Sun shines on Seattle-based electro duo Odesza

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14 Jan, 2015 06:30 PM3 mins to read

Electronica duo Odesza.

With the sun finally shining, Seattle electronica duo Odesza have picked the perfect time to perform in Auckland. They talk to Chris Schulz.

Moody grunge music, poor public transport and truly terrible weather. Seattle is known for a lot of things, but chirpy electronica bands is not one of them. Until now.

"I've always been attracted to popular harmonies and pretty melodies and we were maybe trying to escape that," says Clayton Knight, who, alongside college buddy Harrison Mills, makes up sun-kissed electro duo Odesza, who perform in Auckland tomorrow night.

The two met at Western Washington University in 2012, bonding over their shared love of electronica music on a campus full of "indie folk music and rock" fans.

Despite Mills' passion for "darker" electronica and Clay's attraction to poppier material, the pair found plenty of common ground and soon started jam sessions as Odesza.

"We didn't know anyone else who was trying to make electronic music so we hung out and it just naturally unfolded that we liked the same stuff," Mills says. "We started jamming one day and it all just felt natural and right and organic and easy and we kept bouncing ideas off each other.

"It was an exciting time so we made an album together."

Within three months they'd created Summer's Gone, an ethereal instrumental record that touched on the cornerstones of 90s chillwave acts such as Groove Armada and Morcheeba but added slurred hip-hop beats and sped-up vocals that saw them align more closely with alt acts such as Four Tet and Animal Collective.

In Return - their second album, which was released in September - they added bigger beats and more live vocalists. Sunset anthems such as Bloom and All We Need scream summer so loudly it's hard not to reach for a Corona, slice some limes and crank up the barbecue.

"We've been really excited with the response," Knight says. "We didn't have too high expectations when we were putting it together. We knew it was pretty different and we hoped people would like it, but to see the reaction we've gotten ... there are no complaints."

Their success saw them touring throughout much of 2014 and, after their first show in New Zealand tomorrow night, Odesza have road trips booked throughout Australia and America until June.

It means they can skip Seattle's miserable weather and follow the sun, but Odesza's success has come with a price: they've had to find other ways of making music when they don't have access to Mills' basement studio set-up.

"We've had to figure out how to make music on the road, which is the most uninspiring thing, especially when someone's moving past you in an airport and you have to move all your equipment," Mills says.

"It can definitely get hard but what we try to do now is if we can't meet up in a hotel room we'll work on stuff separately and pass the file back and forth."

They're promising a high-energy performance at the Kings Arms, where they'll recreate much of Summer's Gone and In Return, mashing songs up using samples and live percussion. If you're heading along, be warned: you might need a sweatband or two. "We try to keep it pretty energetic as much as possible to get people moving," Mills says. "The more we get into it the more they get into it so we try to keep the energy pretty high tempo."