Infusion

The Melbourne based trio need little introduction, Manny Sharrad, Jamie Stevens and Frank Xavier have been riding the underground with an amazing live show and productions, and are now releasing a long awaited third album entitled All Night Sunlight. Quietly pleased with the efforts of their new album, the band have decided to release it independently. Since their last release, four years in the electronic wilderness has seen Infusion grow as both people and musicians. After sealing themselves away from the outside world they now return with plans to once again tour their explosive live show. Stripped down and getting straight to the point, Jamie Stevens chats to Pulse.

Pulse: Your output has been limited since your last album. What have you been up to in the past four years since Six Feet Above Yesterday? On a personal and musical level? Jamie: Straight after the release of SFAY we threw ourselves into a rather heavy touring schedule. A lot of time was spent traveling. I had a pretty bad accident and injured my back and i was out of action and within a couple of weeks of that accident we moved to Brighton in the UK. We stayed there for about 5 months with a view to working on the new album but it just didn't come together. We were pretty worn out.
Once we got back home, we took a break from each other (which was hard as we all shared a house). Finally we got back together and started throwing ideas around, snippets of stuff we'd worked on and then just started working together very quickly as a group, trying really hard not to get too bogged down in the production which is a very anti-social activity! We spent a month in a holiday house with no distractions and that provided all the germs of musical ideas that is this new album...
After that it was just a case of producing it, working out where our label home was going to be, how we were going to get the money together to make it the way we wanted to, sending tracks overseas to be mixed down etc etc... So yes, it was a very long 4 years and certainly not 4 years in front of X-Box.

Four years is an eternity in dance music, how has your approach to music changed in that time? How is your output now different to the last album? The approach we took with this album was to create as a band at every stage and not too much insular production time (although that was necessary later in the process). Basically we wanted to push ourselves to make some really good songs. For us, that was the challenge because in the past, the voice and lyrics we kind of added as a "layer". Not so much an afterthought, but more just a part of the music.
We'd found a comfort zone doing that so the challenge was to create a good, energetic, straight-to-the-point album, trimming all the fat and distilling an album of good songs and use our production techniques to embellish them rather than the other way around...
We always knew we would dissect the songs later and turn them into club monsters but the album was something we wanted to exist, that would still sound relevant in 5 or 10 years time.

How did this album come about? Do you slowly let idea’s come to you in it’s own time or is it a more disciplined process sitting in the studio and plugging away trying to create ideas? Most of the ideas came really quickly. We got our analogue keyboards, guitars, glockenspiel, recorders and just used the computer as a tape deck. Obviously these evolved and blossomed later when they took more shape but essentially that's where the ideas came from and more so the fun and energy we had lost after living in each other's pockets for so long.

How is the new album All Night Sun Light being received? It's been interesting and mostly really positive. The overwhelming response is that it's not really what people expected but after 2, 3 or 4 listens, they love it when originally they really weren't so sure... I think that is the highest compliment. I don't think any of our favourite albums are ones that are immediate. I guess it's ironic in a way for us as we thought we were making a really direct album!
Essentially I think people who take the time with it get into the songs and the melodies which is exactly the kind of album we wanted to make- just really good songs.

The singles released are all quite different ranging from pop to melancholy then to dirty funk which makes it difficult to categorise. Is this purposeful to display the bands eclectic taste in music? Really they're just chosen on the grounds of what would work as a single and all the tracks on there are as stylistically diverse as ever! Our eclecticism definitely stems from our pretty diverse influences and tastes. One of the things that is great about the three of us is that we have a handful of connecting references but then our tastes spread in all directions. I don't think we consciously wear all these varied tastes on our sleeves, but our sound manifests naturally from our individual influences and over time, these tastes have diversified even more which makes this melting pot even more exciting.
We love that people don't know what to call it. It's a marketing nightmare but that's hardly our concern. The only thing that gets a tad tedious is when journalists ask us to describe our music!

