Ambient, Beatmakers Rat & Co have certainly had a busy year with two European tours under their belt, a national tour supporting Chet Faker's on his Built On Glass as well stand out sets at Sugar Mountain Festival, the NGV's Jean-Paul Gautier exhibition and performing under the Shadow Electric screen as part of the closing venue's outdoor cinema season.
Rat & Co along with video artist Oliver Elmers accepted Shadow Electric's invitation to perform once again under the cinema screen on Saturday August 29. Joining the lineup is cousin duo Klo, who are fresh of the back of a sold out Northcote Social Club launch and their Splendour in the Grass appearance, along with Australian-born US based Hoodlem performing her first show in Australia for this year.
Tomatrax caught up with Josh Delaney from the band to ask a few questions.
You will be performing as part of the Visions series, how did that come about?Dave Chestwig from Shadow Electric has been a huge supporter of us since the Shadow Electric started awhile back. He always lets us try our newest shows and ideas so as soon as he told me about the Estonian House I jumped on it like a dog with a bone
What can fans expect from your show?We will be playing new tracks from our forthcoming album and few really old tracks that haven't seen the light of day since our very first shows 3 or so years ago.
What's was it like working with Oliver Ellmers?I've known Oli for about 5 years now and we have always got along really well, he started working together with us about a year and half ago. He is always willing to try new ideas and is really good at pushing us to break our own visual boundaries
What's it like seeing your music interpreted into visual arts?Its fantastic! all the visuals are Oil's take on the music which is completely different from what I have always imagined so it's nice to see somebody else's perspective
You recently went on a tour round Europe, how did that go?Johnny & I were received in Europe with open arms. Every new city had its own new challenges, but most of the time the shows went incredibly smoothly. It was a smaller tour with support from our good friend Hoodlem (who's playing with us again at the Estonian House show), which made every show that little bit more exciting than the last. By the end of tour we were loosing it on stage, having more fun than ever & I think we brought that back to the rest of the band in Australia.
What was it like to support Chet Faker?I played in Chet Faker for just under 3 years so to take Rat & Co on the road with him just seemed completely natural. Nick is a top dude and always been a massive supporter of the band.
You have also been working on another album, how has that been going?New album is shaping up very quickly, I think we have the majority of songs in skeleton form, with maybe a quarter being quite close to being finished. We've been jamming a couple times a week lately just to try and find the real voice of album 3.
How will the new album compare with your previous work?I think it will be a step back towards the sounds of One Uno Ein, away from the more digital sounds of Binary. We will be getting a few guest singers on board for this one, and I'll be diving into singing lyrics this time around so its going to be a really different record
Where did the name Rat & Co come from?When Kaia and I were in High school we got a gig djing in the city and we needed a name for the poster, which we ended up using the name 'Junk Choir dj's' but the name we didn't use was Rat & Co. That was stuck in my head for a couple of years and so when I finally was happy with my first demo to show someone else, I just called it Rat & Co
Do you ever listen to your own music?All the time. I don't listen to it much after it's finished but when I'm in writing mode I pretty much exclusively listen to the band so that my outside influences aren't so strong and I can really take the songs where they naturally need to go
What other music do you listen to?At the moment a lot of gig mason, Aphex Twin, SMΛЦG
& as always Burial / Four Tet
Sorry, Cant tell you that. you will just have to come to the show to see it for yourself :)
Rat & Co are performing with visual artist Oliver Elmers and support from Klo and Hoodlem on the 29th August.Tickets - http://shadowelectric.com.au/visions/rat-co
Check out Rat & Co's facebook page to find out more!
