Why Odesza Like To Scope Out Aussie Talent

Odesza are no strangers to Australian shores — they've been here twice before — and there's much about our country that they love deeply but, understandably, they're still trying wrap their heads around our lingo.

"I've heard you guys say 'punter' — that's Australian, right? What does that mean?" Harrison Mills asks The Music when discussing their impending journey Down Under for this year's Listen Out festival.

Satisfied with the answer (he and fellow Odesza member Clayton Knight prove to be quick studies indeed), they turn their attention to their excitement ahead of their next antipodean sojourn.

"It's not even about a fan base; we just have so many friends over there, and there's so many musicians in the scene out there that we love: Hayden James, Kilter... all those guys down in Australia are just awesome people," Mills says.

"I've heard you guys say 'punter' — that's Australian, right? What does that mean?"

In addition to catching up with their foreign family, though, Mills and Knight will undoubtedly use their time Down Under to keep their eyes peeled for fresh members of their Foreign Family — a label the pair founded to discover new talent from all around the world. It's a considerable exercise, but the pair is keeping sights set firmly on their work with Odesza while helping others get on their level, so to speak.

"It definitely takes a little energy, but we try to stay as focused as we can on the music," Knight says. "We'd do it anyways; we're always looking at music and trying to find new talent and whatnot on SoundCloud continuously, so it's just, like, a way for us to showcase some of the people that we think really deserve the light."

Additionally, surrounding themselves with so much fresh talent is also something of a motivation to ensure they're staying at the top of their game, especially given how easy it would be to get lost in the nooks and crannies of their expansive electro-soundscapes. Although, that process is not without its benefits for their live audiences, as Aussies will see once again come 26 September.

"It's never done!" Knight exclaims of writing new material. "You can work on a track for ten years ... but you've gotta give up at some point."

"We put out stuff because our manager tells us a date that it has to come out," Mills laughs.

"In the end, you would love to just keep — like, I listen to old stuff and be like, 'ugh, there's so many things I could redo' — and actually we try to do that for our live set; we'll go back, and some of our music we'll play in the live set has been old songs, or old top lines and melodies, but they've been completely revamped and remixed, basically," Knight says.

"And we've got a lot of stuff for our live horns that we play with," Mills agrees.

"So we're always changing old stuff to play, which makes it really fun," Knight concludes. "There's a lot of good music that we had, but we just didn't know too much about mixing or synth work, the production process in general, so being able to go back now and mess around with old material is really fun."