This week THE RIPE is very delighted to present the latest offering in our guest mix series, put together by none other than Parachute Youth .
Things just haven’t stopped for local Lads after the explosive success of 2012 ‘ Cant Get Better Than This ’, since then they played dozens of live shows around Australia and abroad, taking their brand of indie infused techno to the masses.
Off the back of their recent release, ‘ Count To Ten ’ the guys have been working through a world tour with their vamped up new live show (check out the vid below, things look mental.) Things kicked off in Asia, with some photos of the shenanigans online and are currently moving their way across Europe, through places like Poland, Belgium, Sweden and Austria where they’ll share line ups with names like Azealia Banks and Tricky and play at Club NME at Koko in London.
Thankfully amongst all these shows they’ve still managed to keep the masses happy on Soundcloud with a few remixes recently being posted and of course, putting together this weeks guest mix. Within the 9 track mix you’ll hear a few of Parachute Youth’s indie and electro influences and tracks they’ve been enjoying generally. Worked in is music from The XX , Cut Copy, Julio Bashmore , Euryhthmics as well as their own original ‘ Awake Now ’.
TRACK LIST
1.
The Phenomenal Hand Clap Band
– Following
2.
Cut Copy
– Glittering clouds
3.
Little Dragon
– Looking glass
4.
Euryhthmics
– Here comes the rain (DJ Eleven mix)
5.
Crystal Castles
– Crimewave
6.
The XX
– Crystalised
7.
Delphic
– Halycon (Julio Bashmore remix)
8.
Daphni
– Ye Ye
9.
Parachute Youth
– Awake Now
INTERVIEW
We had an insightful chat to Matt Kvon from the group about what’s been happening over the last little while
Matt B: You guys have created a very distinctive and identifiable sound with your releases over the last year, what have been your major influences?
Matt K: The ripe mix here contains our influences for sure, others include M83, Hot Chip, The Horrors, Caribou, Foals, The Presets and we really love Julio Bashmore as well.
You talk about trying to ‘bridge the gap’ between indie and dance music to create the Parachute Youth sound, what elements are you drawn to most from each genre?
Definitely the sincerity that the above indie rock artists have in their lyrics and how they are bought across to the listener, and the emotion drawn from deep electronic music. There is no limit to the sounds you can create to stir emotions with electronic music. We like the idea of being unlimited and using technology in both our production and live show, and why wouldn’t we? We are a dance act ultimately, and if you don’t embrace technology, you’ll get left behind very quickly.
Your singles have been released with some very visually stunning videos, ‘Count To Ten’ is a great example of this. What’s been the process of matching your songs with a fitting visual?
Thank you! The visual fit for our songs is very important to us, the one thing we always say to anyone we work with for film is “Our music is sincere, so the film clip has to be equally so”.
You’ve described your new world tour show as ‘a real spectacle’, what does the live line up consist of?
Johnny and I both on keys and live vocals, trigger pads and launching sequences… But anyone can set that up, the real spectacle of any show is great visual elements, music that creates a particular environment that touches people, a great flow to the set, and doing DJ sets recently has really helped us with that flow. And this is what we are working on at the moment for our tour and future shows. The Presets tour really taught us about what it means to have all those elements above, anyone who went will know what I am saying.
The world tour looks like its been absolutely insane, you’ve shared rosters with names like Azealia Banks and Tricky and are playing shows at places like Koko in London. How have you found the reaction to what you guys do across so many different places and crowds?
It’s a dream come true. I don’t think we will fully understand the gravity of how far our music has spread until we venture to Europe, as we have a lot fans over there and charted better than what we did here in Oz, which is a great sign that what we are making is quite forward thinking as Europe has always been a hub for the music we make.
We caught a sneaky glimpse of some photos from the Asia tour recently, it looked like a lot of fun, any highlights from those shows?
What happens on tour stays on tour haha….. I think seeing people in Jakarta and Singapore just getting into our show and singing our songs, that was a real bug out for us.
Do you think there is a growing crowd and attention being paid to the music coming out of Australia at the moment and if so why?
Absolutely, and we have Cut Copy, Midnight Juggernauts, The Presets and Infusion to thank for that (As far as indie dance goes…). Without these guys and their hard work we would probably still be listening to fucking Powderfinger and Jebadiah ‘spin off bands’ still.
Besides capping off the tour, what’s on the cards for the rest of 2013
We are moving to London in 3 weeks and we will be giving everything we have to music over there. Just completed a collab with a recent Laneway Festivial touring artist from overseas and we also have just remixed a massive indie band that we love and cant wait to share that! We also have a new single coming out around May which we are working on with Sam Littlemore, who has been an epic influence for our direction and production. So a big shout out to Sam.
WORDS BY Matt Bladin
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