'There's Always A Space For Whatever You Wanna Create'

There is a long line of iconic male/female pop duos - from the R&B Ashford & Simpson to the New Wave Eurythmics to the post-grunge White Stripes. Today, Anita Blay (aka CocknBullKid) and Alexander Burnett of Sparkadia fame are ruling the tech-soul realm as the British-Australian super-duo Antony & Cleopatra. Yet both vocalists are intrigued by their predecessors.

"I was a big fan of the Eurythmics growing up," Blay enthuses. "And The Knife were a big influence on me, and still are." However, Burnett worries about possible dramz. "When I think about all these duos, they all pretty much end up boring or fighting or hating each other!" he proclaims. "Like Sonny & Cher and Ike & Tina [Turner] - back in the day, they were obviously great, but they ended up pretty sad. I think we're 'so far, so good'. We're getting along like a house on fire. So let's see!"

The London-stationed Antony & Cleopatra are speaking from Sydney as they prepare to join DJ Alison Wonderland's touring festival, Wonderland Scarehouse Project. Indeed, they'll be premiering their live show, with Blay promising "an audiovisual experience".

Burnett and Blay met serendipitously. With the dissolution of his Australian alt-rock band Sparkadia, Burnett relocated to the UK. Here, he established himself as a songwriter-for-hire, ironically working with successive Oz dance acts including Alison Wonderland. But Burnett also encountered the Hackney-bred Blay, active as CocknBullKid. "I'd moved to London and I think I just fell in love with things that were the opposite of what I was doing in my career in Sparkadia," he says. "I fell in love with kick drums and dance music, and not guitar-based pop. At that time, I think Anita was doing her solo project. We got chucked into the same session to try to write a song for her album. She came out with a really strange dance song, which the label were quite bemused about, which was quite funny. We then thought this felt kinda good to us. So we just started doing more of this project, which then became Antony & Cleopatra."

As CocknBullKid, Blay presented a renegade electro-pop album in 2011's Adulthood via Island Records. And she, too, found herself gigging behind the scenes and credited on Little Mix's Sean Paul-featuring mega-hit Hair. "My previous solo career was, I guess, more lo-fi and more glitchy to begin with," she says. "I started off making bedroom demos and then eventually started working with UK producers and then eventually moved onto more lush production, wall-of-sound pop stuff. So it was a lot more kitchen sink than [Antony & Cleopatra], which is a bit more [otherworldly]."

Blay and Burnett named their venture after those famous Shakespearean lovers Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and Mark Antony, Roman general - subversively referencing their divergent musical and cultural backgrounds. Through 2014, the mysterious combo cameoed on tracks by such acts as Lancelot, Beni and Sammy Bananas. But while Burnett describes that as "a thrill", it ultimately made Antony & Cleopatra appreciate recording as a unit. "I suppose we're not serial daters," he quips. Antony & Cleopatra premiered officially with 2015's Sirens - a wonky, sax-laced UK garage tune.

This year Antony & Cleopatra signalled their signing to Dew Process with Dust - a mutant tech-soul banger. Initially, "no one really got it", Burnett reveals. Nonetheless, Dust was playlisted by triple j. Now Antony & Cleopatra are back with the avant-rave Twitch, an album coming in 2018. Liberated, they aren't inclined to compromise on their minimal pop. Says Burnett, "Being songwriters, we've worked on so many projects that have started out with people going for it and then over time it being diluted with people worrying about what the label will think or what the world will think or what their girlfriend will think..." Blay adds, laughing, "As much as I do complain about music - whether it's ten years ago or today, an artist loves to complain about music - there's always a space for whatever you wanna create." Antony & Cleopatra have resolved to compose instinctively. "I think, in a way, we've started thinking less and just doing and feeling more in terms of the new music," Blay states. "People say that's desperate [and] I think there's something in that."