Boycrush, aka Alistair Deverick, says his new album was inspired by photographer Yvonne Todd. Photo / supplied
Boycrush, aka Alistair Deverick, says his new album was inspired by photographer Yvonne Todd. Photo / supplied
The title of Boycrush (aka Alistair Devericks)'s debut album, Desperate Late Night Energy, encapsulates a very singular feeling.
"It's the end of the night, and you want to go home with someone, or you want to drink more, or you want to take more, or you want to do more," says Deverick. "And you're in full intellectual knowledge that it's the end of the night, there's no hope of you finding satisfaction, but it's quite a strong feeling.
"If I take it away from the desperation of the end of the night, it's like the same thing that makes me pick up my phone all the time, or makes me keep checking Facebook to see if some new opportunity has happened. [It's] being not really satisfied," he says.
"It's almost nostalgic. It's romantic. It's misty, but it's really real, and really heartfelt."
Desperate Late Night Energy is a catalogue of that feeling; 11 slickly produced dance-pop tunes that twirl around meditative, introspective tempos. Recorded in what Deverick describes as a "dark basement" underneath Auckland's Crystal Palace theatre, Yumi Zouma's Christie Simpson and Chelsea Jade are among the guest vocalists, while Deverick is the brains behind the production and lyrics. Live, Deverick performs with vocalist Carla Camilleri, who he says is essentially a Boycrush "co-member".
During our half-hour chat over coffee, it's evident that Deverick is a furiously inspired person. He's able to fully explain the lineage of his songs – how each title can be traced back to a particular touchstone or aesthetic. On his first full-length record, Deverick's interest in that late-night energy was, in part, inspired by Kiwi photographer Yvonne Todd.
"I saw an exhibition of her work at the City Gallery in Wellington, where they had a retrospective," he says. "She had this one exhibition that was lots of photographs of these cult figures, and one of their names was Glue Vira, and one of their names was Moon Sap, and they were wearing full-body Lycra and doing these weird poses. And it's like faux spiritual, kind of making fun of it – when you don't mean something, but also you kind of do mean it.
"Like if you see somebody that you're really attracted to and you know they're a cliche – say it's a buff dude, and you're attracted to this dude because you're like, what a strong, tall, dark, handsome guy ... You're still attracted to that guy, but you're also aware that it's kind of funny, because it's just a classic tall dark stranger.
"If you're playing with that idea, it's like you're making fun of it, but also at the same time there's something about it that really does appeal to you," he says.
That slightly off-kilter approach is evident on Deverick's song titles. "Heaps of the song names came from a Wikipedia glossary of dance terms that kind of fit within that Yvonne Todd aesthetic," he says. "Some ones that stayed were Primitive Squat, which is a dance move and then Frappe, because it is a dance move, but also a funny type of coffee that people don't really know what they're buying but they order."
Deverick often starts with song titles because in Ableton and Pro Tools, his music softwares of choice, a session must be named before one can start working within it. From there, he approaches his songs like building scaffolding.
"I make the bits, put them together, and then mumble over the top," he says. "I normally start out trying to make a dance track, and then I just can't let it stand by itself for some reason. I always just want to sing on it, so I just mumble lyrics into the microphone, and I'm like, 'okay, let's write that down', and then try and make sense from there."
Central to Deverick's artistry are his music videos, and each is hooked around the art of contemporary dance. He works on them in collaboration with the New Zealand Dance Company, who he teamed up with after performing at a fundraising gig for them.
"I had the idea from watching this contemporary dance company called Limbs, and they have some footage on Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision … I got into watching that and putting my music on at the same time and it seemed to really fit," he says. "The founder of the New Zealand Dance Company was from Limbs, and she was open to the idea of working with me, and making dance music videos together, and it was just the perfect fit.
"All the really stupid, simple, repetitive moves; they're my ideas," says Deverick. "And all the eloquent, lyrical, beautiful ideas; they're not."
LOWDOWN: Who: Boycrush What: Desperate Late Night Energy, out now Plus: Album release show at Whammy Bar, Saturday July 7
