High school visual arts meets Ableton…
The city of Melbourne has no doubt been producing a wealth of musical talents over the past several years, the eastern state responsible for some of the most unique sounds and genres to come out of Australia as of late. One such act that fits the description to a ‘T’ is avant-garde dance duo, Adult Art Club.
Comprised of Matthew Kopp (Running Touch) and Zac Waters, Adult Art Club act as the perfect midway between the fine art and music worlds, creating in collaboration with expressionists from all mediums for a marriage between dance music and art. Subsequently, each single off their newly released LP is an atmospheric sonic journey created as an ode to the Adult Art Club’s muses and favourite creators. The result is a community-driven array of works that push the bounds of what dance music can be, and luckily, it’s now out in its entirety for the world to indulge in.
We caught up with Matt and Zac from the duo to take a deep dive into the ins and outs of their debut album, their creative process and more. Check it below.
When was Adult Art Club born?
Zac: Matt and I met in early 2013, and we had an idea for a duo a year later. We were making music together straight away. He messaged me on SoundCloud, and we kicked it off. And then, we were at a pancake parlour booth at 3am one morning, and Matt got this idea to start a duo. We wanted to do it, but we never really matured into the idea, until now.
Matt: We had the base level concept, just in terms of who’s in it and what we wanted to do. But it wasn’t until we released ‘Lempicka’ that it just clicked. The concept is that it’s based on art and our families. And obviously, the songs are based off art as well. The minute we wrote that we were like, “Oh, this makes so much sense.” And then we’ve never looked back.
That’s quite a space of time between first meeting to having the project click. When it clicked, did it feel like you were back in that early period of creating? Or was it a new realization?
Zach: Definitely a new realization for me. I feel like we had our own paths for a long time and it wasn’t until ‘Lempicka’ that we knew what we wanted to do with the project in that moment. So, I think it was just a matter of, “Oh wow, here it is.” That was the eureka moment.
Matt: It was so exciting. I feel like it was a complete love renewal of the project and it really made us look at it differently. It was a whole new baby and chapter for us, and I think that’s really driven the whole album. The minute that happened, It felt like we were 20 again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJkHhyFvvYE
Art underpins a lot of Adult Art Club and there’s a certain early post-modern/impressionist vibe that is present within your works. How do those periods influence you sonically?
Zac: It was the marriage of the two that I find to be most interesting in that jam. And just that House Arrest style. His style is very bold and intentional. And I think that with our music, we embrace that same boldness and intention behind a lot of the elements that we put in. None of the elements are perfect on their own, but together they complete the canvas in the same way that House Arrest’s do.
Matt: We’re looking to incorporate that more as well. Like I said, there’s a real beauty in how naive we were with the concept in those early stages. It was a light-bulb moment when it happened. So, I think we’re still catching up and growing with it. And that’s a lot like art. It’s a development in itself. There’s a lot to go in terms of how it informs us. So, we’re still finding that out and we really want to build and make that a pillar of this project.
Just to give artists our songs and ideas before the actual songs for them to bounce off and actually involve them in the art. Just to take the digitalism out of it and make it creative to creative.
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You marry art with underground dance music really well. Obviously, those two mediums have polarities with one another, but there’s a common purity of dance and art you seem to have tapped into. Is that something you’ve meditated on while creating?
Zac: What’s really interesting is that we’ve discovered an almost underground scene of artists within Melbourne and in Australia as a whole, that almost mirrors the underground scene of dance music. And it’s those people in that community that we’ve tapped into for the music videos, and obviously House Arrest with the album artworks. It’s almost like a reflection of that underground scene musically.
Matt: There’s a purity in it in that it’s like school for us. We’re walking into this constantly growing and as if we’re 20 years old, just messaging people on Soundcloud and DMing people asking if they want to paint in the studio while we’re making music. We’re doing that, but with these artists, they’ve never done anything like this before.
