Features
Dream Kit: The 'Other' Kelly
By Doug Wallen
Ahead of the launch of his debut 12”, DOUG WALLEN talks to Declan Kelly (aka Dream Kit) about his transition from DJ to musician, famous parents and the emergence of a new electronic collective in his hometown of Melbourne.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] After more than a dozen years spinning other people’s records, Declan Kelly can now chuck his own 12” on the turntable. The Future Tense EP is our introduction to Dream Kit, the alias for Kelly’s artfully twisty electronic music. Falling in with Melbourne’s Two Bright Lakes collective and nascent producers guild This Thing, Kelly sets high expectations for this and its upcoming companion EP. The songs don’t disappoint, crisscrossing and shape-shifting with an easy-going inevitability.
A child at home and another on the way has slowed Kelly’s output as much as his various musical obligations, but he’s in it for the long haul. Coming from a musical family – his dad is Paul Kelly, his cousin is Dan – he ought to carve his own niche at his own pace.
Did you make these songs at home or in your studio?
They were mainly in a couple of other studios. All home studios. Different places over the last 18 months. It was pretty fractured, the working process. I had one main bit of writing, which was two or three months, that was the bulk of it. From there it was editing when I could find the time.
And how do you make them? What do you start with usually?
Y’know, it’s always different. Often it’s rhythm. But I think accidents are often what happens. You’re trying for one thing and you end up doing something else. And that gives you an idea that then pushes you in another direction. One of the songs mutated out of a song that was twice the tempo. I was looking for a change in the song to [create] a different mood, and I came across something I really liked. So I made a whole different song. Those kinds of things happen a bit. I just tried to be open to what would happen and to where the songs would go.
Is it tricky knowing when you’re done?
That’s been the eternal problem for me. I think, also, because it was a first thing and I was always working in fits and starts, I always wanted to keep tweaking them. So there was a couple of blown deadlines. But in the end, it’s the first thing I’m releasing and I’m always gonna look back on this and [think] it probably could have been better. I think you need to start that conversation: you need to put something out to get feedback from people and move on to the next thing. Maybe that’s particular to my experience: because I don’t have unlimited free time to work on stuff, I kept tweaking and tweaking forever. I was happy to put the songs out now and move on.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Dream Kit - Eleven Twelve by Mess+Noise
Do you mostly use computers and synths?
It’s largely computer-based. I use Ableton Live. I often just use that to really quickly sketch the drum rhythms and program stuff. Then once I’m happy with it, I’ll substitute in better sounds or sample different sounds. And I use some internal synthesisers and some plug-ins. I’ll also use a couple of outboard synths, which I really love. A Nord and a Juno 106. And a microKORG.
What’s it going to be like when you play live?
I’m still kind of working that out at the moment. [Laughs] But to begin with, it’s just gonna be me. I’m gonna try to play a bit of live drums on the [Roland] SPD [pad] and maybe have some live percussion done through a mic. And a little bit of effects manipulation running on the audio that’s coming from the computer. But the view with the live show is to just begin it at a certain point, with the view to it evolving. I’d like to include more people down the track.
Have you played live much, prior to this launch [tonight at RAOBGAB in Melbourne]?
No, this is it. I’ll see what happens. [Laughs] I’ve played live in a couple of bands before, playing drums, but never on my own.
What were those bands?
I played in a band called Tim Richmond & The Old Case. Kind of an indie thing. And I’ve played with Super Melody a couple times, just as a guest.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
James [Cecil] has done a similar thing of striking off on his own and trying to figure out how to do it live. Have you sought advice from him or used Super Melody as an example?
Well, we share a studio, so we’re hanging out all the time. He mixed the EP and has been a big inspiration and offered a lot of advice. I like the way he has two sides to his live thing: he has the band and he has something he can do on his own. James’ thing is a little bit different because he sings, and that has its own personality and performance about it, which my music doesn’t have. So I’m trying to rely on other things to make it visually interesting. You can make pretty interesting music, but it can be boring if it’s just a guy on a laptop. James has been helpful with suggestions of how to set stuff up, but it’s just experimenting to see what works.
Have you ever thought about singing?
Yeah, I’m interested in it. I’ve not really ever sung that much. I can’t really sing. So I always feel like I’ll leave it to people who can. Sometimes I use my voice in my recordings, but I bury it and treat in ways so it can’t be recognised. I’m thinking for the second EP, which will be a companion to this one, of working with some vocalists. Maybe on all the tracks. Just again, to challenge myself. The stuff on the Future Tense EP is really hypnotic and cerebral, and that’s what I wanted to go for. But it’s a different thing with vocals.
Why do two EPs instead of an EP and then an album?
