Exclusive: Five Minutes with Human Movement

Australian techno duo Human Movement have been getting steady attention over the last couple of years, and with their latest release of their EP, Subcity, the boys may have dropped their greatest project yet. With that in mind, and all of their previous success under their belt, HM sat down with us for 5 minutes to catch up!

Hi there, how are you and what are you up to today?

Hello! We are good thank you! Just working in the studio writing some synth lines, and about to head out to have a drink or 10.

To those not familiar with you, how would you describe your sound?

We like to call it dark house! There’s so many sub genre’s nowadays that it’s really hard to pin point what we are making. We are also vibing the whole lo-fi house and disco sound at the moment, so expect some more left field house and funk driven tracks in the future!

What are the 5 most influential albums that have influenced you the most?

5 of our most influential albums we’d say would have to be Daniel Avery – Drone Logic, Recondite – On Acid, Aphex twin – Syro, Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Comes and Hackman – Change my life (even though it’s an EP)

Which other artists are you into at the moment and why?

Artist’s like Midland and MallGrab are really inspiring to us at the moment, the stripped back vinyl house sound is really something special to dance to! We’ve also really gotten into our minimal “Everywhere you go” – Ricardo Villalobos is on repeat….

Are there any key pieces of equipment that you are using to define your sound?

Most of our released music is all inside the box (digital audio and soft synths) – but we just landed ourselves a Roland Tr-8 drum machine and a Moog Little Phatty analog Synthesiser. So expect some harder analog bass line’s and 808 drums over the next couple of releases 😉

What would you say some of the challenges artists face today in the music industry?

Basically the hustle of becoming a solidified artist and trying to break through that initial phase to get the music out to the public. This is probably the hardest step in the whole process, playing local shows and trying to build a fan bass in your area, and then trying to push your music interstate and internationally through social media and content! It’s both difficult, but exciting and enjoyable at the same time.

Where do you gather song writing inspiration?

There’s so many different factors that influence us when writing music. It could be a certain emotion or mood that we are feeling, or a certain song that we heard out in a club night or whatever. We are currently really interested in the psychology of music and the deep process of how sounds will translate when heard, even on a subconscious level!

Take us through your songwriting process. Are there any particular steps you take when put music together?

There isn’t really a set workflow that we both follow as it’s such a intricate process when creatively songwriting. I would say we usually start with the drum lines and groove of the whole track first, and from there we start writing the whole atmosphere and structure to the song. This usually sets the creative tone in the process. With the new addition of the Moog Synth and the Tr-8, it’s definitely becoming more of a live Jamming process, and once we’ve found something special we will commit to the idea and go from there.

What’s the best gig you have ever done and why?

There has been a lot of amazing shows so far! Nothing beats playing techno to a crowd of protesters in front of police while marching for “Keep Sydney Open” which was a Rally against the laws of early closure of Sydney’s nightlife.

And the worst?

Probably this show we did way back in Perth (Western Australia) – the sound system was completely broken, and we were playing too a heaving crowd of about 5 people! Atleast the 5 people who were there were fans I guess.

If you weren’t a musician what would you be?

Let’s just say we both didn’t do too great in school…

Do you have any particular gigs or festivals that you dream about playing?

Any of the amazing festival’s over in Europe. Melt, Awakenings, and Into The Valley would be our dream circuit. Going over to Amsterdam and getting involved in ADE would be an insane experience.

If you could perform alongside any other band or artist, who would it be?

Going B2B with Apparat would be legendary. We caught his closing set at Strawberry fields last year, and he absolutely killed it. It was applause after applause during every song, we we’re just mind blown by some of the tracks he was dropping.

Do you have any information regarding upcoming releases, projects or gigs in the pipeline that you would like to tell us about?

We can’t really reveal too much. But expect a cool house funk release in the not to distant future. We are really excited about this…….. And then expect something very big in 2017 😉 That’s all we can say.