Digitalism On Their New Album Mirage

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Catch Up our Exclusive Interview with Digitalism!

It’s been 5 years since their last release, but Digitalism are back with a brand new album ‘Mirage’. Here we speak to one half of the German duo, Jence about the inception of Mirage, what they’ve been up to in the interim and where’s cool to hang out in Hamburg.

Hi Jence, where are you right now?
I’m in Hamburg.

I love Hamburg, such a great city!
Ah you know it!
Yes, I came a few years ago a couple of times for Hurricane Festival.
Oh nice one! We’re playing that one this year! So looking forward to that one!
Yes it’s always a good laugh!
Yes it’s brilliant, when the weather’s good, it’s really good. Everyone moans about the weather, but when it’s good it’s great!
Yeah, I’m not going to lie, I have seen the torrential downpour that can happen at Hurricane.
Yes, that’s probably why the name! [laughs].

As you’re from Hamburg and you’re in Hamburg, what are the best clubs or nights out that people can go to if they’re visiting Hamburg?
Erm… that changes of course, and to be honest, I never really go out in Hamburg when I’m here as I usually have to wash and go back to the airport, but ‘Golden Pudle Club’ is a very left-wing anarchist kind of intellectual scene. It was amazing and everyone has played there, and it was more like a little shack down by the harbor, but for some reason it burned down a few months ago – and people don’t think it was an accident because there’s a lot of political stuff behind that place. But it was great, and those guys are probably doing other stuff or they’ll move back in after they have renovated it. Then there’s this massive bunker in Saint Pauli called Uebel & Gefährlich. And a lot of bands go there and have parties there. People should really see that bunker, it’s very famous and it’s massive. And there’s other things, but they come and go. But people should check out the outskirts of Hamburg and the suburbs… it’s green there’s lots of water. There are whole districts where people can hang out and it’s more like Berlin, and you always discover new dive bars and I would say those are the best places to go to anyways!

Travel to Western Australia

Obviously you guys are big music listeners yourselves, so how do you discover new music?
We keep playing music to each other when we meet up at the studio or whatever, and we do a lot of vinyl record shopping, I’ve got Spotify running all the time. And sometimes we dig some stuff out of Soundcloud , but then of course you get promos emailed to you , but the best stuff is always the one that you discover yourself, I think, you know not that “Hey look at this, is this good? Hmm, hmm, hmm? Come one! No [laughs] so like secret gems, but I think Spotify is a good source. One of my best friends said Spotify isn’t the best because he always goes on Youtube, because there’s always songs similar to “this” if you want to discover new things, you know and you get from A-Z. But there’s so many different ways to discover new music these days for everyone. It’s democratised.

So, let’s get on to the new album… it’s been 5 years since the last release, what have you been up to in the interim?
Everyone asks that. Well I’ve been busy touring and releasing a couple of other things. Including a DJ Kicks one with some new tracks on that as well. And then we did an EP on Kitsuné, and then we did a couple of singles, almost, I think, one each year! I’ve lost track of them. And touring lots, by the end of 2014, we thought if we go back to the US or wherever for another tour, we really need to bring a new album next time. So that’s when we started thinking about making a new album. You know how times changed, and people, they don’t care so much about albums anymore and it’s all about playlists and single releases, so first we thought “should we make a new album”? Then we thought yeah we have to, we want to because we have to go through the process of making it, plus bring a lot of new music with us.

The beginning of the album, transports me back to when I started going “out out”, and when Daft Punk were around and Justice and that whole wonderful electro era, so the first part of the album reminds me of that, then you go into your new stuff. What was the thought behind this sort of new sound you’ve brought intermixed with your sound. I mean it’s you guys throughout the album, you’ve kept your sound, so how have you made it new?
Yeah, I don’t know, that’s the big thing that everyone’s trying to achieve from me. It’s kind of reinventing without alienating people. I think we feel like the new album is like our new first album. There was so much time since the last album that it didn’t really matter if we made one or not, no one gave us any deadlines and we didn’t know how we wanted to sound, so we just started making music. And at the end of the process we knew, that’s how we sound nowadays. And it’s a mix from the very beginnings. There’s some really long songs, we’ve really didn’t discard any ideas, we didn’t sensor ourselves, basically – so if you look at ‘Destination Breakdown’ it’s almost 8 minutes long and it comes in three parts. So it just goes on and on and on, we just didn’t stop writing and producing and just put everything on there! Which is new for us.

The vocalists, you’ve got you on the tracks and also another voice?
Yes that’s all me, apart from on ‘Battlecry’ that’s our friend Anthony Rossomando. He used to be in Dirty Pretty Things and he’s touring with Miike Snow at the minute and he’s a good friend of ours. We wrote the song in LA with him so – it was just too much fun doing it with him actually. There’s also one more guest, which is our tour bus driver from 2014, who was good at freestyle, so we recorded it and Tony is on the Hip Hop track ‘The Ism’.

I was going to ask you about ‘The Ism’ I love it and the bass line in it is amazing. It’s a cool track, but it’s quite a stand-alone track from the rest of the album. What were your thoughts behind this?
Ah thank you, well we had the freestyle rap, and we had such a good time with Tony on tour at the end of 2014, that we thought ok, let’s make something out of it. At first we wanted to make an interlude, but then we thought, no it’s just too good, let’s make a full track. I mean it’s not really long – it’s the shortest one on the album, but it’s much longer than the planned interlude. It’s great. When we met him, he had picked us up from Toronto airport where we embarked on the tour and he told us that his daughter knows of us and is a big fan, and he was really happy to work with us – and she’s a professional singer, so for him to MC and rap on our album is just brilliant.

So the whole album, the title ‘Mirage’ what was your overarching thought for the whole body of work?
That’s the thing about a mirage, it’s something that’s there and then may not any more and it might be very subjective, so we want the album to be very neutral. I don’t think it pushes you towards something, it’s really what you make of it. It’s like some nice gem stone lying there on the table in front of you and it’s up to you what you do with it.

Digitalism Mirage is out now via PIAS.

By Hannah Shakir
@hanshak
@bbmmagazine

Digitalism – Australian Tour [DJ SETS]

Thurs 9 June Fat Controller | Adelaide, SA
Fri 10 June Oh Hello! | Brisbane, QLD
Sat 11 June Platform One | Melbourne, VIC
Sun 12 June Oxford Art Factory | Sydney, NSW

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