Flume Archives • Page 4 of 4 • Howl & Echoes

Flume may have just dropped his best song yet. Big call, sure, but I’m going there.

Following on from his recent new single Never Be Like You (ft. Kai,) the Manly-born producer has just stepped up his game about ten notches, with new track Smoke and Retribution, featuring Perth singer Kucka and rapper Vince Staples.

Opening on a massive beat, the pendulum swings across the rhythm as Staples spits pure fire up above. But before long, the entire track changes – rhythm, atmosphere and melody, with a brief glimpse into a spacey soundscape and Kucka’s almost childlike bridge. I’ll be honest, this is by far my least favourite part of the track; the breakdown feels like a necessity more than a strong addition to the track. But Vince soon returns to the spotlight, and boy oh boy, does he deserve it.

https://soundcloud.com/flume/smoke-and-retribution-feat-vince-staples-kucka/

Myself, and much of the music world, have long considered where Flume would take his immediately identifiable sound on his second album. Considering the quality of the two tracks we’ve heard so far, this is shaping up to be one hell of a follow-up.

Flume and Staples are both set to perform at Laneway Festival this year, so one can only assume that lucky attendees will be among the first in the world to hear the pair collaborate on this incredible production live.

Flume will be releasing his new album Skin later this year via Future Classic.

Dates and venues:
Friday 5 February – Harts Mill, Port Adelaide (16+)
Saturday 6 February – Brisbane Showgrounds, Brisbane (16+)
Sunday 7 February – Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney
Saturday 13 February – Footscray Community Arts Centre And The River’s Edge, Melbourne
Sunday 14 February – Esplanade Reserve and West End, Fremantle

Tix here

More: Read our interview with Vince Staples

Flume is arguably one of the most important Australian artists in recent memory. Like it or not, he’s pretty much solely responsible for putting Australian electronic music on the international map. We’ve been waiting a long goddamn time for the follow-up to 2012’s globally acclaimed, award-winning, festival-headlining debut release.

Now, finally, it looks like the day we’ve all been waiting for is drawing nearer.

The Sydney-born artist, better known to his mum as Harley Streten, just dropped a five-minute teaser of sounds, beats and rhythms from his upcoming sophomore release. He’s also revealed that the title of the album is Skin.

The five minute mix is heady and heavy, experimental, diverse and intricate. Looks like this is going to be a pretty huge release for 2016!

Listen here:

https://www.facebook.com/flumemusic/videos/936493093052719/?permPage=1

While we’ve been impatiently waiting for a follow-up album, the 24-year-old has hardly been idle, headlining festivals around the world, collaborating, remixing and more.

Realistically, the hardest part of his job right now it to follow up his eponymous debut, considering how stylistically groundbreaking and genre-defining it was. An album which spawned literally countless clones, adaptations and “who’s your biggest influence” interview answers, Flume has undertaken a massive task: to create an album that not only works on that ‘signature’ sound we’ve come to know and love, but to simultaneously create something fresh, exciting and new – not so new that it’ll ostracise fans, but not so samey that it doesn’t explore loads of new ground.

That’s one hell of a musical challenge and I’m particularly keen to see where it’ll go from here.We’ll keep you posted as more details unfold.

Chicago-based mash-up extraordinaires The Hood Internet are at it again and have just released a super sweet new track. Sure, not all mash-ups work, but this feels like it was a match made in heaven, and we are so happy to have stumbled upon it.

Since 2007, the pair have made their mark on the music world by bringing together unlikely pairings of indie and hip hop tracks with infectious and downright exceptional results. The latest offering sees Flume’s new track Some Minds and Notorious B.I.G’s hit Big Poppa smushed together in a seamless production.

Yeah, it’s really good.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/209540894″]

If you aren’t familiar with The Hood Internet, you can check out some more of their tracks here. Be warned! They are addictive.

In related news, Sydney’s wunderkind Flume has released some new music of his own recently. It’s good, but if we’re being honest, we didn’t think it was THAT great.

Also, if you really like the sound of Biggie in a mash-up, check out this incredible multi-track release that’s entirely a mash-up of biggie with FKA Twigs!

Somewhere along the line Flume went from being a relatively unknown Australian DJ to Australia’s poster boy for electronic music. Perhaps it was in between his self-titled debut album achieving exceptional critical acclaim in 2012, and four of his tracks topping the charts in Triple J’s hottest 100s of 2012 on Australia Day of 2013. We can’t quite pinpoint when, but on that day Australia decided that Flume was the shit.

Since then he has been adopted by the label Future Classic and headlined an impressive number of Australian festivals, as well as achieving international success. He really can’t do anything wrong.

Today the young artist and producer has released a new single via Triple J, Some Minds. The track is an original work featuring the vocals of Andrew Wyatt, and is accompanied by a music video featuring Flume floating around the Sydney Opera House at night. To me it is a little too palatable.

