Naysayer & Gilsun have been a fixture on the Melbourne nightclub scene since they were teenagers. Their much lauded audiovisual sets have seen them perform shows all over town, but also on the big screen at the Australian Center of Moving Image.As far as tech goes, these boys are pretty all over it. Next month they’ll be joining Animals Dancing, Pelvis, Mitzi DJs, an interactive light up dance floor, and a host of other local heroes for a series of MINI events around Australia that you can win tickets to. Before they set off though, we talked to Luke Neher about finding a new message in old content.Noisey: What have you two been working on recently?
Luke Neher: We’ve got a lot of new music that we’re super, super proud of that we’re going to be putting out this year. We were just in the studio mixing that. We’re also working on a live show which will be us playing our own music and that will have some sort of audiovisual element, it might not be film samples it could be light and other visual elements we’re going to be mapping that out in probably July or August.You guys have been DJing together for ages, but when did you decide you wanted to use visuals?
I think we always knew that it was vaguely possible to connect audio and visual in a technical sense, and it was something we’d seen done a few times before. But at the point we did decide to switch it was very conscience, we thought: okay lets make this more interesting than what we’re doing currently. So we started a new project and decided that including a visual element was what we wanted. It wasn’t something that just fell into our laps—it was well thought about and then we made an effort to start researching how it was technically possible.I saw an interview where you spoke about re-creating meaning the behind the footage you use, is that ever difficult?
Part of it comes inherently in the process: merely re-contextualizing something so you’re not playing the film as a whole you’re playing it in a different context. That process changes the meaning: it makes it a little bit weird and elicits a different feeling from people. After that it really works for us when we have a strong sense of what we get out of the theme personally. Then if we can pair that with some music and editing styles, we can achieve new meaning like that.Do you ever find it hard to re-create footage from a film you love?
Pretty often we use films we’re not too attached to. If it were a film we were really passionate about or really loved, we maybe wouldn’t use it. I imagine you’re right—maybe we wouldn’t be able to change them.What’s your process like for coming up with a new narrative for the footage you’re using?
It’s more about an immediate feeling or impression we get from a scene. We’ll watch a film, when there’s a scene that leaves an impression we just know—it’s more about the ambiance and the sort of aura. Then we try to bolster that feeling by putting it with music that supports it and compliments it, or we try to undercut it and bring something subversive out.Are you going to be using much audiovisual stuff for the MINI shows you’ve got coming up?
It’s going to be purely audio—the visuals are going to be handled by the team that are creating the dance floor, that’s going to be interactive with the music we play. I guess what people will be seeing is an early incarnation of what we eventually want our live set to be. We’ve just stared including a few electronic controllers and sequencers that we’ll be using to play our own music. We haven’t performed like this before—it’s almost like a testing ground.To catch Naysayer & Gilsun with the aforementioned dance floor at next month’s parties RSVP here.May 8 in Melbourne with Animals Dancing and Pleasure Planet DJsMay 29 with Astral DJs and PelvisJune 5 with Mitzi DJs and Jad & The Lady Boy
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Luke Neher: We’ve got a lot of new music that we’re super, super proud of that we’re going to be putting out this year. We were just in the studio mixing that. We’re also working on a live show which will be us playing our own music and that will have some sort of audiovisual element, it might not be film samples it could be light and other visual elements we’re going to be mapping that out in probably July or August.You guys have been DJing together for ages, but when did you decide you wanted to use visuals?
I think we always knew that it was vaguely possible to connect audio and visual in a technical sense, and it was something we’d seen done a few times before. But at the point we did decide to switch it was very conscience, we thought: okay lets make this more interesting than what we’re doing currently. So we started a new project and decided that including a visual element was what we wanted. It wasn’t something that just fell into our laps—it was well thought about and then we made an effort to start researching how it was technically possible.I saw an interview where you spoke about re-creating meaning the behind the footage you use, is that ever difficult?
Part of it comes inherently in the process: merely re-contextualizing something so you’re not playing the film as a whole you’re playing it in a different context. That process changes the meaning: it makes it a little bit weird and elicits a different feeling from people. After that it really works for us when we have a strong sense of what we get out of the theme personally. Then if we can pair that with some music and editing styles, we can achieve new meaning like that.
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Pretty often we use films we’re not too attached to. If it were a film we were really passionate about or really loved, we maybe wouldn’t use it. I imagine you’re right—maybe we wouldn’t be able to change them.What’s your process like for coming up with a new narrative for the footage you’re using?
It’s more about an immediate feeling or impression we get from a scene. We’ll watch a film, when there’s a scene that leaves an impression we just know—it’s more about the ambiance and the sort of aura. Then we try to bolster that feeling by putting it with music that supports it and compliments it, or we try to undercut it and bring something subversive out.Are you going to be using much audiovisual stuff for the MINI shows you’ve got coming up?
It’s going to be purely audio—the visuals are going to be handled by the team that are creating the dance floor, that’s going to be interactive with the music we play. I guess what people will be seeing is an early incarnation of what we eventually want our live set to be. We’ve just stared including a few electronic controllers and sequencers that we’ll be using to play our own music. We haven’t performed like this before—it’s almost like a testing ground.To catch Naysayer & Gilsun with the aforementioned dance floor at next month’s parties RSVP here.May 8 in Melbourne with Animals Dancing and Pleasure Planet DJsMay 29 with Astral DJs and PelvisJune 5 with Mitzi DJs and Jad & The Lady Boy