Year To Remember

Dubber and Angus 'El Gusto' Stuart have been so focused on riding their own wave that a moment to kick back and play the punter at a Kendrick Lamar gig seemed a cherished moment, downtime the pair rarely get these days. “I haven't been to a really live hip hop gig like that in a long time. It was really awesome to see,” recalls Dubber. “Everyone was just going gangbusters.”

Hermitude have been going gangbusters themselves of late. Six weeks out from their Villain Tour and every square foot of space is sold. Word is out, and more dates have been added to handle demand. But behind every successful live product lies a great body of work; in this case it's their third album, HyperParadise. The record grabbed two ARIA nominations ('Best Dance Release' and 'Best Video') and the 2012 AIR Award for 'Best Independent Dance/Electronica Album', while lead single, Speak Of The Devil, won the 2011 J Award for 'Music Video of the Year'. More recently, Hermitude received two nominations from FBi Radio's SMAC Awards for 'Best Live Act' and 'Album of the Year'.

“It's been fucking mental man. We've gotta change the 'Year of the Dragon' to 'Year of the Hermitude' because it's just been killer. Ever since HyperParadise... well ever since Speak Of The Devil, the momentum has just kept gathering and we're still going. Man, it's far exceeded our expectations when we wrote the record, you know?”

Expectations like this can bring on the strains of demands. For these guys, the bar has only just been set. Dubber believes the pressure will weigh in on the next album. “I think maybe if there was any pressure to be felt it would be on the next album, with what benchmark HyperParadise has set. As for this year, we've just been touring our arses off and trying to write a little bit if and when we can.” Hermitude's schedule also included a trip to London, UK to play with Tame Impala. So, pressure? “We don't really look at it like that. We really focus on making good music, you know? So nah, we've just been having a really good time,” gloats Dubber.

Hermitude's recognition in both hip hop and electronic genres nationwide and abroad is a testament to the level of acceptance their nu-wave reshuffling of the tried and true format of just two turntables and a microphone has attained. Two producers, as both musicians and songwriters have garnered such distinction and such live response mostly without an MC over the years. Without that hype, and constant call and response with the audience, Dubber and Stuart have built a strong following and rep up from their music alone. That has always been a steep climb for the pair, as he explains.

“Now it's kinda like the music is doing the talking for us most of the time. The big tunes are kind of carrying their weight. But, I think something we learnt over the years playing live, and just the hyping in general, like we used to play with rappers and the rappers would come up halfway through the set and we'd do tunes with Urthboy, Batla and just jam on a couple of beats and freestyle choruses. It was quite an important part of our show back then and became a point where we felt we were almost relying on them to inject the vibe into the show because it was hard to carry it by ourselves. But as the years have gone on we've kinda done our own hyping on the mic,” says Dubber, laughing at how that came about. “It's kind of funny to hear a couple of producers, not MCs, on the mic. Before we were nervous about going after a hip hop act with vocals, just because we don't have that same central focus, and now it's gotten to the point where we can actually go and rock on after any act that's just played before us. We know our music carries itself and we talk enough, just enough to keep the crowd engaged in what we're doing and keep the party rocking.

“I remember when we played Get In My Life at Woodford, New Year's Eve, 2010 into 2011. I was just watching the reactions in the crowd and I noticed the tunes were sending the crowd into a frenzy. It was amazing to see and that was right when we started to write the record and I thought, 'Man, this is going to be a good record. We've gotta punch more tunes like this.'”

Not all of HyperParadise is a 10,000-plus head-nodder, though. Some tracks are quite off the page in production. Like The Hunt, which seems to cast a vivid score to an exciting film scene, in comparison to Get In My Life or Speak Of The Devil, which sends audiences into spasms, could swiftly contradict the energy of a live set. Now when Hermitude head into the studio there looms a prevailing logic that demands they deliver spasm-inducing, up-tempo bangers more befitting to a heaving festival crowd. The result of this? The Villain and All of You.

“It definitely does and it has done more so as the year's gone on because when you start playing live you understand the context of parties and club nights a bit more. The downtempo stuff is awesome, but I think like...” Dubber pauses, reaching for the right words. “It's really important to have a bunch of songs that you can go out and smash real hard, live. When we first started out with Alleys To Valleys, the early recordings were pretty chilled. People would really be into them but when you go out and play it in a club, it can be hard to get people enthused. So we'd go into rehearsals and we'd be like, 'Okay, we've written twelve songs but we can really only play two of them.' As the years have gone on we've understood that and with HyperParadise we really made a conscious decision to have a few bangers on there.

“We wanted it to have more fire than the last record and we were two weeks out from mixing and we realised we needed to put more fire to it. So we wrote The Villain and All of You in the last two weeks of sessions. They come out really quick and put the icing on the cake. It's definitely something we are aware of when we're writing records now. We're actually really excited to get back into the studio. Touring has been such a blast; the reception we've got was huge compared to previous years. So every time we're out on the road we're excited. However, we're also massive studio nerds so it's gonna be really exciting to get back, turn on all the gear and have a solid crack at the next record.”

Hermitude will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 26 January - Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst NSW
Sunday 27 January - The Zoo, Fortitude Valley QLD
Thursday 31 January - Republic Bar, Hobart TAS
Friday 1 February - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 2 February - Jive, Adelaide SA
Tuesday 5 February - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 9 February - Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst NSW
Friday 15 - Monday 18 February - Earth Frequency Festival, Brisbane QLD
Thursday 21 February - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 20 April - Big Pineapple Music Festival, Woombye QLD