Five minutes with Kalabash — the dance project inspired by animals and aliens

Comprising mates Aramis Gorriette, Alby Daniels and Joe Caple, Kalabash has been creating tunes since 2024. Their sound, in their own words, sits somewhere between “the alien and the familiar”. Their demographic? “Weird animals that dance”. In human terms, that probably means that if you’re into rave culture and letting loose, Kalabash could be a bit of you. 

As for their sound — it’s characterised by “hypnotic rhythms” and is as “eccentric” as the way the guys speak. And, having just dropped their latest single with Jelani Blackman — whose work includes collabs with industry big dogs like Kneecap and Gorillaz — the trio could be on their way to skyrocketing (like those aliens) into space.

How did you guys come together?

We met at music college in Brighton around 2010, jamming and playing in various bands together. Alby and Aramis were running a jazz jam night at The Fiddler in North London that had to stop in 2020 due to you-know-what. Bored and full of pent-up creativity, we bought a couple Elektron boxes and started making weird dance music. A few years later, Joe moved up to London, bringing his technical wizardry and strong vibes, and two became three.

How would you describe your sound? Who are your influences?

Our sound is a celebration of dance music and rave culture, as well as an anxious and curious eye to the future and the unknown — or something like that. While we have some wildly different tastes — Alby loves Kurt Elling and Yebba, Joe is in love with Bon Iver and Ari Aster soundtracks, Aramis has quite the thing for D’angelo and Jai Paul —  we share a lot of common ground in our love for Sick Beats™ from producers such as Jon Hopkins, Joy Orbison, Blawan, Floating Points and Actress. All three of us were heavily influenced by Flying Lotus during those early years of getting into music production and sound design.

Where are you on your music journey these days?

We’re currently trying to write as much music as possible. Our Soundcloud is a treasure trove of private demos right now — currently 143 patiently hiding away. We’re still in the process of discovering more deeply what the Kalabash sound and philosophy is, and enjoying the freedom to be able to take it wherever we feel like, without boundaries or expectations.

You recently dropped “Decompress” / “Concrete” after you released your first single in 2023. What direction does it mark for you as a group?

Joe joined the project at the start of 2024, and since then we’ve been refining our workflow together, finding where our Venn diagrams overlap, and creating a sound that is more focussed and minimal than our first release.

The song got played on BBC Radio 6. Congrats! Was that fun for you to hear?

We love Tom Ravenscroft, he’s the guy. Hearing our track on 6 Music for the first time was exciting and affirming.

What kind of message or vibe do you want to put out through your music?

We are advocates of freedom of expression — the freedom to be yourself, to be the weird, cute animal that you are.

You have a really unique aesthetic. How does that reflect who you are as a music act?

We love experimental and strange art and films, and that has naturally bled into what we do. We’ve been collaborating with artist and filmmaker (and best bud) Matt Hass across various creative projects for years. He’s been fully involved since the start, scheming with us about educational videos sent back from the future by aliens to save us from the AI overlords over pints and Japanese food in Seven Sisters. He has created all of our artwork, press shots and collab’d on our first music video. Like Matt, we’re interested in the tension and beauty that lies between the alien and the familiar.

You’ve just dropped “Major” with Jelani Blackman — fun! How was it working with him?

Aramis has known him for years and they randomly bumped into each in summer ‘24, and Jelani was in the studio with us about a month later. Jelani is a beast — he wrote the bars in the session and nailed it on the first take. We then went downstairs below our studio and blasted the demo on the Pickle Factory sound system. Joe and Alby used to be sound engineers there. The track sounded decent. We got a little too excited. Core memories may have been formed. Jelani is a very warm, vibey guy and was a joy to work with.

What can we expect from the track? Hype it up for us!

Jelani’s is spitting a self-aware love letter to grime over off-kilter broken beats, in between cinematic interludes you heard in a dream when you fell asleep in front of the telly that one time as a kid.

The song is from Decompression Tapes Vol.1. What can you tell us about the record?

The mixtape is inspired by transcendental experiences at festivals and on club dancefloors — times when we’ve fully disappeared into music blasting out of sound systems. It is an eclectic mix of tracks focused on percussion, groove and expressive sound design, with an aim to help you feel a little looser.

What else have you got coming up? Any new shows or festival slots?

We’ve started a DJ mix series called Bash FM, a platform for weird animals that dance. It’s a place where we’ll be collaborating with visual artists, live performers and other DJs, and it’s available on YouTube and SoundCloud. We’ll also be DJing on Reprezent Radio 6-8pm on 18 April, and Rinse France 8-9pm GMT on 30 April. Upcoming B3B DJ gigs around London are to be announced very soon. A multimedia live show is also currently in the works, and will be appearing at festivals in summer 2026.