Valleys To Alleys

To this day, Luke Dubber is surprised by Hermitude. Their recent successes, especially. Until 2011, they were a relative obscurity of Elefant Traks' lauded local hip hop roster. Their instrumental leanings simply weren't conducive to widespread popularity - particularly in an era where Australian hip hop as a concept was only just starting to take flight in the mainstream. While beloved by their followers, they weren't widely known. HyperParadise changed that. More specifically Speak Of The Devil changed that. A woozy, sidechain-synth blast of quirky pop hooks and rock-solid bass-heavy instrumental hip hop set to a viral-friendly clip, Speak Of The Devil set the stage for Hermitude to crash-tackle the mainstream in late 2011. As of 2013, it boasts over half a million YouTube views. When HyperParadise arrived a handful of months later in early 2012, it exploded.

“We were always hoping that it was going to do what it did. We had our sights set on what we wanted it to do - which was to notch us up another level - but I guess it just came as a shock when it actually happened,” Luke Dubber, one-half of the duo, says with a laugh. “You know, you hope that every album does that. You don't want to go backward. We've been quite lucky so far, really. I mean, all our albums have taken us forward a bit. The only one that didn't was [2008's] Threads. I think that's the only album of ours that didn't do better than the previous one. It didn't get much radio love and it was a bit of an experimental album. For HyperParadise we had goals and targets and every one of them has been met and exceeded. I think we're still just a little shocked at how... Yeah, how it exploded, basically.”

Since release, HyperParadise has been consistently swamped with awards and acclaim. Speak Of The Devil would take home a J Award for Music Video of the Year (as well as enter the Hottest 100 at #44). The album itself would win a Jaegermeister AIR for Best Independent Dance/Electronica Album of the Year. Most remarkably, they just recently became the debut instrumental act to take out the Australian Music Prize (AMP). “That was incredible. We were just really honoured to be nominated. When we made the shortlist, we thought that was just awesome. We were up with some of the biggest names in Australian music and we were happy enough with that. When they read out our name, I just couldn't believe it. It's just one of those moments that you flash back to for the rest of your days.”

Dubber is currently wrangling with following up their arguable masterpiece. While having reams of material leftover from HyperParadise (“There's always stuff you mean to come back to - but then you do and you're just not interested anymore”), the pair have already started kicking out new tracks. The AMP has allowed them to purchase a whole slew of new toys and they're hoping to have the album out next year.

“We do feel a bit of pressure to follow-up HyperParadise. We try not to think of that sort of stuff but, because it's really the first time we've had a really successful album, it's still sitting at the back of your head somewhere. Not pressure from anyone else, though. Just pressure for yourself, I think. There's definitely a little bit of that. It's not something that we really dwell on, though.”

None of it is actually that surprising, in context. HyperParadise remains a staggering album. Immaculately timed, it saw Hermitude step away from their more straight-laced hip hop roots to embrace rising trends, from UK bass music and Australian electronica, during a period where electronic music was reaching bursting point in Australia. It's no coincidence, for example, that Flume's advent fell less than a year after HyperParadise's release. “It's very flattering when people cite as an influence like that,” Dubber says - himself a Flume fan, Hermitude, currently writing their fifth album, having commissioned the producer to remix HyperParadise's title track. “But it also makes you feel really old. I remember the first time we did an interview and the headline was something like 'veterans of something something' and I just thought 'veterans? Well, I guess it's all downhill from here...'”