We freely admit that bands have been a glaring omission in our Fresh Blood series, instead focusing on the talents of up-and-coming DJs and producers. In our defence, bands tend to focus on creating music as opposed to putting together DJ mixes. Though with a whole new generation of bands coming up through the ranks brought up on a healthy diet of electronic music, it makes sense that they're not only fans of dance music, but they're actively involved in the scene, be it through recreational clubbing or professional DJing.
EnterFlamingo, Adelaide's newest three-piece band who craft a deft mix of lush electronica and indie. Heralded by Triple J as ones to watch, chosen as support for Elizabeth Rose's recent Sydney show and snapped up by Groovin The Moo to perform in Oakbank, the future's loking bright for the young trio. They're not too shabby on the decks either, as their mix for us proves.
Pulse: Tell us how the three of you guys came to meet and start Flamingo? Oli (Flamingo): Honestly, It’s the classic tale – we had been mates for years and then finally when our musical interest was collectively focused, about when we all discovered a passion for electronic elements, we finally got together and made a band.
The Flamingo sound is the merging of genres like indie and lush electronica. Do you all come from different musical backgrounds and tastes? I wouldn’t say different backgrounds, we are all pretty much self-trained ex-guitar players of some sorts but we have definitely come from very different past projects. Prior to flamingo all of us dabbled in High-school rock bands, which as you can imagine is a mile away from the Flamingo sound.
How does the process of making music work between the three of you? Is someone more of an ideas person, someone more technically adept...? You hit it on the head pretty much perfectly! They way it seems to work out these days is we will work from a melodic idea that Benny has come up with. He definitely has a great ear for catchy melodies and ideas so a song will usually start from us trawling through each others Ableton sets to find a snippet we all have inspiration with. From there that idea will be built up as a team with vocals etc. and then there is a lot of time carving out the particular sounds and patching the synths on my own. The boring stuff that only music nerds enjoy right?!
Do you guys like to go clubbing much? What's the clubbing scene like in Adelaide at the moment? I know you have Sugar, which is a great club. Definitely! I have been DJing for around four years now. I spend most of my time at Rocket Bar where I am a resident on a Friay night called CATS (we’ve had guys like Elizabeth Rose, Branchez, Chet Faker, Touch Sensitive, Flume, Kilter, BadBadNotGood and Gold Panda through in the last 12 months) but I also have a huge soft spot for SUGAR and have held residencies over there in the past - You won’t find anyone more dedicated to the sounds they believe in then Driller and his team.
People in the Adelaide music scene put a lot of effort into keeping acts rolling through and growing Adelaide’s palette, the unfortunate thing is sometimes Adelaide just doesn’t listen or doesn’t here about the great things going on. There is probably something to be said about Adelaide’s environment (legally, demographically, historically and economically) that doesn’t make it super conducive to alternate culture and the ability for big ‘scenes’ to grow but we try and I definitely think it deserves more credit than people give it.
Elizabeth Rose chose you guys to support her in Sydney recently. Are you fans of her music? Elizabeth’s production is so so tight credit to her we thought there had to be a team of killer producers making her tracks for her, but we learnt that Liz produces all her tracks and ontop of the fact she’s a super cool person that just confirms the fact that she is 100% one to watch, she’s amazing!
You recently played Groovin The Moo. How was it? We where lucky enough to be chosen to play the Oakbank show by Triple J and it was by far the coolest gig we have ever done. Getting up onto a massive stage with incredible sound and having a bunch of people yelling out your band name has to be up there with one of the best feelings in the world! All the team at GTM went over and above and made it an amazing day – they even tracked down our E.P cover and put it up on the massive screen behind us while we played – it was unreal!
Can you tell us about the mix you've recorded for us? Whenever we do a DJ mix we want to make sure it’s simply a representation of what we are listening to at the moment and tunes that we just generally love. There’s a bunch of artists in there that you will definitely know (Toro Y Moi, Mount Kimbie & an older Disclosure jam) but then there’s hopefully a few treats in there that people might not have hear before like Jaw jam, Werkha, 96wrld and a dope remix of Adelaide brother Oisima.
Listen to Pulse Radio