London-based duo Anna Stubbs and Robin Mullarkey are Brotherly. These two highly accomplished professional musicians clearly understand their trade by emphasizing the passion they feel for their music par excellence. Crafting both melody and lyrics, Stubbs lays her soulful voice over Mullarkey's tight arrangements of rhythmical intricacy and rich harmonies, making their vibrant, eclectic productions glisten with elegance and sophistication.

The 2007 debut album One Sweet Life has been receiving rave reviews while their gigs and project collaborations with renowned musicians of the London scene are tremendously successful too. Their latest single "Spin Down", released on iTunes in March this year, forecasts, without a doubt, the upcoming album to be a massive success.

Steinberg had the chance to speak to Robin Mullarkey who produces Brotherly music using Cubase.

How did you and Anna get together and form Brotherly?
We met a few years later at Leeds College of Music studying jazz. Anna had a few incarnations of a band that started out playing soul-funk classics (very big in Leeds!) and later took in contemporary dance music. We once toured the UK with a live band, with a string quartet playing original drum’n’bass and garage tunes. Fun times! Now living in London, we took great inspiration from the broken beat scene which seemed really exciting, as we could channel all our jazz expertise into something relevant and danceable. We would go out and hear Dego or IG Culture and just come home full of ideas for tracks. So that was when we decided to reset and form Brotherly. It was a great scene and very open minded at the time, although we're now shifting away from that world a little.

Tell us how this eclectic music style of yours comes about?
We love the same music, and it's quite diverse! Anna's background was very jazz-funk and house, while mine was more rock and fusion. These days we'll happily listen to Flying Lotus, Joni Mitchell, Can, Pepe Bradock, Fleet Foxes, Slum Village, Gorecki and Raymond Scott in the same day — anything really, except idiot Brit-band syndrome and gangsta hip hop. The iPod shuffle on the motorway can be a bit intense though.

There's obviously an electronic touch to your style of music. What are your influences?
To be honest, it's funny that you hone in on the electronic element because our music is really based around vocals guitars and keys, but I guess in the production, an electronic element is drawn out. I often use an MPC or Battery 3 for the beats and now I'm starting to use Groove Agent in Cubase 5 as it's very convenient to drag sounds straight from the media browser onto the pads. The other synthy sounds are often added later, although they're beginning to become a more important ingredient. When I'm producing for other artists, such as Mozez or Natalie Williams, it can turn out more electronic and produced, but with Brotherly we try to keep things a bit more organic. That said, I am planning to begin a new project later in the year which will be a more glitchy/deep-house affair.

You also get involved with many other projects the likes of Zero 7 and Roisin Murphy. How did you hook up with these artists?
I was really lucky to audition for Zero 7 due to a recommendation by mutual friend Demus. I had been playing double bass in his group Two Banks of Four. Zero 7 had a great effect on my bass playing style and opened my ears to a lot of music. I credit them with reversing any muso snobbery I previously had!

Later, I had been working with Roisin's producer, Seiji, on the Bugz in the Attic LP and also with her MD Eddie Stevens when the role of bass/keys came up in her band, so I was happy to get involved. We just finished an 18-month tour.

On the Ty European tour I had to get into a different frame of mind since the band was much smaller and we wanted to maintain the hip-hop aesthetic but also keep it interesting sonically, because 90 minutes of hip hop with bass piano and drums is not easy to sustain. I used my MacBook for synth bass on that tour, with Cubase as the host for the Arturia Moog Modular. At times I would be playing the synth and picked guitar lines on my bass, simultaneously. It was a grueling tour but we were playing great by the end of it.

Back to Brotherly, how do you and Anna make music together?
It's a long process. I will often stick down a musical idea, and let it ferment on my hard drive for a year before I know whether it's worth keeping. I always try to have something interesting or unique as a starting point, whether it be from a bass part or guitars, keys, or the beat. Often I might employ some strange rhythmic or harmonic pattern, but it's not important for me whether the listener picks up on this as long as it stands out as something colorful and unfamiliar. Then I'll work on it for a few months until I have a rough form that Anna can write on. In contrast, she can write the whole melody and lyrics in an evening and it always makes sense and brings a soulful, human touch to the music. I'll do a bit more refining, get some friends in to replace crucial guitar/drums/BVs parts and then we record the lead vocals last. For the upcoming record, I mixed the tracks at Flowriders Studio in Amsterdam using Cubase and an SSL 4056 G+ desk.

Why Cubase? And how do you like using Cubase 5?
I've used Cubase and watched it develop for 20 years, and I really feel at home with it. I have used most other sequencers, but always find that I miss the features of Cubase and the ease of use. I also find it, ironically, a lot more logical! I just upgraded to Cubase 5 and am still catching up on all the new features. I plan to get stuck into the scoring aspect soon, as I have been using Sibelius for in a recent job for the Don't Forget The Lyrics TV show, and also for scoring strings and horns for various projects, but it would be much more practical from within my sequencer. I'll let you know how I get on.