Two words: Electric Zoo. Since 2009, Electric Zoo, NYC's own international electronica music festival, has steadily grown to become a premier music festival in NYC. 2016 did not disappoint as thousands of people came out from Friday to Sunday to party!
*a parade of costumed electronica fans
*a simple girl with a simple hula hoop rocking out to the DJ stylings of Felix Jaehn
On the second day, Hermitude, a hip-hop EDM (Electronic Dance Music) duo from South Wales, Australia played a great set on the Hilltop stage. Talking to some listeners a few minutes before Hermitude went on stage, I could tell the audience was eager to hear their stuff. As they began their set, the crowd was totally feeling their vibe. Not only were people dancing, vibing, throwing an inflatable blue Martian man throughout the crowd, hooking up, they were also engaged. Hermitude made it a point to really interact with the audience and jam out with them, as much as the audience was jamming out to Hermitude. I was privileged to get to sit down with both Luke Dubber and Angus Stuart and ask the duo a couple questions about them and their music and just have an overall pleasant conversation.
* Hermitude, at the beginning of their set. Angus on the left, burning the piano keys and Luke dropping ill percussion on the right.
1. How do you feel about the energy of Electric Zoo? How is it for you?
It’s been really fun. It seems like a really cool crowd, a young crew just ready to have a good time. We played Governor’s Ball, but we’ve never played Electric Zoo before.
2. What do you want fans of your music to get out of it?
I reckon like when we make our music, we release the songs they are really excited about and we put them out because they give us chills. They make us so excited. We like people to experience that same feeling, and to listen to our music to really get that chill down their spine and be like, “this makes us feel so good!”. Whatever makes them happy. Sometimes, we’ve had people come up to us and say that our music’s helped them get through a hard time, and that sort of thing makes us feel great because it’s helping to contribute to someone’s life. Whether it be that, or the perfect tune you put on when you’re driving to the beach, or something you can cut loose and dance for, or something that inspires people, that’s a great thing for us to hear. And also, you know, that baby-making music *laughs*
*The audience listening to Hermitude, both inside and out
3. Is it artistically freeing for you to create music solely or mostly based on instrumentals?
Angus: I think so. I never understood why we were drawn to instrumental music, but that is part of it. Neither of us are singers or lyric writers at all, and we came from playing in bands; I play drums, Luke’s a piano player. I guess it was just something where we felt free to be able to express through our instruments and through production and, you know, music.
Luke: We definitely were also listening to a lot of guitar amp as well.
Angus: Yeah. We were kinda influenced by hip-hop, instrumental, electronic music, instrumental hip-hop, and it’s just something that kind of happened as well.
4. What is the inspiration for your music?
Well, both our fathers are musicians, and we listened to a lot of jazz, classical music, blues and soul, funk. I went to Cuba when I was fifteen and studied percussion over there. So we’re kind of really open to different styles, but what was really interesting about hip-hop is that it was taking those old styles of music and flipping it. We were both inspired by that because we are players, but we keep hearing these dudes flipping these tracks and we’re like, “That’s dope”. It was cool, it was dope, so we got into it and we wanted to do it ourselves.
5. Who are your biggest hip-hop influences?
Hermitude: Digable Planets on the jazz tip, DJ Premier, DJ Shadow on the instrumental tip, DJ Crush, A Tribe Called Quest, Roots, Biggie, lots of different ones.
6. What are your goals musically? Are you coming back to EZoo?
Angus: Yeah, I hope so.
Luke: Well, we’ve got a bit of touring, so we’ll be finishing up our album. It’s kind of been a world tour, I guess. We’ve been out for three months. We’ll finish up in two weeks, three weeks. We’re going to go back and write another record. We have a little studio in Syndney and, yeah, it’ll be nice to just get back home to a routine of writing during the week, during the days, and just kind of hang out at nights, weekends with our friends. Touring obviously just throws you into a whirl of abnormality and is just completely routine-free. It will be nice to anchor ourselves for awhile. It will help, I think, with writing as well. We love touring, it’s great, but it’s also really nice to be in one spot for a while and sink your teeth into a project. The next record is the next project and we’re super excited, man.
7. Any dream collaborations?
Hmm…Little Dragon, Frank Ocean, he’d be dope, maybe get Young Thug on a track.
Pierre: Just looking at his latest album cover, he’s really unique, not even just with his music, but his expression. What do you guys make of that?
Luke: I mean, I think he’s cool. To be honest, it took me a little while to warm up to him. I just thought he was kind of crazy.
Angus: I’m going to say lyrically, he doesn’t really do it for me, but melodically and that sort of stuff, I really like how he’s kind of singing in his melodies; I actually kind of dig his flavor.
Luke: He’s just got a great-sounding voice. Yeah he’s exciting, man. Definitely one of the more inspiring, dramatic hip-hop artists.
8. So your name, Hermitude, I’m assuming comes from being in the studio that was up in the mountains back in the day?
Angus: Yeah, pretty much. My old man has a studio in the Blue Mountains, which is two miles out of Syndney, it’s on the edge of this valley, and it’s kind of isolated and he would go in there and after he would finish, we would go in at 10 P.M. until 6 in the morning. We would try out beats and that’s how we started. We would just do that. It just felt like it was just us up in the mountains.
Pierre: Brainstorming.
Angus: Exactly! And we were just in this state of Hermitude.
Attending Electric Zoo and meeting and talking with Hermitude was really awesome. EZoo is like one big party with is a non-stop live concert. People are having a good time, the music is awesome, and musicians are doing their thing. Groups like Hermitude and the other artists bring this great, chill vibe that, for three days, is definitely rocking people's worlds. You can check out Hermitude's official YouTube channel and sample their music here.
