Jagged Edge

Whilst I've been complaining about Sydney's Parklife festival since Sunday afternoon - one need only look at the above photograph to see a glimpse of the pill-munching fluro-douches that swarmed Moore Park - one thing I can't complain about is seeing Digitalism twice in one week.

Jens and Isi brought lashings of gritty Deutsch electro to town and it was great. Though they were far better to see in a smaller club, as was the case with Thursday's MySpace Secret Show (at which my girlfriend managed to bluff our way to media passes and no queues!) it was still good to hear the strains of Pogo streaming through the Pukelife atmosphere...if you could call it that.

Being the hopeless fan-boy that I am, I jumped at the prospect of interviewing the duo earlier in the year, and now that they're in Oz, winning the hearts and booties of kids everywhere, it's about time I posted it up.

Read on!

Dave: First of all Jens, how are you?

Jens: I'm good, I'm good. Isi and I are currently in the studio.

D: But Idealism is out what are you two still doing stuck in the studio?

J: Well a lot of our gear's here and now that the album is out we have to prepare the singles and we're programming a new live set. We're setting on some sort of side stuff too...but I can't tell you about that. It's some bitchy stuff. Idealistic is our next single and that's worldwide, so there's going to be some really cool remixes on that too.

D: Oh cool, I love it how you guys always pack out your singles with lots extras. Like I freak out a bit over all the different versions you put out of Zdarlight and the Mentalism mix of Pogo was excellent as was the On The Road To Paris version.

J: That was actually the first layout of Pogo from three years ago! I think Cut Copy were playing it two years ago.

D: Well they're ahead of the times.

J: Yeah, they're nice guys [chuckling].

D: Back to the music, one thing I wanted to talk to you about was that the album has got more lyrics than ever before. After a couple of big instrumental based singles, how did you guys go about working that into your songs?

J: Well....we just felt like it actually. The On The Road To Paris version kind of screamed for a vocal on it. We thought about that and transformed it into a proper song. That one was written with Kim of the Presets because he's quite a good friend of ours.There's another Australian connection! It just made sense, so we just decided to do that. When we play live it's actually more fun for me when I'm singing. So in the future we might do more songs like that.

D: When you're playing here in Australia, what can we expect from the Digitalism live show? Have you guys got your very own Daft Punk pyramid? The Digitalism Cube? Rhombus? Some other shape?

J: [laughing] No no, nothing like that. We've got some customized Digitalism stage elements which should hopefully be ready for the Parklife shows, they're really cool. In our set we're always trying to find the balance between lo-fi and sci-fi. It's a balance that we also try to find in the music. We toured Australia last year for Modular and that was really cool, but still pretty simple, you know?

D: I remember that tour, it was great that this awesome electro duo from Germany was playing at the uni in Canberra.

J: I remember. That was cool. But it was very cold.

D: Another thing which I wanted to ask about was the album. After tremendous dance singles and banging remixes, the album's got great melodic moments, poppy moments and softer and more sombre moments alongside the pure electro dancefloor stuff. How did you guys go about the recording process and achieving that?

J: We didn't just want to do a compilation of tracks or a club thing for deejays only. Over time, Digitalism has gained its own kind of identity so we kind of felt like we had to deliver some messages on these songs. There's kind of a Digitalism-Universe and the album describes it in a way. We don't see ourselves as a typical dance act. We don't mind crossing over genres or getting a little poppy. All the tracks on the album are very different, but they've all got our Digitalism signature. We wanted the album to be more than the sum of all the tracks too. It had to have its own identity as well....if you get what I mean. I don't know, but there was a lot of thought gone into it.

D: One last question, the gold shoes in the Pogo video. Where'd. You. Get. Them?

J: They're Pierre Hardy and they're sold out! [laughs] People keep asking about them so we're trying to get some more. Isi's wearing the white ones. But the gold ones are cool.

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As a fan-boy, one needs to cultivate a large iTunes collection of Digitalism shtufff, and that's something I take great pride in. So, find below a meaty package of Digitalism gaff, including the killer Mentalism mix of Pogo, Saw You In 2 Pieces (an Idealism bonus track), and one of the band's first works, their bootleg remix of Seven Nation Army by You Know Who.

Digitalism - Saw You In 2 Pieces

Digitalism - Zdarlight (Basement Trash Tryout Mix)

Digitalism - Pogo (Mentalism Remix)

Digitalism - Digitalism vs Seven Nation Army

Daft Punk - Technologic (Digitalism's Highway To Paris Remix)

Go here to pick up pretty much all the Digitalism rekkids out there and Idealism if you didn't already have it. Punk. And there's a new Dave Gahan mix due out soon, so eyes peeled.