Flume talked of wanting to write a fully-fledged song, not just a ‘track’, as well as to push his boundaries as an electronic artist. Having developed such an identifiable ‘signature sound,’ we know doubt know there was a lot of pressure for the follow-up – he can’t sound too similar, but he can’t stray too far. But perhaps, here, he’s trying to do too many things at once. The result is a somewhat dulled down version of Flume’s earlier stuff, with clearer, more comprehensible vocals. The accompanying film is beautifully shot, but again way too digestible. Featuring slow pans of the Sydney Opera House’s pleasing interior architecture, it reads more as a commercial for Vivid Festival (which saw Flume performing at the Opera House) than a music video.

The clip semi-takes off at approximately 3 minutes in when Flume starts performing ballet moves, choreographed by Australian Ballet dancer Callum Linnane, and is distorted slightly using editing techniques. Even then it is not exactly mind blowing.

All in all Flume really is a talented DJ, but you can’t ‘push boundaries’ and remain the apple of Australia’s eye at the same time. It just doesn’t work like that.

One of the biggest producers in the world has remixed one of the biggest songs in the world. That’s right, Australia’s prodigal song Flume dropped a sneaky remix of Sam Smith‘s Lay Me Down in the wee hours of our morning this morning, and I don’t think the world could handle it.

Already accumulating over 300,000 plays in 13 hours, Harley Streten continues to exercise his knack of “killing it” with every move. Offering up a breakneck, glittering rework, Streten has allowed for Smith’s vocals to still shine through (how could they not?) whilst employing a stronger, more amped up Flume style. It’s awesome!

That’s not all the news that has emerged from the Flume camp this morning. The super producer has also announced a HUGE string of dates, with sadly only two in Australia (for Future Classic‘s VIVID Live showcase) that have already sold out. See below for the full dates, and join me in hoping he cannot be serious about his Australian tour schedule…

NORTH AMERICA

AUSTRALIA

Friday 29 May | Sydney, Australia | FCX: 10 Years Of Future Classic
Saturday 30 May | Sydney, Australia | FCX: 10 Years Of Future Classic

NORTH AMERICA

EUROPE

ASIA

Friday 24 – Sunday 26 July | Fuji, Japan | Fuji Rock Festival

Words by Jack Colquhoun

Having already announced last month that Morrissey was due to perform, today Vivid Sydney unveiled their entire schedule for this year’s event. Spanning over 18 days between May and June, Sydney’s festival of art, light and music is set to be absolutely massive this year.

This morning, huge international acts like Sufjan Stevens, TV On the Radio and Bill Callahan were announced, alongside locals legends The Drones, The Preatures and plenty more. Vivid Sydney is arguably more electronically oriented, and so it’s no surprise that this year’s roster of DJs and electronic artists is absolutely huge.

This year’s Vivid welcomes the debut performance of UK legend Squarepusher, mega mega hype! Big stuff from home too, with Future Classic set to host two outdoor shows to celebrate their tenth anniversary, made up of almost their entire current roster. Wave Racer, Flight Facilities, George Maple, Touch Sensitive and many more are playing, topped off by none other than Flume in his only Australian performances for 2015. There’s a bunch of parties getting hosted by Plastic World, Astral People, Elefant Traks, Oxford Art Factory, GoodGod Smallclub, and tonnes many more as well.

Anybody who has ever been to Vivid (or really anyone who lives in/has visited Sydney during the festival) knows how exciting it is. From the art and theatre to the gorgeous lights, to the musical delicacies listen above, this is undoubtedly Sydney’s best event. Don’t miss it.

Vivid will take over Circular Quay and the Opera House from the 22nd of May till the 8th of June.

Check out the Vivid website for all the details on this year’s festival.

Flume has left What So Not, his collaborative project with Emoh Instead to pursue his solo career. With Flume’s solo career taking him to new heights, touring the whole world and (hopefully) working on his follow-up to 2012’s self-titled debut, it seems the days of What So Not as a duo are no more.

It’s a fair call, with Manly local Harley Streten explaining that the pair have been moving in different directions creatively for a while now. He thanked his partner, Emoh, for taking the reins of What So Not – while they had ben producing together, Emoh has been the sole touring member of What So Not for more than a year now.

Fans have reacted divisively, of course.

Harley posted the news of his resignation from What So Not on their Facebook page:

The boys are known for huge club bangers like Jaguar, Touched, and Tell Me. The boys will be releasing an EP soon, their final joint project as What So Not. And last goodbye as a team.

Well, shit.

Reaping the ridiculous benefits of having every big name in electronic music in town at the same time, Triple J cashed in on Stereosonic Festival by putting together probably the biggest Saturday JJJ Mix-Up, well, ever.

Joining Nina Las Vegas was Jack U (Skrillex & Diplo), RL Grime, What So Not and Carmada.

Yeah, wow.

They spun an epic three hour, 95 track set including tracks from each artist’s back catalogue, new singles and never before heard cuts. Other tracks were from the likes of Diplo’s Major Lazer, Dillon Francis, Mr Carmack, remixes of Lorde, Baauer, TNGHT, Banks and MIA, Carmada’s new EP in its entirety, Boys Noize and rappers including Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, A$APs Rocky & Ferg and Busta Rhymes.

Listen below. Full track listing here.

Jack Ü (Skrillex & Diplo) & RL Grime & What So Not & Carmada – Triple J (JJJ) Mixup 2014-12-06 by Diriger on Mixcloud