Production duo and late night curators Naysayer & Gilsun are releasing a new EP and hitting the road with an AV spectacular that’s both simple and absurd.
“We are going to use this tour to throw in a lot of new stuff, with material that hasn’t been used in any kind of mixtape or live performance before, so there will be a lot of things that people haven’t seen as well as taking stuff we’ve used before which we will either pair with new music or re-cut it to give it some kind of new life,” says Gilsun, who makes up half of the electronic whiz kid pair.
“There will be a lot of fresh stuff in there!”
After bonding over a shared love of music and film in high school, Melbourne’s Naysayer & Gilsun began producing/ DJing together at the tender age of 16, graduating from sweaty house parties to the clubs with their own unique pairing of deep electronic music and live visuals lifted from new wave French obscurities to Hollywood blockbusters, precisely edited to create a visual experience that is totally immersive.
“We try to find visual samples from films that people inherently recognise, but instead of going for the quote or the moment that everyone associates with a particular film or TV show, we try to light up a section of the brain that’s not instantly recognisable. So rather than creating simple links between a person and the film, we want them to feel like they are recalling a dream instead, like tapping into a weird cultural de ja vu.”
The pair’s new EP, ‘All That Good Work/Blue’, is a follow-up to last year’s acclaimed debut single ‘In Mind’, and is being released through Club Mod instead of the boys’ own label Bossman Records.
“The response for ‘In Mind’ was really positive so I guess that gave us a lot less to be nervous about when putting original music out into the world. We’re control freaks, so the first single was great to release ourselves, but now we’re doing so many projects at once that it’s a lot healthier having other people controlling it and giving guidance that far exceeds our expertise.”
The EP is described as an interplay between organic and digital sounds that taps into feelings of self-analysis and anxiety.
“It’s a hard one to explain, but we try and strike a balance between sounds that are inherently natural, like ambient noises from a natural environment, with obviously digital and electronic sources coming from a laptop or synthesizer and try and find a middle point between those two feelings.”
‘All That Work’ is still a surface level party track, but it reflects the darker emotions that were current to their lives at the time of writing.
“We try to be honest with what we’re producing, so for awhile there was a lot of material that, whilst it wouldn’t have seemed obvious on the outside, was generally quite dark. Most of the show is obsessed with very universal feelings or experiences of fantasy as a teenager and evolving sexuality.”
Whether it’s DJing or playing an AV show, the boys really look forward to the communal experience they find in front of an audience.
“The rush of happiness doesn’t come from how proud we are of the music but from playing it for people who enjoy it!”
‘All That Work/Blue’ comes out September 9. Naysayer & Gilsun play Alhambra September 21.