So, we’re reaching out to them and that in itself evokes a whole new experience. And I think there is definitely a purity in that because you get knowledge and experiences that you wouldn’t usually get. Going forward that’s going to help us approach the music a little bit differently. And I know Zac’s actually painting and doing art himself quite regularly and that’s really helped him with his expression as well.
Overall, there’s a purity because we’re fucking around, which forces us to continue to fuck around more. I think as you get older you churn through everything through the lens of your experiences, whereas we’re truly reverting back to a place where we don’t know what the next step is. And I think maybe that’s what a lot of the underground is. It’s a lot of young people just fucking around and having fun,
Zac: Discovery. It’s just discovery. I will say too, Matt, your stoicism in terms of directing us and saying, “Let’s put discovery first and creation first. And as long as we’re creating and doing new things, we never going to lose our way.” Just that purity and the feeling of discovery is really fun and keeps everything energetic and fresh.
How did that mantra inform the creation of the album? Did it enable you more freedom in certain respects?
Matt: We wrote this over three years, so it’s so hard to answer that question.
Zac: It happened in blocks. There were three main periods of prolific writing that came about, I guess the assembly of the album. There was the ‘Lempicka’, ‘A Thousand Golden People’, and ‘I’m Okay, I’m Fine’. And then there was writing during COVID and some slightly after.
And I think that the marriage of all those three shows a lot of the progression within the styles that we were writing at the time. And it came out quite cohesive in the end. But you can tell that the styles are quite varied within the album. When you’ve got something like ‘Kusuma Butterfly’ and then ‘Four Dancers’ and ‘I’m Ok, I’m Fine’, your automatic reaction would be “What?” But it was all just a result of those three blocks of writing coming together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVAxMhmIzI0
One track that stood out to me right away was ‘Zophia‘ and its industrial soundscape. It had a bit of a story to it in terms of family ties and history. Can you flush that out a bit for me?
Matt: ‘The Family’, ‘Sophia’ and ‘Lempicka’ are the ones that tail back to our roots. I would say ‘Lempicka’ is the more direct one. Part of my family is Polish, and they’re artists, painters and jewellers. So Lempicka is a Warsaw-born, wartime Polish artist and Zophia is another Polish artist from the same era. That one is a nod to my family and where the concept came from. So, without running around it too much, that’s just the core of it. It’s a nod to that.
Zac: My favourite painters are all Polish as well, so that’s an easy one to understand. But yeah, it’s a good nod to all of Matt’s heritage a good nod to them. Even ‘Christina’ is named after another Polish painter, Christina Smikoltzka. She’s pretty phenomenal in her works too. So yeah, there are a lot of Polish references to Matt’s heritage.
Matt: And I think the reason it locked in so well is that just in terms of the people we’re referencing, the soundscapes we’re creating, really lock in the period those artists were creating in as well. You can’t imagine what those times were like. And I think some of their work is both very influenced by it but also completely contrasting with it. There’s something about the industrial meets a certain emotion that makes it more meaningful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk_cRMHRjrE
Each track on this album feels quite its own entity in a sense, given its dedication to a certain sound, artist or genre. Overall, was including this much detail and intricacy throughout the project as a whole at all taxing in any way?
Zac: I feel like it was more cathartic than taxing. It felt like a relief to get it out. But yeah, I just feel much more energized to write more and be prolific. I think that that’s where my focus is, just on writing and painting as much as possible.
Matt: For sure.
Zac: I don’t often really think about the album too much and it’s quite fresh. I’m only looking forward now.
Matt: I reckon I’m the same. I feel like it only did positive things. It was only fun.
Adult Art Club tends to go against the grain, for example, your performance at that Byron Bay tunnel rave during last year’s Splendour in the Grass. When making decisions sonically, collaboratively or even just for the project overall, do you tend to gravitate toward going off the beaten track?
Matt: We’re very clear with what we want to do, and what you said is true. Being selective and true to ourselves similar to how we made the music is very important to us. We’re not forcing anything. We’re thinking pretty primal in that the desire and the fun come first and if any opportunity comes our way and it doesn’t really equal that, we just don’t do it.
