Sydney’s ambient-electronica outfit Seekae are returning to Perth in August as part of a four-stop tour of Australia. In conversation with George from the three-piece band, OUTinPerth found out why playing live is much more than syncing up the iPod.
You guys are going to be touring around Australia with your album, +Dome (Plus-Dome) … Why did you guys call your album +Dome?
[We] just thought it would be a funny thing. It actually kind of back-fired because I don’t think iTunes could list it on their server because they didn’t take that plus [symbol]. So it was delayed for about two weeks on iTunes because they couldn’t figure out how to put a plus [symbol] in.
So you guys confused the system?
We took ’em down from the inside.
Who would have thought you could take down the Apple empire with a plus sign?
Yeah we got ’em. Take that Steve Jobs!
Have you guys toured Perth before?
Yeah we have. We’ve been there twice. We came out the first time with the Perth International Arts Festival, playing with PVT. The second time Dave Cutbush brought us out for the Mount Kimbie Tour which was … god probably six months ago now. That was also at the Bakery. It is such a fantastic venue, I really liked it last time I played there… And they actually got it to sound really good as well.
How do you feel about going back on tour?
Good. We’ve had a bit of a break. We went to England and played about 10 shows in about a month and then after that we were kind of milling around Cambridge, writing material and stuff. It will be good to get back on the road.
How much of your show is live while touring?
Well it’s hard to say what is live … we’re not just pressing space bar. This live show that we’re going to play here is guitars and drums and some of the things are samples but they are heavily manipulated and triggered in time. It’s not as easy as one might think it is. Although it can be a testament to how difficult it is by how much we fuck it up. You can tell we’re not just playing solitaire.
What is your favourite thing about touring?
In-flight entertainment; sometimes you get free in-flight entertainment if the plane takes off late, like TV shows on the plane.
I read that you guys had dubbed your sound as ‘Ghetto Ambient’. Why so?
It was just a funny term that a friend of mine said once and we were like “Yes, we’re going to take thatâ€. Yeah I think it’s just a bit of tongue in cheek, a bit of a laugh.
So how would you describe your sound?
I don’t know. I just usually call it electronic music, just electronic. I wouldn’t want to put lots of hyphens in it … and weird genres that people make up. So I usually just say electronic music, it just makes it easier for everyone.
Do you think we sometimes get lost in sub-genres?
I think people can get a bit obsessed by what music is, especially in electronic music. I think people get a bit obsessed by what you can play at a dub-step night or what you can play at a techno festival. It just seems a bit trivial to me.
Will there be anything new on this tour?
Yeah definitely, there will be some new tracks in there. Yeah there will be some from +Dome but there will also be some songs we haven’t released yet. Well Alex and John are actually in the UK, well Alex is somewhere in eastern Europe and John is in the UK still so we haven’t actually started practising our live show but I’m sure its going to come together really well…
Check out Seekae at the Bakery on August 27. Book tickets through www.nowbaking.com.au
Benn Dorrington
