Klue

We caught up with Sydney singer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Klue, who merges an array of musical cultures to create his sound.

Read our interview below.

For those of you who don’t know you, tell us a bit more about Klue.

Klue is my alter ego & solo project when I’m not making music with True Vibenation. It started off just as a production / remix project but it’s grown into a show that involves me running between turntables, saxophone, vocals, and the SPD, and it’s pretty much taken over my life recently!

The sound has been described as Afrogarage, which is a term I kinda like, but it’s pretty much me trying to mulch together all the different sounds that excite me and get away with it.

Your music incorporates Afrobeat, electronic beats and soul. It’s a pretty eclectic and cultural mix! Tell us more.

I’m a fan of a whole bunch of different styles of music and I’m inspired by a pretty wide variety of other musicians, so when I’m writing there’s often bits of different sounds bouncing around in my head. I think it’s taken me until very recently to be able to bring them all together in a way that really works.

I grew up with a lot of Soul music around the house and I think that shows up in my music particularly in my vocals, and the way I approach horn sections. Even as a kid I found electronic music really exiting (I think I must have mostly heard it in Movie soundtracks, as it wasn’t really on radio in Australia in those days) and I’ve been Dj’ing in nightclubs since I was old enough to be let in, and that’s where my interest in making electronic music began.

As a teenager a band mate introduced me to Fela Kuti, and that was a bit of a revelation which led to me hunting out a lot of music I might not have otherwise found, and that has definitely influenced my sound.

Describe your sound in three words.

Bouncy, frenetic, Afrobass.

Your fab EP, ‘Daybreak’, is out now. You compiled the EP pretty much yourself. Was it a tough process?

Yeah on this one I wanted to do everything myself (almost). I wrote, recorded, mixed and produced the whole record, which was a mammoth undertaking. I got my True Vibenation band mate Moody in to play some trumpet on ‘Hiding’, and Sameer Sengupta mastered the record, but the rest of it was just me racking up a massive sleep debt!

To me the sound textures and mixing is so much a part of what makes an electronic production what it is, and it’s something that I’ve spent years working on, so it was important for me to handle as much of that side of things as possible.

Where do you cite your musical influences from?

I was thinking about this recently and I realised one of my biggest influences is probably my mum, even though she’s not a musician per se. She used to sing to us when we were kids, and the music she introduced us to, particularly the stuff that would be on the Hi Fi when she had parties – Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, Toots & The Maytals, James Brown etc. – has definitely informed the music I create. In terms of electronic music, Bonobo, Hermitude, Burial, Todd Edwards, James Blake and Hudson Mohawke are names that come to mind.

We love new music at Indietronica. What new music are you listening to?

I’m loving the new Dro Carey EP is dope! I’ve also been listening to the new L-Fresh The Lion album ‘Become’ too, which is such an impressive record!

Like what you hear? Klue’s debut EP, ‘Daybreak’ is out now.

Sounds like: Jamie xx, Nimmo, Jungle, Fela Kuti, Hermitude, D’Angelo, Bonobo, Fat Freddy’s Drop

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