The Sydney based Flume is well known for some massive remixes for Disclosure, Arcade Fire, Lorde or Sam Smith. Now he released his new song together with the Miike Snow frontman Andrew Wyatt who was responsible for vocals and lyrics.
Harley Streten, aka Flume, created something special, which starts in kinda “magical quietness” and ends in a synth-firework. Perfectly captured with this beautiful video shot by Clemens Habicht inside the Sydney Opera House, who made some cool videos for the like of Mike Mago, Alex Metric or Bloc Party. Some Mind is released via Mom & Pop in the U.S. and Future Classic in Australia. You can and really should buy it on iTunes.
“I started the instrumental at my apartment in Sydney – first working with the drums and arrangement, then built chords around it, did some vocal bits as sketches before meeting up with Andrew Wyatt from Miike Snow in his studio in New York City. Andrew was writing things in his own head, singing ideas into his phone, I played the song over and over then after about an hour he jumped up and said ‘stop’ and launched into singing this amazing chorus melody. We recoded it then fleshed out the lyrics of the chorus and verses. I finished it off with the crazy ending further down the line, a few months later.
On the first album I had only worked remotely with singers sending files back and forth over the internet. I still enjoy working remotely but have also done a bunch of sessions with people in person. Sometimes its quite odd, even uncomfortable as you have never met, writing music is a very personal process for me. The session for “Some Minds” with Andrew was one of the most natural I’ve done. He is a seasoned pro and it really opened me up to this way of working.
I am pretty hard on myself when it comes to being satisfied with new material, I am always trying to push myself. ‘Some Minds’ is a song, not a track which is what I was trying to achieve with this one.
The last four months has been the longest I’ve had at home in Sydney without being on the road touring and, while I love travelling, it’s nice to come home to such a beautiful place like Sydney. It was humbling to be able to make something in a building so iconic. Being inside the Sydney Opera House filming overnight with no one in the building, it was quite eerie, the place has so much character. The director Clemens [Habicht] really nailed what I wanted to achieve in getting a balance between the real and synthetic, he has a great eye… It’s our love letter to Sydney.”
