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CLIENT LIAISON
INTERVIEW
65
NEWS
MUSIC
Q1/
Tell us a little about the hip hop
techniques you’ve employed on this record –
did you begin with beats?
Certain tracks like
Clear Eyes
and
Frequensator
started out as beats on our samplers, but for
the other tracks it was more so the methods we
were using in post production. We were working
with sketches of songs we'd brought from home
and encouraging each other to lay down any
ideas that popped into our head to use as source
material. We would then create samples out
of those ideas, finding ways to manipulate and
re-purpose them - that could involve sampling
a guitar line, chopping it up on an MPC and
replaying it so it sounds like a mellotron… The
sampler ended up becoming one of the main
instruments on the album because it was used to
trigger and sequence so much of what's going on.
Q2/
Did you have a plan for sourcing the
verbal samples, or was it a matter of just
digging around everywhere until you found
something you liked?
It was a bit of both… It was really about
using samples that linked to the context of the
lyrics and would expand on a song's backstory.
It's unfortunate we couldn't fit them all on there.
We actually had a mate come in to redo an Alfred
Hitchcock quote but we couldn't stop laughing
every time we played it back so had to take it off.
Q3/
You have tour dates coming up; have
you amended your approach to playing live?
The first few weeks of rehearsals were
hilarious because we had no idea what we
actually played on the record – a lot of the audio
has been so warped and twisted that it's hard to
decipher. There's three of us triggering samplers
live now which adds another layer to the sound
and helps us get a bit closer to the feel of the
record (as long as we manage to keep them all in
time for the duration of the song).
THE LAURELS
INTERVIEW
“T
hink nothing. Feel everything. Pleasure is
good. Fantasy is truth.” These are the Client
Liaison maxims, and Monte Morgan and Harvey
Miller certainly embody them, from their energetic
live show to the surrounds of their “HQ”. It’s on
the top level of a Collins Street building; one
side houses racks of shiny costumes and framed
newspaper pages which depict Bob Hawke and
Warney in their primes, and the other is a mass
of ceiling-high shelves bursting with document
boxes. They’re all components of the
fantasy: the adult world of the '80s
seems enchanting to someone born
in that era because you were a child,
looking up at the world. Boardrooms
were as magical as bunyips.
On debut album
Diplomatic
Immunity
, the stand-out track is a
collaboration which brings together so
many threads of the CL fabric (retro
Australiana, camaraderie, unabashed
pleasure):
Foreign Affair
, featuring
Tina Arena. “Harvey came up with the
‘Sorrento’ lyric, and it was kind of an ode to Tina
already,” Morgan smiles. “We started thinking
about a duet. Tina came in and smashed it out in a
couple of takes. She’s got a lot of conviction; very
strong-willed, very amazing."
The song is gorgeous, snuggling into your
head like a pet rather than an ear-worm, and
that’s basically how
Diplomatic Immunity
works.
The minimalist (for CL)
Off White Limousine
is a
propulsive groove, as is the opener
Canberra Won’t
Be Calling Tonight
(which features samples of a
verbal stoush during Question Time).
At the back of the album’s booklet
is a map, and each song is matched to
a particular location.
Foreign Affair
sits
in France – Tina’s second home – while
Off White Limousine
is charted on the
west coast of the States (“The producer
and songwriter live there as well,”
says Morgan).
Home
is plotted against
Melbourne,
Where Do We Belong
in the
Red Centre, and
The Bravest Beginnings
in the Middle East. “It’s in Syria,” Morgan says.
“The song’s about refugees, and people moving
across borders – ‘borders they were born to break’
– so it’s influenced by the [things we’ve seen on]
social media, and the mass migration of people.”
The pair assert their efforts to be “apolitical”,
which has got to be a trying endeavour when
your concept album touches on so many points
of that spectrum. But they’re firm. “We don’t
like to give too grandiose a statement about
what we think is right and wrong,” Miller says.
“We do struggle, after things like the Cronulla
Riots, to show [pride] – it’s difficult. But we don’t
pretend to have any answers. We try to put stuff
out there and let people speak for themselves.”
Morgan adds: “It’s nice to talk about Australia.
When we were growing up, people pretended we
weren’t Australia. America was everything. Then
September 11 happened and things kind of flipped
around. Hopefully we’re part of that conversation.
Australia is a cool, crazy place.”
Sonicology
by The Laurels is
out now via Rice
Is Nice.
Part-way through the tour to
promote The Laurels' most excellent
sophomore album
Sonicology
, we
chatted to vocalist/guitarist Luke
O'Farrell.
Diplomatic
Immunity
by
Client Liaison is
out November
4 via Remote
Control.
Harvey Miller,
STACK
's Zoë Radas, Monte Morgan.
Read the full interview
–
including how the booklet
artwork was created – online at
stack.net.au .TOURING
02/11 - 02/12