We Hunt The Funk

The world takes electronic music seriously now, that much seems clear. Whereas 20 years ago, the electronic scene was the domain of get-up-and-dance producers, there's now a whole lot more nuance and, dare I say it, artistry to making beats. It's sometimes easy to forget that the best use of a rigged-up stage is to make you dance, without forcing you to think. Canada's The Funk Hunters – Duncan Smith and Nick Middleton – are exploding on the touring circuit in their home country and worldwide, based on that principle.

Middleton and Smith became fast friends on a small island off the west coast of Canada over a mutual love of music. “We kinda started playing to music together, just to entertain our friends,” Middleton explains. “It's something we've always done. The whole idea of The Funk Hunters at that time was... neither of us we're music producers, we were just getting into DJing. So for us, it was all about hunting down music that we loved. We lived in a diverse community on this small island, which meant we had to play diverse music. That experience totally shaped our sound in the sense that it didn't let us fall exclusively on one thing. You know, we never said that we were gonna be drum'n'bass DJs or dubstep DJs or hip hop DJs. We've always had this diverse taste in music, but it was always rooted in something that was funky or soulful.”

What that means, exactly, is that The Funk Hunters have simply ripped the greatest funk and soul from the '60s, transposed it using modern electronic beats, and created something that's wholly unique and addictive. It's not uncommon to hear Curtis Mayfield or Roberta Flack interlaced with a pitch-bent dubstep line or heave hip hop beat. It's a pretty complex challenge to take on (“I feel like we've created something that we couldn't be doing by ourselves”, Middleton notes) but it works. “You know, the art of sampling is either something you love or hate doing, because it does involve a lot of work,” Smith admits. “But it's really about taking something that you love or have just found in a record store or something, and you want to expose it because no one else has heard it. But a lot of the time, it just sounds cool. Like, we spend most of our time either making the beats as a base, or hunting down cool hip hop a cappellas and combining them.” The end result is familiar, but completely different, and this is what has probably kept the fans coming back for more.

As with any act, though, The Funk Hunters are keen to explore new sonic territory outside the usual remixes. “We're definitely never gonna stop playing party bootlegs; it's what's gotten us to where we are now. But I feel like we're just warming up now. There's gonna be a lot happening in 2014.”