Peace Out!: Back To The Future

With Krautrock as their compass and their trusty loop pedal by their side, Melbourne electro duo Peace Out! are heading forth into the unknown. They talk to RENÉ SCHAEFER about their improvisational live show and their penchant for safari-themed visuals.

Since forming in December 2008, Melbourne electronic group Peace Out! has undergone a rapid evolution. Originally founded as a side project for electro rockers The Emergency – they initially came together to create a score for Vianne, a dance piece by Shelley Lasica that debuted at fortyfivedownstairs last year – Peace Out!’s line-up has coalesced into the duo of Daina Fanning and Milo Kossowski.

Utilising analogue synthesizers, phasing and delay effects, Fanning’s multi-layered vocals and percussion loops, Peace Out! create a sound that draws on the early days of electronic music and the futuristic proto-trance rhythms of early 1970s Krautrock bands such as Faust, Neu!, Kluster, Kraftwerk, Harmonia, and Amon Düül II.

What distinguished these German groups from the psychedelia and prog rock of the English-speaking world was an engagement with present-day realities – the post-war nuclear peril, industrialisation, urban decay, rapidly advancing technology and political upheavals across Europe. As a result, they coupled blissed-out, post-hippie electronica with harsh repetitive rhythms that presented a not-so-veiled critique of a society that privileged status and economic growth at any cost over social advancement. Successive generations working in rock, experimental and electronic music fields have drawn inspiration from these pioneers, and it’s testament to the originators’ wealth of invention that a group like Peace Out! can find in their ideas foundations to build their own work on, without sounding the least bit dated.

Peace Out! is still a pretty new project. How did it originate?
Daina: The first incarnation of the band consisted of Milo and Morgan [McWaters]. They composed some music for a dance piece.

Milo: That was pre-recorded for the performance, so we weren’t a live band at that point. The music was created on a laptop. Once upon a time, we all played in The Emergency together. Daina left at the end of 2005, but Morgan and I kept working together in that band. The music we did for this dance piece turned out to have its own unique sound, so we gave it its own project name.

Did you have a brief to work to for this score?
Milo: Kind of, but we bent it to suit what we wanted to do. The piece was set in Vienna in the 1970s, so I went off on a Krautrock tangent. It was something that I had been wanting to do anyway. The theme was pretty vague. Being a contemporary dance piece, it was open to interpretation.

Daina: There was no narrative as such. Around the same time I decided that I really wanted to play music again. Peace Out! had a gig coming up and they asked me to join in. I was just hanging out in bedroom in the house I share with Morgan. All I had to do was to cross the hallway and grab the microphone.

So there was no awkwardness having left The Emergency and then rejoining the group for another project?
Daina: No, because it wasn’t a drama when I left. I was going to live overseas for a while and when I came back I had other things happening. I developed a bit of stage fright and didn’t want to perform anymore. I took a break and that break just stretched out. Dan [Miller], The Emergency’s bass player left around the same time to work as a nurse in Darwin. Jamming with Peace Out! felt liberating to me. It was different to what we used to do with The Emergency.

Milo: The other catalyst was buying a Looper pedal. That meant we could recreate the music we had written for the dance piece in a live setting. We started playing some of that music, but mostly we ended up writing new material.

Daina: We did one gig as a three-piece and then Morgan left the band. He decided he wanted to do other things, so now it’s just the two of us. The sound has changed a bit as a result. I have a new-found confidence using my voice, aided by the technology we use. With the Looper pedal I can be a one-girl choir. At our first show, on a Wednesday night at The Tote, I was so nervous. I hadn’t stood on stage in three years.

What is it about the electronic music of the 1970s and Krautrock that inspires you?
Daina: Ever since I first heard bands like Faust, I’ve been transfixed by those sounds. It’s compelling music which can be sublime, but also gritty. I find repetition in music really beautiful. There is a toughness to it, but it flows as well. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. I can’t think of the right adjectives. The joy of listening to this kind of music is not bound to a certain time period. It’s timeless.

