The Blue Mountains duo gear up for January's Falls Festival.
If any act were made to play Falls Festival, it would be Hermitude. Producers Luke Dubs and Elgusto are masters of the gut-dropping break and razor sharp synth line and have collaborated with DJ heavyweights including Flume and DJ Krush. Their last album 'HyperParadise' was awarded the Australian Music Prize for its “meticulousness in production and musicianship”. Team that with three iconic festival slots across the country and you've got a match made in musical heaven.
“Falls Festival is the one festival you want to play as an act in Australia,” says Elgusto. “It works hand-in-hand with our sound because 'HyperParadise' includes a lot of songs that work on a bigger stage. It took awhile for us to really hone the show in and get a good festival set together but it's allowed us to flourish onstage and nowadays our sets are really fun. Basically we try to perform the electronic music that we make live onstage with synthesizers, samplers and turntables.”
Despite Hermitude's floor-filling sound, the duo are equally comfortable rocking a tiny club show. They recently returned from playing a series of intimate gigs as part of the CMJ Conference in New York. “I think we do well at big festivals but we also definitely enjoy a smaller show, you get to do more intimate numbers. New York was fantastic, we were playing in really small clubs over there and it was very much a get-in-and-go kind of atmosphere. It was a lot of fun.”
Elgusto and Dubs began collaborating under the Hermitude moniker in 2001 after performing together in funk bands during their teens. Two years later they released their debut, 'Alleys To Valleys', following it up with 'Tales Of The Drift' and a string of support slots for Dizzee Rascal. But it was 2011's hit summer single, 'Speak Of The Devil' that established Hermitude as one of Australia's most innovative production duos and landed them a Music Video of the Year Award from Triple J. The success of the single also introduced their music to fans across the globe.
“American audiences were really into it, it was really cool. People were making a lot of noise and getting down and dancing. There seems to be a real awareness of Australian music over in New York.”
Despite their jet-setting tenancies, Hermitude remain faithful to their native Blue Mountains home and will return next week to play a benefit gig for residents affected by the recent bush fires. “The Mountains has had an active music scene for a number of years. It's a small scene up there because the population isn't as big as a city but there's a lot of good support from local people and fans. There's not a lot else to do up there so you turn to making art or music!”
As well as touring and co-producing fellow Elefant Traks signee Urthboy's album (“He's like a family member so it was great working with him,” says Elgusto), the duo found time to start work on their fifth record and hope for a release date in mid 2014. “We're probably about halfway through working on the next record. By now we've actually got quite a few tracks going on but we need another bunch of songs to really break the back of the record.”
In a departure from their usual focus on instrumental tracks, the pair haven't ruled out the possibility of including vocal tracks on their upcoming album. “We're basically just keeping an open mind to anything and writing the songs how they want to be written. When we're at the end of the writing period and have a whole bunch of songs, we'll choose the ones that fit together as an album. We're not ruling anything out, we've actually been experimenting with our own vocals, just singing weird lines then pitching them up and down. It's been a lot of fun!”
Despite the success of 'HyperParadise', Elgusto is keen for Hermitude not to rest on their laurels.
“We don't ever really want to repeat ourselves with records. I always feel like we're evolving as artists and producers, I'm learning new things with every record and I don't think I'll ever be a master until the day I die! This record is going to be an evolution and another step on from where we were at with 'HyperParadise'. We learnt things with that album by going out and playing it live and finding out which songs work live and which songs are better with headphones on a rainy day. I guess you just take all that and then go off into the studio.”
Written by Phoebe Hurst
Hermitude play Falls Festival Byron Bay from Dec 31 – Jan 3.
