The Bear Necessities

Brit house favourites The 2 Bears – Raf Daddy (aka Raf Rundell) and Joe Goddard – have been quiet since dropping 2012 album Be Strong, yet the sequel is coming. A solo Rundell may even preview a tune or two at Confetti, queer fest Midsumma's official dance party, where he'll join The Presets – of whom he's coincidentally “a big fan”, revealing: “I've known those boys for quite a long time now, actually.”

Rundell won't don one of the mangy bear suits that established The 2 Bears as a humbler, proletarian and, yes, more human Daft Punk, however. “We used to wear them quite a lot when we started,” Rundell explains. “But they're incredibly impractical from the point of view of DJing in a nightclub – they're horribly hot… In the end we had to throw the original ones away 'cause they could almost stand up on their own by the time they'd been through a few DJ boxes.”

Rundell is easygoing. He's just stepped out of the dentist and the DJ/producer/MC chuckles at the cheeky suggestion that he was perhaps being fitted for a diamond grill to match his ironic hip hop handle. “We'd need to sell a few more records first – maybe we should get in the rap game and then we can do that.”

Rundell bonded with Goddard over a love of house. He DJed at the “musically and socially chaotic” Greco-Roman sound system parties the Hot Chip co-frontman promoted with mates in London. The 2 Bears formed in 2009 (the story is that Metronomy's Joseph Mount was canvassed to be a third bear). Rundell was claiming the dole, having lost his job at 1965 Records: “I'd worked in the record industry for ten years and then I had a label that went through Sony and we got crunched in the crunch.” The 2 Bears, aligned early with Norman Cook's Southern Fried Records, enjoyed a 'novelty' hit in 2011's Bear Hug, followed by Work, developing feel-good – and whimsical – retro-nuevo house for the age of austerity. Remarkably, their success would soon rival that of Goddard's primary project, Hot Chip.

“I never really expected to find myself in this situation where we made a couple of EPs and then we were signed to make an album. And I never in my wildest dreams thought that I'd make an album or even write a song,” Rundell laughs. The 2 Bears' debut, Be Strong, was a mish-mash of deep grooves, hip house and UK garage. Reviewers were equally creative in describing it, one blog going with “liquid-Bmore-house-step”. “My favourite dance music is dance music that's aware of all the other music that's around,” Rundell says approvingly. But the DJ will 'keep it party' at Confetti with “tough house and techno and disco and whatever else fits.”

In late 2012 The 2 Bears presented a mix comp, 2 Bears 1 Love; recently they remixed eclectic Cape Town outfit John Wizards' Muizenberg, but otherwise they've been low-key. After Be Strong both Bears embraced fatherhood, which required some adjustments (“We were no longer able to just hang out and make music 'til four in the morning”). Plus today Goddard has to juggle The 2 Bears and Hot Chip. Nonetheless, the duo are “nearly there” with that new album – scheduled for release in the European summer. “It's all written and recorded – we're just putting the bells and whistles on,” says Rundell. As for its direction? “It's quite housey still,” he ponders. “We've made a reggae tune with an MC from London called Stylo G. It's pretty all over the place again, but I think it still sounds like us – and it's kinda trying to spread a positive message mostly… I think if people liked the first one, they'll like this one.”

The challenge for The 2 Bears was to not cut 'Be Strong II', a mission that took them to South Africa in October, the pair enamoured of the local genre kwaito, which Rundell touts as “slowed-down house with MCs”, comparable to Reggaeton. While The 2 Bears are little known in the country (ditto Hot Chip), Goddard is a star. “Joe's [2011] song Gabriel was a bona-fide hit down there – people were even singing it on South African X Factor,” Rundell shares.

As such, The 2 Bears have freely collaborated with kwaito's finest. “We just had the most fantastic time,” Rundell enthuses. “To go and record with MCs in a studio in Soweto, you have to pinch yourself when you're doing those things. Nobody really knew much about anyone else. It was quite naïve, in a way, but just an exciting, amazing thing to be able to do.”