700 Feel

‘The biggest challenge was working and directing other people to get the different sounds we wanted. We’re both not classically trained so communicating what we wanted was difficult at times and it made us realise how much room for improvement there is for us in that area of production. ’

We're having meetings with people, such as David Whitehead from Roland, curator Campbell Bickerstaff and Astral People to organise equipment loans and/or general support. We’re learning how to be more productive with the time we have there. Also we chatted to Astral People about this project we are releasing and getting their advice and help with marketing and planning an event for it.

We finally set up the whole studio properly. We started working on an idea for a physical mixtape release with a friend of ours and got him in to record his vocals.

During the month we met with Powerhouse curator Campbell Bickerstaff to facilitate access to instruments from the Powerhouse Collection. Campbell also organised an introduction with Roland Australia to explore making Roland instruments available during the residency from Roland’s headquarters in Dee Why.

We also were able to record the archival instruments that Powerhouse has in storage. We spent a whole day recording vintage Rhodes and Wurlitzer, as well as, a hurdy-gurdy, a harp, a portative organ and various percussion instruments.

We figured out a trick that essentially involves running a feedback signal from a microphone into a vocoder to create interesting melodic feedback sounds.

July was largely occupied by organising the Powerhouse Late we did called All Around, Underground. We’ve always felt very lucky with the very talented community surrounding us. Our whole goal with the event was to highlight that incredible talent, as well as display our influences because these people embody all our influences.

We have two dear friends and amazing visual artists to each do installations: Tom Vanderzeil/Passive Kneeling (a VJ, videographer and VFX artist) and Lad Street (Sydney-based photographer). We also have four musical performers: Joseph Wells, Laura Hunt as Szem, Erin Nortje as RT-FAX, and Godriguez Trio. We’d never done anything like this really so it was a huge learning experience.

A big goal of ours in the future is to produce records for other people that still have our distinct sound but fit that person’s personality and interests as well. We always looked to producers like Pharrell and Timbaland for inspiration in this regard. It’s going to sound very simple but a big thing these sessions taught us was communication. We had to learn how to communicate exactly what we wanted and also how to put people at ease and in a creative and open frame of mind.