The year starts with massive upheaval: dodgy politics, uncontested price hikes, scary weather and reports of a badly-compromised scene in what was apparently a once-flourishing antipodean D&B capital. If it’s time to stand back and reflect, then what perfect way to go in than with the aptly-named – and controversial – State of Mind, replete with their completely unambiguous cover art of a reptilian gent in a suit, giving you a visual cue: they mean business.
‘Mr Cover Up’. I detect a story here.
Ah ok well there is a bit of a story behind that. Basically it’s all about the ‘Kim Dotcom’ affair. Our Prime Minister was caught out and he tried to cover up it up.
Sounds big.
It was all through the papers at the time we were making the tune, so we called it ‘the Cover Up’. When we sent it to Pera the vocalist, he decided it would be cool to add a persona so it became ‘Mr Cover Up’.
Overall is it a recent one? It’s part of an album project?
I guess the track itself is about a year old for us. It’s part of our new album project that we have going down with Dutch label Blackout. There are about 25 tracks that have been considered for the album, and we will be releasing maybe 14 or 15 of them.
They must be roadtested, these tunes?
Sure. How they sound live is a massive part of this album. Our last album, Nil By Ear, we focused on making an album that was good to listen to at home or in the car or whatever, but the problem was that we found that we didn’t play much of it live. So for this new project we thought OK, we want almost every tune to be playable out.
You mention the previous release, and you’ve released on what would be a ‘dream whos-who’ of D&B labels ranging from 31 to CIA, so do you feel you progress with each release, do you change?
Our sound is harder now, certainly this new album might surprise a few people.
I don’t think change is something you do on purpose. I mean we just make tunes. For a while there people would always complain our stuff should sound like the stuff we released right at the start of our careers. Thankfully that seems to have stopped recently.
What about D&B in general: is it a different beast now, than ‘then’?
If you are talking about the D&B culture, it depends where you are. In Europe, right now D&B is the best it’s ever been in my opinion. It’s a post-dubstep world.
Contentious.
I think people like the fact that D&B didn’t change and try to emulate the brash over the top chainsaw dubstep sounds like some types of house and glitch did. It stayed pure.
On the other hand the scene is a disgrace here in NZ. It’s virtually on it’s knees now where once it was the envy of the world.
OK. I hear you have a nocturnal secret?
Once I locked myself out of my hotel room naked by sleep walking at 10am. I woke up in the elevator. Had to go to reception to get a new key. That caused a bit of a scene.
You guys are very thought provoking, so who are five heroes of the music, that deliver, inspire, mystify, incite and intimidate?
1. Bob Moog. Without him and his inventions electronic music would be a very different place.
2. Dave Grohl. Is there anything that dude is involved in that isnt a success??
3. Trent Reznor. One of both mine and Pat’s favorite artists.
4. Pete Burns. A reminder what not to end up like after a music career.
5. Rick Rubin. The man.
So what’s 2014 all about, to you?
Release an album. Conquer the world. The usual stuff!
