Dusky Interview

Dusky, A.K.A Nick Harriman and Alfie Granger-Howell, have become instantly recognisable in the House and Techno scene. Cementing their position as a force to be reckoned with after their 2012 LP, ‘Stick By This’, we caught up with the lads prior to their visit to Australia in December/January for Let Them Eat Cake.

Hi Alfie, Nick, how’s everything going?
A: Hi, we’re good thanks!

Where are you talking to us from?
N: We’re in our studio at the moment, just taking a break from writing some new material.

You’ve known each other for a long time, but how did you initially come together as a duo?
A: We met when we were about 16 and found we had a lot of shared musical interests. Our collaboration started a year or so later, bouncing ideas back and forth.

Do you share the same influences or do you have some surprising tastes in music?
N: We both have eclectic tastes and try to listen to lots of different styles and eras of music. I’ve always been into Dance music but listen to a lot of Soul and Jazz as well.
A: I’m classically trained and studied film & TV music, so I find myself listening to a lot of that kind of thing as well as Dance music.

So, we must ask, why the name Dusky?
N: There’s no big story behind it, unfortunately. We wanted a name that was short, catchy and was a real word. It took us ages to find something suitable as everything we thought of had been taken. Once we’d come up with ‘Dusky’, we realised there was a neat link to our previous project ‘Solarity’ in that they’re both words based on light, but that was a post-rationalisation if we’re honest.

How has 2013 been for you, what were your highlights from this year?
A: It’s been great. We’ve been touring a lot, which has been exhausting, but amazing fun. My highlight would probably be our own headline show at XOYO in London, for which we got to choose the rest of the line-up as well. We’d hardly played in London over the past year or two before that as we’d been focusing on gigs away from home, so it felt like a kind of homecoming.

You’ll be playing at Let Them Eat Cake festival in Australia on New Year’s Day, are you looking forward to starting the year in such a crazy way?
N: Most definitely! We will have been in Perth just before for Origin festival and heading to Field Day in Sydney straight after the Let Them Eat Cake set so it will be a really hectic one.

What can festival-goers expect from your set?
A: We always play a lot of our own material so people can expect that. Apart from that it’s difficult to say. We’ll probably play some Housier stuff and some more Techno-y stuff, but it depends on what the crowd seem to be feeling.

Is there anyone else you’re looking forward to seeing at LTEC?
N: Sadly, it looks like we’ll have to fly straight in and out, but if we were there for longer then we’d definitely like to catch DJ Koze and Floating Points.

Do you have any crazy plans for New Year’s Eve?
N: We’re playing Origin Festival in Perth and an after party there before leaving from the club straight to Melbourne, so there’s not much space for plans around that, but New Year’s normally gets pretty crazy without having to make any plans!

How do you set out creating music? What’s your process?
A: There’s no set way of doing it for us. These days we often start ideas on our laptops while on the road, before passing it to the other to elaborate on, or take in a totally different direction for that matter. We can’t do mix down tracks properly on headphones at the moment so we finish the tracks and add all the details in our studio in London.

Do you have equal input into the creation process or does it vary from track to track?
N: Yeah it varies – every track is different.

How have things changed (production-wise), if at all, since you started out? Have you added any equipment or changed the way you create music?
A: Not really, no. We do everything ‘in the box’ and don’t use any hardware or external processing at the moment. We’ve acquired new plugins, samples and soft synths over the years, but our basic way of working has remained the same.

What advantages do you think you get from DJ’ing as a duo?
N: It may sound strange, but having four hands is really useful. You can be blending EQ’s, faders and multiple effects and filters all at the same time, which is great. You also have a bit more space to observe the crowd’s reaction and make decisions on what tracks to play or directions to steer the set in.

Was DJ’ing something you’d both always wanted to do, or did you have other ambitions growing up?
A: I always wanted to do music, whether it was DJ’ing, producing or composing.
N: Growing up, I always wanted to be a professional skateboarder, but after I got my first set of decks at 13, my focus started to shift towards music and DJ’ing became my main ambition.

Whilst you’re in Oz, is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to doing?
A: Enjoying the sunshine! It’ll be great to have a respite from the grey London winter weather. There are also lots of great restaurants in Australia we’ve found, so we’re looking forward to eating out a lot.

When you’re not doing music, what do you like to do in your spare time?
A: I really enjoy making quilts, tadpole-baiting, buying new specimens for my collection of 19th century clogs. You know, the usual.
N: I love researching medieval Indo-European military history, and I’m currently really into making garden furniture from discarded copper piping too.

OK… What’s in the plans 2014?
A: Release-wise, we don’t have many specific plans, but we’re working on a lot of music at the moment so there are a few releases in the pipeline, and we’re going to be continuing to tour a lot too.

Thanks for your time boys and we look forward to seeing you at Let Them Eat Cake!