Midflite – Liquid Lullabies [album] (ft. Moka Only)
Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, instrumental hip hop producer Benjimin Maunder travels the space ways under the name of Midflite.
An active member of the collective Torchlight Commission founded by Moka Only, Midflite has just completed his debut album Liquid Lullabies after collaborations with hip hop luminaries such as Guilty Simpson, Magestik Legend, Frank Nitt, SelfSays and Illa J.
Legendary beat makers and producers J Dilla and Pete Rock and the left-field experimental hip-hop of Flying Lotus were seminal influences on Midflite when he began making music in 2008. His subsequent journey through dusty crates in record shops exposed him to a world of influences: from the avant-garde and spiritual jazz of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra, through to the synth-laden funk of Prince and Herbie Hancock, and the steady grooves of Shuggie Otis and Lonnie Liston Smith.
Midflite’s initial boom bap beats gradually evolved into a more complex production synthesis and his own unique brand of electronic synth jazz. His sound is driven by sampled drums programmed on an MPC and combines fender rhodes, vintage synthesizers and percussive instruments with the occasional vinyl sample. Not classically trained in any instrument, Midflite taught himself to play keys by ear and is progressively expanding his technique and theoretical base with the assistance of his coterie of talented friends and musicians.
