There’s no doubt that Flume has been one of the most influential local producers of recent times, thrusting the Australian electronic scene into global spotlight while gaining phenomenal commercial and critical success. While his self-titled 2012 debut was a game-changer, there’s been plenty of talk about his sophomore effort.

Flume has been pretty tight-lipped about the project, but here’s five things we know about the album from his Triple J interview and social media. Remember, Flume will be playing his only 2014 Australian shows over the next few weeks at Listen Out – catch us in Sydney this Saturday!

1. He’s hitting the studio hard.

Flume has spent much of 2014 touring overseas (both as a solo artist and under the What So Not banner), but he’s recently arrived back home and has been spending plenty of time in the studio:

“I’ve been out of the country a lot but now that I’m back here, I’m in the studio everyday doing new tunes.”

2. He’s experimenting with some more unusual sounds inspired by Hollywood and cartoons.

While many people credit Flume with creating his own localised sound, he’s looking at some more unorthodox approaches to production for his second effort:

“Now what I’ve been doing is I’ve been getting a lot of Hollywood sound effects libraries and cartoon sounds, sounds that humans have made up… and using those sounds in the music where they shouldn’t be used. Or just things like instead of claps, these days I’m using ice cracks, like an icicle cracking against a table – weird things like that.”

3. He’s feeling clear and confident, and the record is going to be big.

It seems that extensive recording, touring and remixing has given Flume a lot of confidence this time around:

“From a sonic standpoint the new stuff sounds so much bigger… I feel like the first record was really finding my feet, figuring out what music I wanted to make… Now that I’ve done that I feel like I’ve got a much clearer idea of what I want to sound like and what I want to discover. It’s exciting.”

4. He’s well into the project.

While it’s very easy for us to get caught up in the excitement, we’ve still got to remember that we haven’t got a title or a solid release date. Still, it’s coming:

“I’ve got a bunch of stuff down and it’s super exciting because I think it’s really strong.”

5. The hype is still very, very real.

Back in May, Flume posted a six-word status that set the blogosphere ablaze. He wrote:

“New album is very much underway.”

That was enough to accumulate close to 14,000 likes and plenty of articles sparking rumours of his studio return. Now it’s September, and the hype is still here, stronger than ever. Will he give us a sneak peak of what’s to come this weekend at Listen Out? Fingers crossed.