Milo: The repetitive nature of it is what I’m into. We have looped beats and maybe just one note that keeps playing over and over. Then we layer keyboards and voice over the top of that.

Are the tunes all set, or is there an element of improvisation to what you do?
Milo: There are certain forms we follow, a beginning and an end, and we make up the middle.

Daina: That’s the main difference to The Emergency, which has very definite structures and pop songs. It’s fun for us to have that looseness. Jamming at home, we can just go on endlessly. In front of an audience it’s good to have a beginning and an end though.

“Peace Out! had a gig coming up and they asked me to join in. I was just hanging out in bedroom in the house I share with [ex-bass player] Morgan [McWaters]. All I had to do was to cross the hallway and grab the microphone.”

In a live setting, how do you know when to bring a tune to a conclusion?
Daina: We look at each other and if it looks like one of us is getting bored, chances are other people are getting bored too.

You haven’t played many shows yet. What have audience reactions been like?
Daina: It was pretty quiet at our first couple of shows, but following our second gig, we got asked to write music for another dance piece by a girl who is a choreographer and studying at VCA on a Fulbright scholarship.

Milo: When we went to meet her, she danced for the two of us while we sat in the bleachers.

Daina: I felt like giggling at first, but then we got down to working out three sketches. She told us what she thought would work with the pieces of choreography she had already done. The idea was to present the whole thing live, so we did that at the North Melbourne Town Hall Arts House. The Town Hall is an amazing room, acoustically, and beautifully ornate. We had a full house and it sounded huge. From this performance came our involvement with the Melbourne Festival. Two of the people who are involved with programming the festival saw our show.

The show we’re involved with is part of a series of [Beck’s Rumpus Room] gigs that are happening at The Forum. All the gigs are $15 and some of them feature overseas acts. We’re playing on a bill with a girl from England called Bishi. She plays tablas and a sitar through effects pedals.

Is there a multi-media element involved in this show?
Daina: Only to the extent that we’ll have some visuals. The Forum has the technology and the big screen which makes that possible, so we might as well take advantage of that. Apart from that it’s a straight-up gig.

Are you responsible for the visuals?
Daina: Yes, Milo is a graphic designer. We both have ideas about what we want, but he’s the one who can actually put it together. There’s a safari theme to it, but not in a corny way.

Milo: There will be a lot of nature documentary footage from the 1970s. The washed-out colours of the film stock are quite pretty to look at.

Daina: It clashes with what I was planning to wear. People can wear black sequins on safari, can’t they?

Given your involvement with dance and performances such as this, do you see Peace Out! to be more aligned with the arts community or the music scene?
Daina: I’m not sure, because the band is still pretty new. Once we start doing more shows, I want to play with more experimental groups. We’re just doing what feels good at the moment. I feel that we could easily extend some of these tunes for an hour if we had the opportunity. I don’t know where we fit into the music scene, really. Maybe there are some gaps in my knowledge of contemporary music.

Despite the fact that you are looking back at earlier eras of music, you contemporise that sound. Would you agree that there is a “back-to-the-future” approach in your music?
Daina: I guess that’s what a lot of contemporary musicians are doing across different genres. Electronic music is not so new anymore.

You talked about the enjoyment of jamming in the privacy of your home earlier. Is an audience actually necessary when you play?
Milo: For me it isn’t, but you feel like you should present it to people live.

Daina: I definitely want other people to hear it live. Maybe we could just invite them around to watch us jam.

Milo: We could have some backyard shows, for sure.

You have quite a few recordings on MySpace. Are you planning to release any of them at some point?
Milo: Hopefully we will have a giveaway CD at our Forum gig.

Daina: We keep coming up with new things which supersede our older material. Sometimes they’re pretty, sometimes they are gritty. Some of it is noisy with lots of feedback. I use an old Casio keyboard through some pedals, which is quite noisy in itself, especially when we build up lots of layers. It’s like a great furball of sound.

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Peace Out! perform as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival’s “Becks Rumpus Room” concert series on October 11 at The Forum with Bishi and Koko-Nuts. More details here.