At the moment we’re working 16 hour days – we’re being true to our name!
HERMITS AT HEART Morgan Richards and Darcy Davis Electronic music producers often lead reclusive lifestyles, cloistering themselves in studio dungeons for days on end. Hiphop beatsmiths HERMITUDE would seem to reflect this in very name. But over the past ten years, the duo – Luke Dubber and Angus Stewart, better known as Dubs and El Gusto – have moved from their caves of solitude in the Blue Mountains to packing out dancefloors in the big smoke. “We started out sneaking into Gusto’s dad’s studio and writing beats from dusk ‘til dawn,” explains Dubs. The duo’s debut album, Alleys to Valleys, was well received by fans and critics alike. It evoked a laidback, pensive mood with tracks like Splendid Isolation and Cave Styles. Their sophomore release, 2005’s Tales of the Drift, continued this pleasant meandering, until the duo took a different direction with Threads in 2008. The album made ventures into electronic music territory, with a fuller, dancier sound.
move towards more upbeat tunes. “We’ve always done more downtempo hip-hop. The new album’s got plenty of slow burners but we wanted to inject a bit of fire and energy into it. We started messing around with some faster tempos, songs that would get people moving. You realise that fully smoked-out tunes aren’t gonna get the dancefloor cranking, so it’s good to have a few bangers in reserve.” The duo will be road-testing the new material this summer, with an Australian tour including four festival shows. “We’ve been in the studio for weeks and we’ve got about three or four more tunes. We’ll see what people think, bump heads and say what’s up. Then back into the studio for more mixing. At the moment we’re working 16 hour days – we’re being true to our name!” But does the name still fit? They’re not exactly hermits these day, packing out dancefloors and getting attention from DJs around the world. Luke laughs in response. “We’d never change our name, it’ll just have to stay ironic – the most famous hermits the world has ever seen!” Catch Hermitude live at the Summer Rhythm Festival on Saturday December 10. Tickets are $95 + bf and are available through Oztix
After a two year hiatus, during which Dubs and Gusto worked on side projects, Hermitude burst back onto the scene this January with the single Get Into My Life. “We kinda just wrote that tune because we hadn’t done any releases in a couple of years and thought we’d better get our shit together to let people know that we’re still alive. We played a couple of shows and every time we dropped that track everyone went absolutely mental so we thought we better make a new album.” But they’ve taken their time – the album is due next February. Last month they dropped another single, the wickedly catchy Speak of the Devil. The track mixes warm, scratchy samples with pulsing synths and a chorus by Sydney artist Chaos Emerald. It’s about that little devil on your shoulder that pokes and prods you to get up and go dance. Dubs explains the
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