I think when I started writing these songs, there were seven or eight. I started working on six, and eventually I pared down to four that I finished. So there’s a series of songs that were written at the same time. They were the first things I wrote and the first things I was happy with, and there’s a lot of strong ideas in there for me. So I thought it would suit to put them out as two companion things. But things have U-turned so much. As I was saying before, the songs could turn out completely differently by the time I finish them. So they will be companion EPs, but whether or not they’ll share the same sound I don’t know until I can sit down and finish the songs.
Is there an appeal as well in the 12” format, which is so iconic in electronic music?
Yeah, I mean, I’ve been DJing for 13 years. I buy a lot of music digitally, but I still buy records. I think they just sound good. They feel good, they look good, they last far longer than any CD I ever owned. [It’s] having that tangible thing alongside a digital product. I can’t really imagine people buying this on CD. I worked for a distributor [Fuse] for six months last year, and that was pretty enlightening as to the lifespan of the CD, especially with music that’s not of a mainstream nature.
Obviously it’s interesting that you really love electronic music when your dad is this classic figure in a very different genre.
Yeah … maybe in time I’ll write other kinds of music, but I grew up listening to so much different stuff. My dad’s got incredibly broad taste, and so we just listened to and shared a lot of music. I’m also a product of my generation, listening to different things. And music made with computers, which was not a feature of his youth. I guess I consider myself lucky to have access to all the music I had growing up. And then another really exciting wave of music when I hit my teens and started listening to techno. Then from techno it was into Detroit house and Chicago house and from there I discovered disco and from disco into soul. Then once I hit soul and funk and black American music, it was reggae, Latin, African music. The world opened up and I could see all the intersections of this music in contemporary dance music. Since then the journey just continues. It’s fascinating.
Do you play your dad your music, and does he offer his opinion at all?
Yeah, yeah. He’s heard these songs a lot as they were growing. I’ll ask him for specific feedback. Otherwise he’ll tell me what he likes about it. But we’re constantly sharing stuff and listening to music. He gives me stuff and vice versa.
Dream Kit has the same initials as your name. Is that a coincidence?
No, I had a name that I really liked for a while, which was Akimbo. But there was three other bands called Akimbo: like a hardcore band from Seattle, some shitty world band from California, and someone else in Europe. Once I decided I wasn’t going to use that name, I had to just do some free association. I literally got down to my initials and then I had a whole lot of words I really liked for each letter. I messed around with them until I found something I liked. I thought the name suited the music.
It’s got that tidiness, like the music. There’s room for letting your mind wander, but…
It’s structured, yeah. That name sat well for me.
“My dad’s got incredibly broad taste, and so we just listened to and shared a lot of music.”
From DJing and doing radio so much, is it hard to shut all that out when you’re making your own music?
That’s a really interesting question, because I listen to so much music I love and then I present it in a radio format or in a club format regularly. You’re constantly evaluating your own music against your peers and other people you don’t know. That definitely took me a while to get over. I definitely felt like my music wasn’t good enough and doesn’t stand up. One of the reasons for stopping my radio show was to gain more time to work on music. But also, I think you do sometimes need to disassociate yourself a little bit. It’s a fine line, because you want to keep on getting influenced and also understanding where the music you’re interested in is evolving to. Particularly at the moment, when electronic music is evolving so fast in really interesting ways all the time.
Yeah, there’s so many subgenres and tags being thrown around constantly.
Which can also be overwhelming. You can’t keep up. For me, it’s trying to walk that line between maintaining contact but also being in your own headspace.
Just finally, the Melbourne launch is at a location [RAOBGAB] I’m not familiar with…
It’s a new venue. I wanted to do it somewhere small. We’re kind of hoping this club can become a quality music venue. It’s essentially just a room and a bar and a few seats and tables. It’s actually an old masons hall, so it has an interesting license. Like mainly a members-only license. So they’re trying to encourage people to become members, because after June 15 you won’t be able to get in without membership. [Laughs] It’s loosely connected to this collective I’m working with called This Thing, which is a whole bunch of beatmakers and producers: Galapagoose, Wooshie, MikeKay and Electric Sea Spider. A bunch of people are involved, and we’re looking to start up a small digital label releasing split releases from some of those producers. The club is going to be one of the hubs for the events we do. It’s early days at the moment, but it’s got some promise.
Are you planning to do dates in other cities?
Yeah, there’s a Sydney launch at Mad Racket, these long-established parties run by old friends of mine. They’ve got Kid Sublime playing, so I obviously won’t be headlining. But those guys are really great and the parties are always amazing. I was honoured to be playing there. Perth and Adelaide are in the pipeline, but they’re not set. Once the Sydney launch is done in June and a few other things, I’m going to try and do them.
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