“This has been a healing album to make,” Chris Davids tells Apple Music. “It’s a collection of hopeful music made from a dark place.” For Davids and Liam Ivory, the British production duo better known as Maribou State, the road leading to their third album, Hallucinating Love, has indeed been a dark and tricky one. First coming to prominence with the emotive melodies and electronic warmth of 2015’s debut album Portraits, the duo went on to make their trademark a distinct blend of soulful vocals and dance-floor-filling songwriting. Yet, in 2021, following a triumphant European tour for second album Kingdoms in Colour, Davids’ physical health began to decline, culminating in a serious operation for a rare brain condition in 2023. As he awaited his procedure and during his recovery, Hallucinating Love took shape, resulting in 10 tracks of resolute optimism that traverse everything from the swelling strings melody of opener “Blackoak” to the cabin folk stylings of “Peace Talk” and the driving electronic drum groove of “Eko’s”. “The experience of making the record was one of overcoming hopelessness,” Ivory says. “The music projects a brighter future.” Read on for Maribou State’s in-depth thoughts on the album, track by track. “Blackoak” Chris Davids: “This is one of the first tracks we finished for the record and it became a benchmark for what we wanted the rest of the album to be. It began when we went on a writing retreat to Somerset and decided to make demos in two hours only, so we wouldn’t overthink the process. One day, we came up with this idea on a little Casio with our bassist Jonjo Williams, we sampled an Andreya Triana vocal that we loved and had the form of the track really quickly.” Liam Ivory: “We wrote it in a day and then it took something like a year and 25 demos to finish! Andreya thankfully tweaked and changed some of the vocals on a later session and then it was perfect.” “Otherside” (with Holly Walker) LI: “We came up with this idea on the same day as ‘Blackoak’. We made a basic loop that we loved and then struggled to find a vocal that would work with it. Initially, it was a pop vocal sample as the hook but when we revisited the idea two years later on another writing trip, we took a vocal that the incredible singer Holly Walker had laid down for a song that didn’t make the cut on Kingdoms in Colour and that seemed to fit much better.” CD: “Two weeks before we had to hand the album in, I reworked the take of that vocal with Holly and then it all came together. It’s a beautiful last-minute addition.” “II Remember” CD: “When we were coming up with ideas for the album, we recorded lots of drum breaks on to tape with our drummer, and one of them became the basis for this track. A month later, I found a vocal sample that sat perfectly over the beat and that’s also when the middle eight came to me, which is actually just the reversed string part from ‘Peace Talk’—a track that comes later in the album.” LI: “The finishing touches came from some field recordings we made while walking around our local area in Walthamstow. You can hear someone talking from the market there before the middle eight comes in.” “All I Need” LI: “Another thing we did at the start of the album is a ‘sound harvest’, where we went into the studio and recorded as many experimental and unique sounds we could to add texture to future tracks. One of the sounds we recorded was an Omnichord, and it formed the basis for ‘All I Need’. Initially, we paired the track with the same Andreya Triana vocal sample from ‘Blackoak’ until we recorded with Andreya the following year and she laid down this perfect new part.” “Dance on the World” (with North Downs) LI: “This is the ultimate Frankenstein tune on the record! It spans the entire three years that we were working on the album, since it started on our first writing trip to Somerset as a piano-led bluesy track, then we took it to New York and it became a track that ended up feeling really out of place with our sound, so we admitted defeat. Later, though, we discovered another demo Chris had made that was more electronic and along the lines of a track like ‘Turnmills’ from our second record. Ultimately, we mashed them up together, rewrote the vocals and it all came together.” “Bloom” (with Gaidaa) CD: “We had a vocal session with the amazing singer Gaidaa in Amsterdam, and I chopped up one of the tracks we came up with to form the vocal melody for ‘Bloom’. We were unsure if it should go on the record, though, until the end of the writing process when we scrapped quite a few tracks last minute and this idea resurfaced. We went back into the studio, rerecorded the parts and suddenly it was working really well.” “Peace Talk” (with Holly Walker) CD: “This first came from an idea that didn’t make it on to Kingdoms in Colour but that we always had an affinity for. We sent it to Holly Walker, and she put down the first vocal idea that came up and me and Liam loved it. It’s one of our favourite tracks she’s done with us. The incredible strings arranger Matt Kelly then recorded the strings parts and we fleshed out the end of the song with an experimental Aphex Twin synth part on the Moog Matriarch. We both really love the track because it merges lots of our favourite genres like folk, electronics and heavy distorted guitar. It feels like the most original or accomplished track on the album.” “Passing Clouds” LI: “In the studio, while we waited to get set up in the live room, we played around on a Hammond B3 and piano and really liked what we spontaneously came up with. We then went on to make versions where we built the track up, or we left it as a quiet interlude, but finally we decided to go for something in between. It’s a moment to breathe on the record and the only idea on it that we played fully live and together.” “Eko’s” CD: “This was probably the first thing we wrote for the album back in 2020. We had just gotten some new bits of kit like a drum machine and laid down this idea, but then we didn’t work on it for three years until we started finishing the album and our drummer recorded the final drum part. It’s the first track I’ve ever sung on that we have used on a project.” LI: “Before ‘Blackoak’ this was the benchmark for the album, since as a demo it felt so forward-thinking and fresh compared to Kingdoms in Colour. It still stands out on the album.” “Rolling Stone” CD: “We began ‘Rolling Stone’ at the end of 2021 and it was completely different. It was fast-paced, like a lo-fi IDM, Burial-type track with vocals and when I showed it to Liam he was sure it should be the last track on the album. We hit a brick wall when it came to finishing it, though, until we worked with the producer North Downs and he said it felt much more like a tune for sitting around the campfire. As soon as he said that it made total sense, so we went away and slowed it down, put new drums on and got a choir of 20 of our friends involved to give it that campfire feel. It creates a lovely energy to end the album on.”