While you only have to step out your front door in Sydney to find an electronic artist working hard at their craft, it’s rare to find those who are tirelessly slogging the hard yards to build a better industry for us all. Pluural are just that.
A pair of Sydney locals dedicated to burgeoning new music and a change in pace for electronica signed to local label St. O’Donnell, Pluural has already been given the nod by artists including Polographia and Lupa J, but their humble attitude and commitment to quality is really what makes them stand out.
We sat down to chat with Adam to get the low down on their beginnings, their latest EP Two Cities and who is inspiring them in the local scene.
Far from being one-trick ponies, Pluural are drawing upon boundless inspiration to harness beat-heavy electronica, both live and produced.
“We met when Jesse started dating my sister in 2011 and discovered that we shared an interest in music (and he was an ok dude). I had been dabbling in electronic music production; Jesse had been jamming in a band with some mates. We eventually started mucking around on Ableton with some remixes and edits, and slowly but surely worked on some original material as a duo.”
“We are simple dudes. We didn’t wanna just combine letters from both our names, so we just brainstormed words that sounded and looked cool – came up with ‘Plural’, which obviously fit because of the meaning, however we discovered other bands with that name online and we added another ‘u’ to our name for ultimate uniqueness.”
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Their sound is a grey area between the worlds of live performance and electronic production, the two shifting in and out as if they were controlled by the fader on a Pioneer box. That being said, the fellas do have a defined idea of where they sit.
“It really is a cocktail of all the different kinds of music we’ve listened to and loved over the years. You can hear various influences coming through, however we narrow it down to ‘indie electronic’. Some tracks are more upbeat and groovy with the live bass driving the track, others are slower, more chill and synth driven.”
More and more people are getting creative with their live setups, incorporating hardware, guest vocalists and session musos, and steering away from plain old DJ sets for sure (although there is nothing wrong with that!). Technology is ever evolving too, which will always influence the way electronic gear is used.”
St O’Donnell has opened up a heap of doors, and not just those in music, the label is a committed hub of creatives, working towards fostering growth in Sydney’s local arts community. Fashion, food, music, performance and visual art… St O’Donnell is right there in the thick of it.
“St. O’Donnell is a relatively new Sydney collective; in fact we were the first artists that was officially taken under their wing for management. It’s an awesome crew who have become known for our Select Gallery events and giving life to the somewhat suffering Sydney creative culture.”
“We originally just sent the bossdawg Chin one of our tracks, he dug it, we started chatting, became mates, started helping organise these events and became part of the crew!”
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But their passion is far from organic, rather Pluural have been digging deep into the best of electronic music to come up with what they have today, notable mention goes to a few locals who have shaped them over the years.
“There’s no denying Flume sparked a new wave of experimental electronic artists. Odesza are very close to our hearts – they’re a huge influence for us not only in the way they play live and their sound, but the fact that they’ve branched off and launched their label Foreign Collective, too. That’s admirable.”
“Kaytranada – another undeniable production god of our time. And we couldn’t wrap up this list without having Disclosure in there. The way that the boys place such a heavy emphasis on their live set has not only impacted the way we play but has also really opened everyone’s eyes to what one can play live as an electronic act.”
They’ve got an EP out, jam packed with collaborations and not to mention new music in the pipeline; we’re super stoked to see where Pluural will take Aussie electronic music in 2017.
“It was fun! We just hand picked the five tracks from our WIPs at the time that we felt were best suited together as an EP, and for four out of the five tracks we had the pleasure of working with vocalists, too – Sam Higginson, Mikaela Dean (now Florian), Pete Rowlands and Adam’s now fiancè, Lucy Warner!”
“Adam actually wrote the lyrics for the track Lucy featured on. We had assistance mixing down the tracks with our good pal Michael Dable too.”
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And we couldn’t let them go without a dash of advice for making the most of your time creating new sounds.
“Support your homies and go see local live acts! Playing and watching live music is healthy for your mind, your social life and your overall happiness.”
“It’s especially good for artists to see other acts, because not only do you discover new artists you wouldn’t have otherwise heard, but you get inspired checking out how other artists do their thing.”
