Carbon + is Julian Duxson and Clyde Arnott, two bedroom producers originally from Canberra who have now set up in Melbourne. They are about to release their debut full length cassette of textured post-punk on ace Canberra label Dream Damage (TV Colours, The Fighting League, Jonny Telafone) and have gifted up "Reaction" the tape's opening track.Recorded in their living room during the particularly cold Melbourne winter of 2015, the pair who are also involved in the Bad Dingo video production project, create dense, dark wave pop that is bothListen to “Reaction” below and read a chat we had with Julian.Noisey: The presser says that you have “extremely different musical tastes”. Can you elaborate?
Julian Duxson: Our taste in music is actually probably closer than it used to be. When we first started hanging out Clyde didn't listen to too much local stuff, and I wasn't really interested in much 80s pop music which has changed. Clyde doesn't like or listen to any form of punk really which is probably the biggest thing.Acts such as Orion and Sex Tourists are playing more of this dark electronic pop. Have you always been into this style of music?
I actually didn't listen to much drum machine music when we started Carbon+ around January 2015. I always liked Kraftwerk and The Cure and throughout the process of the album got into OMD. Clyde was really into INXS and a bit of New Order and the two of us are really obsessed with Brian Eno which heavily effected it all.I only discovered Sex Tourists about six months ago but I love it. Ewan and Darius are working on the record next door to my room right now and it’s sounding pretty fucking good. Orion I heard about halfway through last year and I really like their demo as well. We were about three or four songs into the the record when we heard them, and I think we got more into the longer drawn out and ambient stuff that is on the second half of the record as a kind of reaction to realising how well the shorter pop stuff was already being done.California Girls from Canberra has also been doing some great stuff, I thrashed his album. I really like that Second Sight demo tape as well.What’s the latest with Bad Dingo?
Bad Dingo is on pause for the moment as all of our cameras completely died and Clyde lost interest in filming and isn't going to as many gigs now he has started at Uni. I've moved to Sydney recently so it'll be popping up from there now once I find a new camera.The Carbon + video looks really interesting. How and where was that shot? What track is that? It sounds a lot different to "Reaction".
It's an instrumental track that is going to pop up on the cassette but didn't make the digital. It's footage of our old house in Northcote and around High St. There is also some of Clyde's next house in Collingwood. I kind of tried to make it a big, washed out visual memory of that period of our lives. It probably won't mean a lot to anyone else, but to anyone who lived in that house at that time it's a pretty bizarre set of memories..
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Julian Duxson: Our taste in music is actually probably closer than it used to be. When we first started hanging out Clyde didn't listen to too much local stuff, and I wasn't really interested in much 80s pop music which has changed. Clyde doesn't like or listen to any form of punk really which is probably the biggest thing.Acts such as Orion and Sex Tourists are playing more of this dark electronic pop. Have you always been into this style of music?
I actually didn't listen to much drum machine music when we started Carbon+ around January 2015. I always liked Kraftwerk and The Cure and throughout the process of the album got into OMD. Clyde was really into INXS and a bit of New Order and the two of us are really obsessed with Brian Eno which heavily effected it all.I only discovered Sex Tourists about six months ago but I love it. Ewan and Darius are working on the record next door to my room right now and it’s sounding pretty fucking good. Orion I heard about halfway through last year and I really like their demo as well. We were about three or four songs into the the record when we heard them, and I think we got more into the longer drawn out and ambient stuff that is on the second half of the record as a kind of reaction to realising how well the shorter pop stuff was already being done.
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Bad Dingo is on pause for the moment as all of our cameras completely died and Clyde lost interest in filming and isn't going to as many gigs now he has started at Uni. I've moved to Sydney recently so it'll be popping up from there now once I find a new camera.The Carbon + video looks really interesting. How and where was that shot? What track is that? It sounds a lot different to "Reaction".
It's an instrumental track that is going to pop up on the cassette but didn't make the digital. It's footage of our old house in Northcote and around High St. There is also some of Clyde's next house in Collingwood. I kind of tried to make it a big, washed out visual memory of that period of our lives. It probably won't mean a lot to anyone else, but to anyone who lived in that house at that time it's a pretty bizarre set of memories..
The tape and digital release will be available June 30 through Dream Damage.