the name was born.
4. What does your production setup actually look like? Are you both in the same session, or do you each bring separate pieces?
Other than when we’re in writing sessions with other artists, we rarely work on a song at the same time together. We each have our own studio setups, and we’ll constantly send ideas back and forth, iterating on the last pass the other one has done.
We got used to working this way when we went to different colleges, and it’s stuck with us ever since. If one of us gets stuck, the other one will come in with fresh ears and find a new direction to take the song.
5. Folk and EDM feel like they’re from two different worlds. What was the secret to getting those two styles to play nice together?
The biggest thing for us is to let the songwriting and acoustic elements shine through as the focal elements of the song. Almost every song on the album heavily features acoustic guitar and piano, which stems from the fact that most of the songs started from stripped, acoustic ideas.
While we wanted each song to have a fun, high-energy drop and to let the electronic elements come through there, we made sure not to ‘overproduce’ the verses and choruses and to let the Folk-inspired songwriting shine.
6. You’ve worked with Aloe Blacc, Sam Feldt, and Walk Off The Earth, among others. How did you decide which collaborators actually belonged on this project?
We were so lucky to work with over a dozen artists that we’ve looked up to and whose music we’ve listened to since we first started producing. Artists like Aloe Blacc, Walk Off the Earth, and Dustin Lynch we’ve listened to since high school, and it’s been such a full circle experience to get to know and work with them.
We truly just wanted to collaborate with artists whose music we love, regardless of their genre, which in turn gave the album a unique and diverse feel.
7. Which song on this album took the longest to finish, and what did you have to let go of to get there?
In terms of the number of versions and the amount of time spent on the song, “Save You The Trouble” with gavn! was definitely the most intensive. gavn!’s vocals are so powerful on the song, and we wanted to ensure the production did his delivery justice.
We went through dozens (if not hundreds) of concepts, structures, and melody ideas, to the point where we were overproducing the song and adding too many elements. We finally stripped it back more to really let his vocal be the focal point of the song, and we all loved how it turned out in the end.
8. You played 150 shows while making the record. Where did the real work on your debut album actually happen?
It was certainly a crazy last couple of years, and we got our first introduction to the hecticness of building an album while heavily touring. While we took advantage of all the studio time at home we could get, we probably spent just as much time finishing these songs on airplanes and in hotel rooms as we did at home.
At times, we even whipped out a cheap USB mic and recorded ideas in hotel rooms, some of which are still on the album. It taught us not to be too precious when it comes to how we make music, and that we don’t need to be in the perfect conditions and setup to make art that we’re really proud of.
9. Is Folktronica the best way to describe what you’re doing on this material, or would you call it something else?
If there was one label to best describe the songs on ‘COMPASS,’ Folktronica would probably be the most comprehensive given the album’s heavy Indie-Folk influence, but we hesitate to define our project under one singular term.
We know we are going to keep evolving our sound based on our experiences and influences around us, and looking forward to post-album, we have plenty of new songs we’re excited about that push the boundaries and genres that we’ve crossed into before.
10. What’s the one thing you want to have achieved by the end of 2026 that you haven’t done yet?
We’re working to build out more of a ‘live’ set that we would love to have ready and completed by the end of the year. Matt lives drums on an electronic drum pad for the entirety of our set, but given how heavily our music relies on acoustic instrumentation, we want to incorporate live piano, guitar, etc., while still keeping the same high-energy electronic feel that our club sets have.
We think this would create such a dynamic and unique EDM show that quite literally nobody else is doing, and we can’t wait for audiences to hopefully hear it soon.
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Hi, I’m Erick Ycaza — a music blogger with a BA in Advertising & Graphic Design. I created this blog to keep you updated with daily music news. Surprisingly, I’ve been writing about music since 2007. If you’re an artist and would like to be featured, feel free to reach out: info@electrowow.net
