The Ripe Guest Mix With Seekae

Matt Bladin August 16, 2013 Comments Off

When Seekae came through with this months Guest Mix , no one knew what to expect. Their signature brand of experimental, left field electro laid the foundation for the impressive and diverse track list compiled by the lads. In what turned out to be a good ol’fashioned mixtape, we get a glimpse into what Seekae has been digging over the last few months.

Having just come back from UK, where they finished up the much anticipated debut LP, Seekae are about to kick off a massive string of dates around Australia to bring their forward thinking electronic sounds to the masses.

When a band produces every thing from forward thinking electro to a sound tracks for Sony TVs, you can always expect it to be insightful when seeing what makes them tick. With one of the most diverse track lists we’ve come across in a guest mix, this expectation certainly came through.

The Ripe Guest Mix with Seekae pulls no punches when powering through its 9 track, roller coaster ride of aural influence. You’ll hear music from Metronomy to Black Sabith, Aphex Twin to Mount Kimbie . Its an action packed mixtape that covers all walks of the musical world.

We had a chat to the guys about what’s been happening with all things Seekae:

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So back on tour in Oz finally. Why now?
Fan Mail, also the time is right. We’re all back in one city finishing our next record.

How do you feel about the Australian tour?
Real good. There is an air of anticipation in our flat that feels like we are firing up to have a crack at the big time. It’s sweaty.

Have you felt pressure from fans to return?
No pressure. Our fans are wonderful. Sometimes they need an imposed break from us though - for other life happenings. Like online discussion.

Has your show changed much after touring overseas?
Playing in Australia is always a relief. We get to do things on a bigger scale and focus more on putting on our kind of show. Playing in much smaller clubs and venues overseas make a fella miss home. There will be changes. New instruments etc.

So what’s in the pipeline these days? Where’s the Seekae sound?
We’re finishing our next record. It has synthesisers and other sounds as well as vocals. There’s something that we are doing now. Vocals.

Were you writing much music on the road?
We wrote a lot of this record while staying in London at the end of last year. We bought drum machines in France and synthesisers in Poland, and then we wrote for six weeks. We stayed in a flat in Brixton and made music as it snowed. We left a grubby spring mattress in the apartment by accident and the owner wouldn’t even mail it back to us.

There was ongoing rhetoric back after +Dome about how you wanted the live show to compare with the record – 2 years later – what conclusion did you come to?
We like to change a lot between records. We listen to different music, and live in different parts of the world, so it takes a while for us to form an idea of what our albums are going to sound like. We’ll know more after the tour. But things are certainly shifting towards a sparser, darker sound which is getting us pretty fired up. We are aiming to balance George’s raw energy with John’s foul language.

You guys really popped out of the Australian underground scene quite quickly. Do you still feel connected to it?
We try to associate ourselves with good artists and good music as opposed to a scene. That being said we have been embraced by people and communities directly as opposed to an industry or national radio – and we still feel really involved and connected to those fans. That’s always something we’ve been grateful for – we bypassed Industry because they are mostly clueless.

With the success you’ve seen – are there still any challenges now?
Absolutely. Every new record is a challenge. We want to change without sacrificing our legacy. That is a tough nut.

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