Otouto: Good Dancers

Ahead of a co-headline tour with Seja, Otouto’s Hazel Brown chats with JON TJHIA about dancing, X-chromosomes and “nerd hop”.

Starting out as a vehicle for indie-folk singer Hazel Brown's songwriting, fresh-faced Melbourne trio Otouto – enlisting Brown's sister Martha, and drummer Kishore Ryan (Kid Sam, Seagull) – have quickly matured into a unique pop animal. Following lead single 'Sushi', the group's first album Pip features a spare, minimal sound strung around some of the more creative percussion you'll hear all year.

You once were quoted as saying, "Going solo has helped me develop my individual style and discover a sense of confidence in my music." How has this feeling changed or developed alongside the formation of Otouto?
Oh Jesus! Where did you dig that up from? I bet I was 18 or something, which was an age where I think I wrote some really embarrassingly bad music. But lots of my labelmates are 19, 20 and 21 – Martha, Oscar [Slorach Thorn, of Psuche], Chris [Bolton, of Seagull]) – and they're incredibly talented.

Nevertheless, I guess it was true. Recording with Nick [Huggins, of Touch Typist] was a big part of it. I was awkward and shy and unsure of what the hell I was doing. Recording the tracks I had on a solo recording gave me confidence, because Nick helped me develop the songs and made them sound a lot better than they were!

With the music and progress Otouto has made over the past two years, the way I think about music - what I like listening to and what I make and think about making - feels like it has changed completely. I really feel like my solo stuff was in a different lifetime. Playing and writing with Kishore and Martha is great. Most of the time it's really, really fun, and other times we all get frustrated as hell when we get stuck on something. It's great to be able to go through all these creative stages with other people. I think I'd be bored and boring if I didn't play and write with the two of them.

You've named the band “O-to-u-to”, the Japanese word for “younger brother”, and the first single you've released is called 'Sushi'. Coincidence or preoccupation?
Coincidence. I've never been to Japan, although I would really love to one day. Seems ridiculous, I know. We did consider changing the name of that track or releasing another song as our first single, but we had real trouble trying to rename it and gave up.

I remember talking to you a couple of years ago, when you expressed frustration with your music. You seemed full of conflict between the music you'd always enjoyed listening to (funk, soul, folk and hip-hop) and the music you gravitated toward at the time (indie-pop and electronica). What role did Kishore and Martha play in helping you to develop what's now become a very distinctive style of your own? Would you say you've resolved this issue?
I think MB and Kish have very clever ways of writing music. They're both very playful and bold. When one of us brings a framework or an idea for a song to a rehearsal, we are all very honest with each other and we make a big effort to cut the fat: to only use what we all think is great and interesting, not just okay or easy. So having each other to bounce things back and forth with is vital.

With that in mind, how much of the time spent making Pip was focused on songwriting, arranging and production respectively?
We recorded the album in April 2009. We ate so many hot-cross buns, which may or may not have influenced the recordings. The songwriting and arrangements took a long time; the ideas for the songs on the album would have started nearly two years ago. We generally spend ages on songwriting and arrangements.

Pip is the only major recording project we've done as a band, so in the lead up to the three-and-a-half weeks we had booked, we tried to be really prepared. But new ideas surfaced during the recording process that couldn't be ignored. This was probably inevitable and it made it more fun.

“I think if ‘Pip’ appears to have dancing as a theme running through it, it's only just emerging, and hopefully in the next album it is even stronger.”

Working with Nick was wonderful - he's a great friend and we had a ball. He has a special way of gently helping people express ideas. The way he produces – nothing is done half-heartedly – yet he has a knack for recognising a freak take that you might have thought was whack, but ends up really special. Nick is extremely generous with his time and his ideas, and he's incredibly patient and intuitive. The “Hugcase”, or the “MB Hugcase”, is the name that was given to the keyboard Martha plays. It's a great example of the scope of Nick's creativity in the studio. Nick made it out of samples of Martha's voice, sung through this little wooden box that you wouldn't believe is a microphone. This keyboard is now an integral part of our sound and our live set. It's endlessly fun to mess around with.

Another theme that emerges throughout the songs on Pip is that of dancing. Where does that come from?
It's funny you say that. I wouldn't have thought that at all. But I guess it is mentioned quite a bit. Martha and I really love dancing, but it hasn't always been that way for me. I think in 'Cartoon Shoes' there are words about being nervous because Tig [Simon Huggins, of Touch Typist, also Brown's boyfriend] is such a good dancer. He'd hate me saying this in an interview, but it's true. And in 'Low Dan' I talk about watching people dance.

