[Interview] Audego – Disconnected (from DK15) / Ode to Self

It’s been a while since we’ve been on the blog to regularly update it. An unexpected 3 month trip to LA for another one of our side pursuits derailed my ability to keep it up at all, never mind even continue the promotion of the amazing 15 track complilation album, Quinceañera: Marvelous Ish we’d just released to celebrate the 15th birthday of the site before we had to jet to the left coast.

No matter! We’re back and we’re gonna make sure everyone who missed listening to Quinceañera does so by hook or by crook. Too much good music to let it all slip through the cracks like that.

Because it was International Women’s Day on Friday we’re gonna start with Audego, our favorite Australian duo fronted by the wonderful Carolyn in conjunction with her partner, Pasobionic. I had a chance to chat with her over email shortly before I left for LA and the following is the conversation that resulted:

You are one of less than a handful of artists who were on the DK11 compilation that are back with a track for DK15. “Gone” was the runaway success track from that album getting picked up by Pigeons + Planes and other tastemaker sites. What’s been going on with Audego since then?

We’ve been very slowly creating a new EP. Paso has been working with his other band, Curse ov Dialect and I was busy finishing my Masters, but we’re trying to focus on having the release ready by end of year. (ed note: 2018).

Most people would probably categorize Audego’s music as electronic and/or left-field but I know you guys considered yourselves more influenced by hip-hop and R&B music. Given the very noticeable shift in the sound of R&B and even pop music towards more alternative, underground and electronic sounds in the past few years, how has that affected what you guys do musically?

Maybe. I love how inventive pop music has become. We are both secretly pop music fans and I think it’s exciting how left field sounds are being embraced by the mainstream. It probably influences us subconsciously, but we try to just do our own thing and not really emulate what other people are doing.

Last time we talked you said that, emotionally, you can be pretty stunted and songwriting can be a sort of exorcism for you, that your music a sort of avenue for you to express things that have been too much for you to cope with. I know you’ve been through some tough things since then. How has the role music has played in your life or your relationship to it as an artist and the songwriting process evolved as a result?

I’m actually getting to a point where I don’t want to sing about my own experiences and I would like to get more into fictional lyrics. I’ve loved the cathartic aspect to song writing, but as I’m getting older I’m feeling less inclined to share my stories with strangers.

What is (the DK15 song submission,) “Disconnected” about? It felt like it was maybe a commentary about fake nature of the “connections” we have in this current social media era?

I wrote the lyrics after my father passed away. I was very stunted emotionally at that point. We had a very complex relationship and I was feeling very lost, which is what I tried to convey in the track. There’s no hook or chorus, just a series of moments cos I didn’t feel at the time I had any place to come back to. Sonically we were going for the dysfunctional tech vibe. Even the sample sounds a bit like the disconnected phone message we get in Australia, but much prettier.

So “Disconnected” is from a project titled Lowkey Lowlife planned for release in Dec. (ed note: the project has not yet been released) Can you talk about what you have in store for that at all?

We were initially building a concept EP around social media and surveillance, but I think it’s gone rogue at this point. We keep thinking it’s almost done, but then we keep writing new ones.

CLICK HERE to read the full interview on the DIFFERENT KITCHEN Facebook page.