In March, the announcement that Kylie was returning home with her Aphrodite-Les Folies tour in June had a fair proportion of Australia’s queer population lose their shit.
For the Australian leg of her tour, she has enlisted some unlikely allies for her supporting act: Melbournian duo Gypsy and the Cat, comprised of DJ’s Xavier Bacash and Lionel Towers. So for you Kylie fans that have no idea who these Victorian DJs are let OUTinPerth introduce you.
Gypsy and the Cat (G&C) rocketed to popularity among Triple J listeners early on last year with their single, Jona Vark. Their retro sound spiked the attention of electro-pop fans with its mix of soft rock and folk. Initially, Towers felt that he’d been personally moving away from house music and had begun working on a new project with G&C on the side.
‘It started off for me as a side project… and then we progressed more in our sound and the third or fourth song we wrote was Jona Vark,’ he told OUTinPerth over the phone from Melbourne.
Jona Vark pricked the ears of electronic-pop lovers, its cosmic sound is transcendent while it’s a chorus is catchy and riddled with hooks.
‘We continued writing tunes; it was all tunes for our own enjoyment.’
In November last year, the boys delivered their debut album, Gilgamesh. The title choice was a matter of convenience, according to Towers who said they were looking for an album title to complement their name.
‘We liked the sound of it and it was one word; our band name was already quite long.’
So far, the band has been making waves; on top of their album release, they hit the festival circuit for the Future Music Festival and now join Kylie for five concerts around the country this month.
‘People who I speak to enjoy it and all the reviews I’ve read are pretty good; there might have been one review I read once that gave us two and a half which isn’t the end of the world.’
‘At the end of the day, we don’t really pay too much attention to what the reviews say… we wrote the record for ourselves and in the studio, it was always about pleasing our own ears.’
If you are lucky enough to catch Kylie this month, don’t miss these talented DJs.
Benn Dorrington
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