Composed of Greg Knuckles, Al Gammaron and Jerry Hustle - not exactly their real names but they sound pretty cool, right? - the Sydney-based trio Seekae have had a good run of things over the past couple of years, capping off last year's lauded appearances at Golden Plains and Splendour in the Grass with a Vivid LIVE performance at the Opera House last year, accompanied by an eight-piece string section.
Right now, though, they've been knuckling down on a new album, the follow-up to 2011's '+Dome,' of which the first taste has just been released in the form of new single 'Another'. The new track, and forthcoming third LP, sees the once instrumental band exploring vocal territory. Pulse's Morgan Richards snuck in a quick chat to Mr Hustle, aka John Hassell, to find out more just before his Friday night beer.
Pulse: Hi John. You sound like you're on the move right now. John Hassell (Seekae): I'm currently walking through Central in Surry Hills, on an odyssey to find someone to have a beer with me. I was going to do some mixing but that fell through. But it's Friday night and I'm ready for a beer.
Sounds like a good backup plan. So, how has your live show been evolving this year - is it changing to reflect the sound of your upcoming new album? The last live shows we did together were in England. We've gradually been working in vocals as a new part to the set. So that's coming through in songwriting, recording and performance. That's probably the biggest change, I'd say. But at the same time, it's been weird trying to find a balance between keeping it "Seekae" and at the same time adding something new. Trying to maintain our sound while trying to bring forward vocals and stuff. That's been the biggest challenge over the past few months.
Is it primarily vocals you're adding, or other instruments? Vocals is the main one. But it's just a bit of a change. We're adding new instruments in terms of synths and stuff. The dynamic onstage is going to change a bit - Al's not just going to be behind the drum kit most of the time, he's going to be kinda in the middle. It's just a matter of trying to translate a lot of it to make it as live as we can.
When you say vocals, who's that doing the singing? It's mainly going to be Al singing, but me and George might do the odd backing vocal.
Is this something you guys have wanted to do for a while? You know what, it kinda came out of the blue. It didn't seem like something that anyone was poking us to do or anything. Just one day when I turned up to the studio, Al and George were sitting there and they played me this new track they'd been working on. Al was singing and I just kinda went, alright, sweet, let's go from here! It wasn't like a big build up, no-one got involved and probed us to do it. It just came naturally, which is a welcoming thing. Because a lot of people who are an instrumental, a lot of time it begs the question: When is a vocalist going to get involved? We'd done a few things with Ivan [Vizintin] back in 2008 but apart from that we always considered ourselves instrumental.
Do you see vocals primarily as adding lyrical content to your songs or adding just another sort of instrument? Again, we're trying to find the right balance between the two. You don't want a vocal to take the limelight and the rest of the song to be moulded around that vocal. So the approach we've taken is making an instrumental track that's strong enough by itself and layering the vocals on top. The vocals work well with it, and the track enriches the vocal. At the same time, it can still have its moments and have a story behind it, but I guess in that sense we consider [the voice] another instrument.
When '+Dome' came out, that was during this time of Mount Kimbie and James Blake and the whole post-dubstep thing, which in retrospect peaked quite quickly. Then it sort of fragmented and there's not really any trace of it today. I mean, I saw James Blake do a dj set the other week and he just played trap music for an hour! So did you identify with that kinda sound back then? And how do you feel about it now? It's a hard one. I mean, it's easy to look back and say... not that it's something I wasn't proud of, but it's something I was into that time and it doesn't have the same effect on me anymore. But there's no doubt that at that time we were all listening to similar kinds of music, a lot of UK dubsy stuff. It almost seems like an inevitable combination to me - bass music was so popular and dubstep had been around for a few years by that time, so just make it more melodic, add in melancholic chords. It just seemed like such a perfect combination at the time.
So we were influenced by that, but at the same time, it's annoying. You love that kinda of music but you don't want to be remembered as those guys who sound just like that other band. I think back to that time, and there are great memories from there, great songs, great albums, but that time has passed for us. And it's time for something new. Even in Sydney, I find that that kind of sound is just like flogging a dead horse. So many people are doing it. It's a saturated market. We feel we've made a conscious effort to move away from being just another band with that sound.
Was it hard to find your groove in terms of treading that line between being a live band on one hand, and musicians composing on laptops on the other? There's so much to take into account. First of all, the kind of music you want to make obviously has a big influence on how you're going to play it live. If you're making really ambient stuff or you're making dance music, in a way it's easy to just design it for one kind of environment. Whereas we try and have a blend. So we'll have tracks that are quite downtempo and then have a faster one and then one that's a bit more live. So it's often hard trying to figure out what's a good mix and trying to transition between those different genres.
But it's also about how much of your own music you can play live. That's often an issue for us. We'll make a song on Ableton and we'll love it, but when it comes to playing it live, it's hard to go beyond just playing it off a computer. But it helps sometimes, because when we have a song which is sounding very electronic and has been composed entirely on a laptop, we'll just play around with it live and it often ends up changing quite a bit. Then we end up recycling that back into recording, and having a recording of us playing that live that might end up on the album.
The best example for me of a mix between a great live show and a well produced album is Portishead. I mean, when I saw them live it was incredible. For a lot of their stuff, I thought it was just one guy and an MPC - and it may well have been, especially on Dummy. But the way they did it live, it just brought it all to life. It was perfect. And that's what we're working towards.
Seekae 2013 Australian Tour Dates
23.08.13 - National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
25.08.13 - Freemason's Lodge, Adelaide
31.08.13 - The Bakery, Perth
01.09.13 - Mojos, Freemantle
05.09.13 - Cobra Kai at Oh Hello, Brisbane
08.09.13 - FBI Turns 10! Carriage Works, Sydney