Zac: Yeah. If it’s cool, do it.
Matt: Yeah. If it’s fun and it’s cool, let’s do it. If not then what’s the point? It’s really as simple as that. There’s no mathematics to it. It’s just like this. We just want to have fun and want to grow with this project.
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You’ve played plenty of shows over a significant period while in Adult Art Club. I imagine the crowd and vibe you’d attract to your shows would be quite specific. What’s the energy been like when you’ve played live?
Zac: I’ve definitely noticed more people that follow us really closely at these shows. It’s really nice to see because I think the project before wasn’t necessarily one of these artists that you would see a lot of dedicated fans for. But it’s really refreshing to see a lot of familiar faces in the crowds at the shows, which is a very different sensation from the last. It’s really nice.
Have any particular moments from those shows stood out?
Matt: We put on our first show at Color just before COVID, which is really before we started doing this properly. That was a really special one because it was the first one that we took on ourselves and it sold out. We were just doing it because we were launching the project and we just wanted to create something to do for ourselves.
So that caught us by surprise a little bit. We weren’t even taking this seriously, we were just fucking around. So I think that made us look at the project and be like, “Oh, okay, there could be something interesting to do here.” So that was pretty special.
How does Adult Art Club fit into your respective artistries and side projects? Is it an alter-ego of sorts or something to channel stray ideas into?
Zac: I certainly find it a lot easier to make objective decisions. I’m not as tied to it personally, even though I love working with the team and I do feel like it’s a big part of my personality that’s being expressed. I don’t feel like I’m stepping on my own toes when I’m putting myself out there. It feels a lot more natural than it does to do my solo stuff, which is now dormant, thankfully [laughs].
Matt: You just do it. It doesn’t really interact with the other stuff much at all. If it does it’s unknowingly. Maybe I’ll make something for Running Touch but then I’ll find a sample from somewhere else and send it to Zach and see what happens. There’s no blocking or logic.
It’s clear that this project has been creatively liberating for you both. Although you’re taking a natural and spontaneous approach to creating at the moment, do you have any goals or plans for the future?
Matt: There’s definitely a laundry list of artists and mediums we want to work with. The most exciting thing about that is that it’s endless. From people who work with pottery to nail technicians and more, there are so many options. And obviously, there’s all the basic shit someone would say in terms of the festivals that are on our bucket list, that would be great. But I think both Zach and I have ambitions to do something live as well, just to have fun with that side of it as well. So I feel like that would be cool.
Zac: The beauty of being so multifaceted now is the ability to stretch into even galleries and do something collaboratively within a space like that instead of just being like, “Okay, here’s a music show at X location.” It’s like, how can we expand that into new territories and blend those two worlds, which I find really exciting. And the prospect of new creative ideas in which to do that really scratches an itch. So, we’re looking forward to doing some shows with an art-based theme rather than just doing solo music, more of a “Here it is, come watch us,” sort of vibe.
Matt: So there are definitely some festivals coming at the end of the year, but we’re looking to do our own shows that are gallery based, like Zach said, sometime this year. We’re just working on that at the moment.
Are there any local artists on your radar right now? Any you want to work with?
Zac: Yeah, Messiah Padilla. They’re pretty amazing.
Matt: And Gab Cole. Gab’s someone we’ve both been watching for the longest time. He does a bit of everything. Painting, sculpting, the list goes on. He’s a lot like House Arrest. Just someone who just fucks with everything. But yeah, the shit they’re putting out is really interesting and always has been. Big shout out to Gab.
Lastly, with all of this in mind and the fluid approach to creating you’ve approached Adult Art Club with, how are you framing the next project?
Matt: Just the same way we did the first one. Experiment and fuck around.
Zac: What’s so enjoyable about this project is that we just feel it out and if it feels right, we do it. So the music will follow that mantra and we’ll figure it out as we go along and we’ll meld into whatever it becomes.
Adult Art Club’s new LP is out now. You can buy/stream it here.
