Dusky discusses America’s shift towards underground music

In a massive interview with Billboard last week, London based duo Dusky spoke about their studio dynamic, their decision to pursue music as a career as well as the steady shift they’ve noticed in America’s music scene towards the underground.

Nick and Alfie met in college in the UK and became quite close through a shared love for DJing and music. Fun fact #1: An earlier project of theirs used to be called Solarity, through which they dished out “more progressive house stuff before it became EDM, along the lines of Sasha + John Digweed”, according to Nick. The name change to Dusky, however, occurred when the two of them were working on a new album for the revered Anjunadeep label.

“The stuff sounded so different from what we did before, so we were like, ‘Why not use a new name?’” said Nick. “Since then, we’ve just been working on that kind of sound.”

For a duo that’s as talented as Dusky, success followed soon after. Their 2012 album Stick By This was immediately recognized by Pete Tong and supported heavily by not just him. A variety of artists have supported Dusky, particularly their tracks like ‘Flo Jam’ that was soon becoming an underground anthem.

“It slowly built up like that. We had a run of a few tunes that kept the momentum going and it kept growing and growing,” Nick told Billboard. He paid due credit to their timing as a key factor in their growth.

“Other people coming through at the same time like Disclosure, Huxley, George FitzGerald and Midland had almost a similar kind of vibe, so it just developed from there, he said. “I don’t think there’s one tune that was a turning point.”

Lately though, whatever Dusky releases is absolutely on point. Some of their favourite tunes include ‘Words Later On’, off their Careless EP and ‘Inta’ off their recent Love Taking Over EP. None of these tracks however, lay in comparison with the humungous reception received from chart toppers ‘Yoohoo and ‘Careless’. Both Nick and Alfie agreed that their Beatport successes have proven useful to them in many different ways.

“It certainly seems to have helped our music reach to a bigger audience…it’s managed to spread the tracks to far-flung corners of the globe, and it’s a great feeling getting to play to those audiences when we tour around the world,” said Alfie.

“It takes a bit of time for those things to really filter through. Even if you have a Beatport No. 1, you don’t really feel the effect of it, in terms of your profile, for like another six months or so,” said Nick. “It wasn’t like a sea change – it felt rather gradual.”

Fun fact #2: Nick finally quit his day-job importing animal onesies from Japan in 2013.

“From a financial point of view, I had more success from that than music, but obviously music is my passion,” he said in the interview.

With an increasingly busy tour schedule and a heightened demand in America might just pour some lady luck over this duo. Having been touring heavily in the U.S since over a decade, they say the parties have become bigger and busier in the last couple of years. People also seem to be “more clued up” about underground music, according to Nick. “There is definitely a shift”, said Nick seeing as how they were asked to play the main stage at Escape Wonderland.

“People think those big festivals are always really shit, but the crowd is so young and so open to what you’re playing that it’s actually really refreshing,” he said. “Rather than going to play in London or Berlin, where everyone’s really clued up and can go see loads of amazing DJs every weekend, for some of these kids that come to US festivals, that’s their blowout opportunity to see some music they can’t see every weekend and they really embrace it. I appreciate that.”

Check out the full interview here.

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