Dancing is one of those things that can make people feel either really good, or really uncomfortable and awkward, depending on their confidence. I am a person who used to be terrified of dancing. But thanks to [Brown's record label collective] Two Bright Lakes DJs and [dance night] No Lights No Lycra (NLNL), I've gotten over that, and now I can't get enough … I think if Pip appears to have dancing as a theme running through it, it's only just emerging, and hopefully in the next album it is even stronger.

Beyond these themes in your lyrics, what ideas are the three of you trying to explore through songwriting?
We try and explore pop music. Obviously we're not particularly experimental but we don't like to always follow a set recipe. We hope to make songs that have an interesting yet palatable pop dialogue.

Is there any guiding idea or philosophy behind the very bare, skeletal sound of Otouto?
To be completely honest, that aspect of our sound came about really naturally. For me, I only really noticed the sparseness of our songs when someone commented on it, a while back. But since then I think we've been conscious of it. We enjoy the simplicity of having just three members and keeping the quality and content of the arrangements the priority, not quantity. But we're often changing our minds!

Your soon-to-be touring companion Seja has a question for you: "I am always super excited to see bands with girls in them. Do you feel like we get judged more as musicians in a predominantly dude-heavy industry?"
I think this a very interesting thing to talk about. To be honest, it's hard to tell if we're even judged on the music that we make. Sometimes I feel like as female musicians (judged by male and female critics alike) we're either given token compliments, purely for being female, or people comment on our hairdos or appearance - or nothing at all. Which is, needless to say, ridiculous and irrelevant. Martha and I have been in some really farcical situations. For example, at one show, a guy came up on stage in the middle of our set, tried to hug us both and blurted, "It's so hot that you're sisters!" We couldn't believe it, and we both gave him an earful.

Of course, it changes on a case-by-case basis, and lots of "music industry" males are amazing and really making wonderful things happen. Nearly all the people I work with in and surrounding Two Bright Lakes and Otouto are men and they're great. Don't get me wrong - I'm talking about worst case here, and I recognise that women are just as capable of disrespect.

This is a really loaded topic, and I'm really just speaking from my experience without much knowledge of anything else. But I mean to say, yes, I do feel like we're judged differently than male musicians, but not necessarily more. I think there's still a way to go before we can really feel we're judged equally in the industry and probably in most other industries too, and it is definitely frustrating.

As both a member of a record label collective and one of its artists, what are your expectations from a music industry that's still deeply confused and divided by the internet? How do you see yourself negotiating these challenges?
Nearly all of the founders of Two Bright Lakes are in the same position, constantly wearing both hats, which at times can be tricky. But with this particular issue, if we get it right, it rewards both roles equally. We're a very young label and really only have a couple of years behind us at the most. There are pros and cons to the growth of the industry on the web. The internet has been vital to us expanding in our early stages; it provided a place to set up our mail orders and a space to share ideas and get our music and name out there. The fact that media content is moving online (newspapers, music criticism etc.) at a rapid rate is also important, because it is obviously where the future is in terms of cheap, effective publicity.

People talk about the album dying out. I don't think the album is dead yet, but of course our idea of it and its reality is changing. I think it's great that more and more people are buying vinyl these days, which seems to be a great way of keeping the album alive, giving music lovers a special thing to hold in their hands. There seems to be no way of stopping people from downloading illegally, so it appears to be a matter of trying to grow with these changes in the industry and recognise the positive aspects, as I've said above. And, of course, there's the advantage of the speed at which people can access and share music, art and ideas. There's incredible productivity and accessibility.

The industry is always going to face challenges of one kind or another. I think it's a matter of being as resourceful and open as possible, to find a way of making the tricky aspects work in your favour. So we're basically trying to keep open minds and keep trying new things, keep supporting and building our community, and hopefully it continues to support us in return.

Given how much Otouto has evolved over the past year or two, in what direction do you see yourselves evolving?
Kishore says "nerd hop". We've started writing songs for our next album, and it does seem like our sound has changed again already. We're really enjoying playing around with hip-hop beat influences and new machines.

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Otouto’s album launch tour with Seja begins tomorrow (April 16) at the Metro in Adelaide. More dates here.