What has been the most difficult part with putting together the album? Probably the fine tuning of each song's instrumentation. Fusing all these different sounds together but making it work as a collective whole. We were really conscious of the diversity but trying to keep in mind our need for it all to work as a collection of songs... What really helped us was having James (Brown) mix it down in New York. Having a fourth set of ears really helps smooth it out. Even though 99% of the production was done and we had a good idea of how it should all sound, that final professional slight of hand on the mix really gelled it...
Making those live strings, brass, drums and vocals sit just right with everything else was not something that came naturally to us from a mixing perspective.

Do you think dance music has a better effect with lyrics? Not at all. Music is music, dance or otherwise and it all comes down to what feeling you want to project. Sometimes words can sit beautifully in a club context and sometimes it hinders so it really depends on the bigger picture of what the music is about and why you're making that piece of music in the first place.



Is there an album or an artist that has changed or impacted on your life? If so who? Music is such a powerful medium of expression and it can inform, entertain, relax or energise. To pick one album or artist that has changed my life would be too hard. I could name a few- Miles Davies - Bitches Brew, Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No.3 and Depeche Mode - Violator. They have comforted me and taken me to places just when I needed them and taught me a lot about life.

Your liveshows are stuff of legend. It must be difficult to tour because of technical limitations and club budgets. Do you plan to do a world tour again? How does life on the road suit you? It's funny that with all the technology we take on tour and we ask for venues to provide the simplest of things, that they very seldom even manage to get us a few keyboard stands. That can get a little frustrating. And sometimes promoters would book us and assume we'd fit our equipment into a DJ booth not knowing the difference between a 3 piece live act and a DJ.
Definitely planning on getting back out touring the world with this album. I personally soak up touring. I love the fact that we get to see all these amazing parts of the world, on the whole get treated brilliantly and play to people that like our music. It's incredible that we get to do that!
The flip-side of it is that we take all our own equipment and we set up and pull down ie. we don't have roadies doing it for us so even though you might be in a city for a day, most of that time is spent setting up, sound checking, have a bit of a sleep, eat, play the gig, pull everything down, take it back to the hotel and then check it all in at the airport and fly off again. Certainly not a complaint but the reality is that it does take it's toll.
You'd be hard pressed to find any artist that does not find it difficult and it's not from being spoilt, it's that it can be hard. But, and the huge but, is that it is certainly worth it and you just need to slap yourself occasionally and say "Look at where I am and what I'm doing! Beats walking into the same office 5 days a week at the same time every day for 10 years!" Reminders are a good thing!

Your music appealed to the prog heads, breaks, electro and house fans, how have you seen these scenes change since Six Feet Above.... both in your home country and globally? The reality is that we have never been observers of the scene. I personally take a great interest but as a band, we're very aware of the music we make to not be aligned with specific genres. it used to amuse us no end that people were dumbstruck that we made breaks-influenced beats AND techno-influenced beats! To us, one had syncopated kicks and the other didn't. It was as simple as that. It's where I guess, without realising, we set ourselves apart from a lot of other people because when we make our music, we aren't thinking or following club genres from a DJ producing perspective.
It's rare to find club music these days that isn't made by DJs so this made our eclectic sound stand out. Unintentionally so, I might add. So to answer the question, as Infusion, we haven't really been observing the scene in detail at all because we just have been doing our own thing.

The technical age is very different from our parent’s era, what do your folks say about what you do? My parents couldn't be prouder. They come to any gigs they can and they really love the music. My mum says she wishes she was younger so she could go to clubs because in her words "she loves a good beat". When I grew up my parents bought a LOT of music and weekends were always filled with playing back to back albums of disco, african music, the Beatles, classical, Jimi Hendrix and yes, you get the idea.
Point being, they don't see this "dance thing" as something they can't relate to. They're very supportive. Same goes for Manny's parents. They're extremely proud and supportive as well. Frank's parents are a little perplexed, i think! Of course they are incredibly proud of him but i think they're a little more bemused with the music!

Do you guys dance? Of course! We all do. I like to dance in the studio when I'm working. It helps me know if a track's working!

Ben Start & Kirsten Seeto