Inside Track: Space Primates

Space Primates are Marc Sibley (left) and Nathan Cunningham.

British duo Space Primates have pivoted from wannabe session guitarists to top‑tier K‑pop producers, with impressive results!

Having enrolled at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London with the aim of becoming session guitarists, Marc Sibley and Nathan Cunningham realised “that well was drying up”. So, after graduating in 2013, they decided instead to form a production duo, and shut themselves away to learn the trade.

“A few things aligned at that time, including working on music at Nathan’s parents’ farm, which was pretty isolated so there weren’t as many outside distractions,” recalls Sibley. “During three months of intense work, we improved exponentially to where we felt we produced great music and had a competitive skill set. Something clicked in the quality of our work. Before that we had reached out to tons of people, and there was no response. When we reached out after those three months, most people got back to us.”

“It was a matter of putting in the hours,” adds Cunningham. “Initially, we spent a good amount of time copying tracks. I think the first thing Marc and I ever did together was copy Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’. We studied many of the instrumentals on the website Hipstrumentals and tried to replicate them, and then made things that were just different enough so we could use them, but that were heavily inspired. Sound On Sound also was a massive resource for us, and still is, actually. In 2014, we got to the next stage, which was being original. We found our own sound.”

When Space Primates sent out their new, original tracks, one was heard by rapper LunchMoney Lewis, who was signed to Dr Luke’s publishing company Prescription Songs. Before Sibley and Cunningham knew it, they were in Dr Luke’s studio in LA, working with the famous producer and LunchMoney. Space Primates had sampled the Dazz Band song ‘Let It Whip’. The resulting track, LunchMoney Lewis’ second single ‘Whip It!’, became a hit in Australia and Germany, and Space Primates signed to Prescription. “That song kick‑started everything,” recalls Cunningham, “and allowed us to move to Los Angeles.”

Pulling Strings

Since then, Space Primates have worked with artists across a wide range of genres, such as Flo Rida, the Vamps, David Guetta, Seeb, Jonas Brothers, Enrique Iglesias, Dvbbs, Alesso and Katy Perry. A significant number of K‑pop acts have been among them, including Red Velvet, Kai, Taeyeon, Monsta X, Enhyphen, and Stray Kids, who recently topped the US album charts with the mixtape Do It, the title track of which was co‑written and co‑produced by Space Primates.

“I’d say about 50 percent of our songs start on guitar,” says Cunningham, “even if they may not have a guitar in them at the end. Having studied guitar at college definitely helped us. Being good at an instrument has always given us an edge over the average beatmaker, because your ears are more developed in a way that you don’t get if you don’t play an instrument.”

“Naturally, because we grew up playing guitar, we’re comfortable with that, and many ideas come from noodling around on guitars,” continues Sibley. “The results are not necessarily better or worse, but we often arrive at different places. Apart from when we’re playing guitars, everything is in the box. The most unused pieces of gear in our studio are our Roland Jupiter and Moog synths!”

Effects pedals have an important role to play in Space Primates’ writing and production.

When Cunningham and Sibley are creating tracks at their studio, in addition to noodling on guitars, “ideas can come from all sorts of places”, according to the latter. “We may be playing a keyboard, or pull up something cool from Splice or a sample pack, like a random loop that we chop up that may become the start of a drum beat or a melody. Or we program drums completely from scratch. Or we start from a soft synth patch. It might be from Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Xfer Serum 2, the Synapse Audio The Legend or Dune, or something from Native Instruments Kontakt, or samples we’ve harvested online or from previous sessions.”

Look East

Over the last two years, Space Primates have been increasingly involved in K‑pop, culminating in the number one success of the Stray Kids’ Do It mix tape. Cunningham: “The first K‑pop thing we did was a track [‘Carpool’] for Red Velvet in 2019. Our K‑pop career developed from there. K‑pop is highly collaborative, and works with many international writers and producers. K‑pop operates with a different system, more comparable to Pop Idol, American Idol, where labels search for top talent who are great dancers and singers, but not necessarily songwriters. Their schedules also are incredibly intense, and, other than Stray Kids, most of them don’t necessarily have time to even think about writing music. So K‑pop is always looking for pitches.”

Sibley adds: “Meanwhile, pitch music has really shrunk over the 10 years we’ve been in the US. To get placements with artists in the US, you usually need to be in the room with them, and when you are, they tend to be allergic to you presenting full ideas. They want to express themselves, so playing them a finished song usually doesn’t go down well, unless you’ve got a really good rapport with them. At the same time, we make sure to always have some tracks with us, just in case, because there are sessions, particularly when the ideas that are developed from scratch haven’t quite clicked, when an artist asks, ‘Play us some of your tracks.’ You need to be prepared.

“K‑pop acts also are always looking for songs because they tend to release two mini albums...