Feel The Urth Move

Urthboy's label Elefant Traks has had an amazing year. While it certainly wasn't an 'overnight sensation' story, the planets aligned for instrumental beat group Hermitude and years of hard work culminated in the 2012 record HyperParadise exceeding even the group's own expectations. As well be being the most played album on Sydney's genre-hopping FBi Radio for 2012, the record picked up several AIR Awards and the Flume remix of the record's title track scored highly in the triple j Hottest 100. While this is great news for Tim Levinson, the label boss, it presented some really awkward decisions when it came to planning out his own tour.

“Basically, a few months ago we came to the collective conclusion that Hermitude are just too busy now, so Gusto (Angus Stuart) who has been DJing with me for ten years, has to take a back seat and concentrate on all the touring and writing with Hermitude,” Levinson says of the difficult decision he had to make to tour for the first time without his long-term sidekick. “Ultimately the situation emerged because you can never really anticipate where everyone will go, and the perception could be that we've had a falling out and nothing could be further from the truth, hey. I spend a hell of a lot of time with Luke (Dubber) and Gusto and you know our friendship goes back 15 years, so the love is 100 per cent rock solid but the ability to go on tour is no longer really an option, at least for the meantime.

“I was left with the decision of either going and replacing Gusto with another DJ or completely reformatting the show,” he continues. “And the reality was I didn't feel like any DJ could replace El Gusto. There are other DJs out there who are brilliant, but I feel like Gusto is my fam, you know? He is like one of my best mates and I couldn't just replace him. So we turned the live show into a band. Basically, it's a tribute to him in a way – it's like saying he's irreplaceable, so what we have to do is something completely different.”

Levinson says that one of the only downsides to the whole process is that Gusto can't be involved in the process!

“The funny thing is both Gusto and I have been wanting to turn our show into a band for years. El Gusto is originally a drummer, long before he started producing and DJing. The first band I was in, he was the drummer. We go way back, this is way before Hermitude formed. So the ironic thing is, it's not until he leaves that we're able to do it!” he laughs. “But the good thing is that the band that we are rehearsing and putting together feels so exciting because finally I have the impetus to completely change it and out of that has come this; 'Holy shit! Listen to how this song sounds with a band! It's amazing!' If anything I just feel a bit bummed out that he's not there to enjoy it.”

Levinson is incredibly enthusiastic about the players in his band, and speaks with genuine admiration and awe of them all. As well as Tim and of course Jane Tyrrell on vocals, the live band features some diverse and impressive players, all faced with the challenge to reproduce the record Smokey's Haunt (as well as Urthboy's live staples) using a new and fresh medium. Alex Dawson, the keyboardist from Sydney band electronic group Brackets, is on board, and DJ Jaytee (who works with Last Kinection and Briggs) is on the cuts. Someone who might seem like a newcomer named Lisa Purmodh is on the drums, but as Levinson explains her incredibly impressive CV you can hear how stoked he is to have her on the team.

“Her old man, he was in one of the first well-known reggae bands in Australia, and she normally plays in reggae bands for the most part,” he says of Purmodh's history. “She's this tiny little pocket rocket, and she spends a quarter or a third of the year playing in the States with – how do I say it – the offspring of Bob Marley and all those cats. She's a session player with members of Beyonce's band and she's all up with that sort of reggae scene as well. She's just a gun!”

It's very interesting to see Levinson take this approach to touring in support of his seemingly universally applauded fourth album Smokey's Haunt. The recording process for the record saw his regular collaborators team up in new ways to help create an album that sounds like quite a development from his previous long players.

“I think you have to keep it interesting,” he explains. “I think if you change up the processes and reinvigorate the way that you write than there's a better chance of doing something that you haven't done before. That's what it felt like for us. It felt like we were doing something new, and it gave us an energy – some excitement and purpose that felt like the music that we were writing was a buzz. People's capacity to refresh themselves is always there, but it's just not always tapped into. You always have the ability to completely change what you are doing but quite often you get caught in a rut, or you get caught up in what's familiar and a routine. And that routine starts to dictate your life until you routine the shit out of yourself and nothing is surprising anymore. I think musicians often fall into that trap because you're working with people who you develop these great friendships with, and then you fall into patterns.

“Bands tend to recreate their previous records. I'm not saying I'm immune to that – I think it's a great challenge that faces everyone who is making music – but a simple thing like taking Hermitude out of Sydney and their studio and putting them in the studio with (TZU's) Count Bounce (Phillip Norman) in Melbourne, where you're not in your own environment and you're not going to bed in your own place and you're using different equipment, the chemistry starts to produce some different ideas. You make different decisions and I found that it revolutionised the things we felt were possible with the record. I know revolutionise is a stupid, overblown word for this context, but at the same time there were moments when I sat in the studio even just witnessing what was going on and I just felt like I had one of those natural highs coming over me. It sounds like an exaggeration but it's not at all. It just felt fucking exciting!”

Urthboy will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 16 March - Annandale Hotel, Sydney NSW
Friday 22 March - The Solbar, Maroochydore QLD
Saturday 23 March - The Zoo, Fortitude Valley QLD
Saturday 27 April – Groovin' The Moo, Maitland Showground NSW
Sunday 28 April – Groovin' The Moo, University of Canberra ACT
Saturday 4 May – Groovin' The Moo, Prince of Wales Showground, Bendigo VIC
Sunday 5 May – Groovin' The Moo, Murray Sports Complex, Townsville Cricket Grounds QLD
Saturday 11 May – Groovin' The Moo, Hay Park, Bunbury WA