After spending the last year developing and cultivating their sound, London-based electronic duo Tullamarine have now delivered their highly-anticipated new album 'Frequency'.
Channelling a rich and dexterous aesthetic throughout, 'Frequency' makes for an incredibly vibrant and captivating listen. Mixing broad and sweeping atmospheres with rich and textured tones, their new full-length is a brilliantly calming and progressive introduction to their work to date.
So with the new full-length available now, we sat down with them to find out more about their background and what has inspired them most over the years.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
Joss: Well, it didn’t happen immediately for me. It happened after I was “encouraged” (told) by my parents that I was going to learn a musical instrument at the age of eight or nine, but it did happen and that was with the piano. This was after learning the drums wasn’t an option, apparently. At first, I struggled with having to practice every day – and the piano exams were hideous – but as soon as I understood the possibilities, love it was. And then my parents bought me my first, very, very, basic synth a few years later and that was that. I did learn the flute for a while, too, so that I didn’t have to play percussion anymore in an orchestra, as this was basically counting for a lot of bars and then hitting things badly…
Adam: I’ve never really played an instrument as such. I had a few Casio and Yamaha home synthesizer keyboards in the mid/late 1980’s that I used to play around with, trying to copy songs I’d hear on the radio - that kind of thing. The first bit of kit I really fell in love with was my Atari ST running a basic MIDI sequencer program called Sequencer One by Gajits and another called Mastersound II by Microdeal. This would have been in 1990/91, around then anyway. S1 was a 32-track midi sequencer that I used for years, right up until I switched to using a PC and Cubase in the late 1990’s. Mastersound II was amazing as it basically turned the Atari into a basic sampler for around £30. As a teenager I could never have afforded to buy an Akai sampler so Mastersound II gave me the opportunity to play around with audio from a young age.
What kind of music did you love as a teenager?
Joss: I loved anything that was synth heavy, which did mean I listened to a lot of very, very bad pop music as synths were hitting it big at the time in that regard. I remember the excitement that the Fairlight synth generated, with Peter Gabriel leading the way. He has been a huge influence for me. And there’s Jean-Michel Jarre, particularly Magnetic Fields. Yes, I know, he’s not always held in the highest regard now, but he was a huge influence on me.
Adam: I was into all sorts really, but like Joss mainly synth/instrumental stuff. Jarre, Vangelis, Kraftwerk… that sort of thing. It’s hard to imagine now but when I was growing up there simply wasn’t THAT much synth music around. Of course, all that changed after the Second Summer of Love and the influx of house and techno. Alternative “pop” acts like The Cure and Depeche Mode were huge influences on me also. It’s funny how so many electronic music producers today all seem to have loved the same music when they were growing up.
What was the first album you remember owning?
Joss: Umm, now that’s a good question. I know the first single I ever bought was by the Thomson Twins: Doctor Doctor, to be precise. See, I told you there was some dodgy pop lineage to my history. I think the first album was Jarre’s Oxygene, but it could have been Equinox.
Adam: I’m pretty sure it was “Now That’s what I call Music 3”. Not the coolest answer but an honest one. I think the first “proper” album I bought was Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Welcome to the Pleasuredome”. I actually played that recently for the first time in probably over 20 years. It holds up well.
What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?
Joss: God, there’s so many of them. I remember when I bought Aphex Twin’s Didgeridoo – from Our Price (remember them?) in Woolwich, London – and was blown away by that. But even more so by Analogue Bubblebath, which I think was on the CD single. The number of times I’ve been messing about and hit a chord similar to the opening one on that and then thought Godamnit!
And there’s My Blood Valentine’s Blown a Wish (from Loveless). A perfect pop song wrapped up in a warm bath of noise.
Adam: Slade’s “Merry Christmas Everybody”. I’d be set for life…
Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?
Joss: This is a very good question and one that’s very hard to answer. I suspect that I do, but that it’s probably more of an unconscious set of actions rather than conscious. I can never work out whether it’s better to give oneself complete freedom – but can you have too much of a good thing? – and having a track in mind by someone else that I want to take some things from, production-wise. It tends to be more of the latter. However, I do find that once I get to a certain point with a set of tracks, I find myself not listening to any new music as otherwise I immediately become unduly influenced by that and then we can end up going round in circles…
Adam: I don’t think so. I work in a very different way to Joss. I tend to just throw lots of loops and sounds down and then just keep chopping away at a big block of sound until the track starts to emerge and sort of finds itself. I never really have much of a preconceived idea, other than the basic genre, of how something is going to turn out.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
Joss: Well, a friend bought me a record deck for Christmas (a much longer story) so I’ve spent the last three months or so listening to random vinyl I own that I had completely forgotten about. A lot of Curve, Chapterhouse, My Bloody Valentine singles, early Ride – I think you get the picture. But also a lot of club tracks, particular Deep Dish stuff from years back. My God can they produce. Newer stuff has taken a back seat, but I do like Caribou’s stuff, a lot of Four Tet, Daniel Avery.
Adam: I’ve not really listened to THAT much new music recently. When I’m in the middle of a project I don’t really have the time TBH. BBC 6Music is pretty much always on in the house though, so that really is my only gateway to other music at the moment. When I have had the opportunity, I’ve found myself listening to a lot of Max Richter and Rival Consoles.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
Tullamarine: Erm, someone not as good as us so we can blow them away. More seriously, it’s not something we’ve thought about much as we’ve been so busy in our studios. One of the above that we mentioned or Underworld. We’re setting our sights high!
What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?
Tullamarine: Freedom. Freedom to be us, with as little compromise as possible. Music is who we are. And there’s that moment when we’re playing some of our tracks, but unannounced as a part of a random mix, and someone turns round and says, “This is a really good track. Who’s this?”.
And what is the most frustrating part?
Tullamarine: Running out of CPU! There’s also the fact – and this might sound a bit harsh – that modern technology allows so much creative freedom, at such a relatively low cost, that to produce something that sounds acceptable, from a technical standpoint, is so much easier than it used to be. This means that you have to work harder to stand out. Having said that, that’s also part of the modern challenge. It’s why we use audio and synths in equal measure and a lot of random sounds from around and about. And freeware too. It’s too easy to sound too “complete” these days. Sometimes the listener needs to be challenged.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
Tullamarine: Make the music you want to make and screw everybody else! Secondly, never, ever throw away something that you’ve been working on, even – in fact, especially – when you think it’s not working. This has turned out to be very, very good advice and is behind some upcoming Tullamarine releases, more of which soon. Leave it for a while. Forget about it. Or take a quick mixdown of it and stick it on whatever music playing software you use. Sometimes it might even be years before you hear it again but then, one day…
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Tullamarine's new album 'Frequency' is available to stream and download now. Watch the video for their joint single 'Then Billy Said/What Billy Said Next' in the player below.