The Australian artist talks his new EP, his return to Melbourne, and all the new music he has in store for the near future
On the heels of the July release of a collaborative EP with Wicca Phase Springs Eternal titled This Moment I Miss, Darcy Baylis has released a new solo EP called Days After Breaking, a follow-up to his November 2019 record A House Breaking. The new project sees Baylis continuing to hone his crossbreed sound of emotional trance, breakbeats, and emo-inspired crooning, delivered in his characteristically subdued, breathy vocals.
Until mid-September, Baylis had been studying at university in Berlin, enrolled in a masters program called Sound Studies and Sonic Arts that, as Baylis explains, is for “people working in all fields of sound.” After finishing his first year, which included a hefty load of courses in everything from sound design, engineering, musicology, and composition, he decided to defer, leading him to return back to his hometown of Melbourne, Australia. “I’ve been away for a little over a year, and when I left there was no pandemic, so obviously it’s a very very different place to come back to,” he says. “But it’s been nice to see all my oldest friends and family again. It’s the city that I grew up in, so it feels good to be home. But it definitely feels strange.”
Although most of the new EP was recorded while still in Berlin (with the exception of “Sorbitol Freestyle”), there is a parallel that can be drawn between the recent changes in life circumstances to shifts in the way Baylis approached the new project, compared to his previous output. For one, last year’s A House Breaking is marked by a very affecting, introspective style of pop songwriting with a clear overarching story to tell, one revolving around themes of considerable emotional turmoil and hurt. Days After Breaking, on the other hand, has a more mellow, settled feel to it, suggesting perhaps that for Baylis, the seas have become less rocky, the proverbial boat on its way to smoother sailing. Baylis partly attributes this tonal shift to the album having been written in his bedroom in the summer months, making for “a much chiller environment,” as he put it.
Time and place aside, his natural dynamism as an artist was also certainly a factor. “Recently I’ve been less interested in writing really introspective or emotional work, because I feel like I already know how to do that. It comes pretty naturally, and I think it’s more challenging to write about something more abstract that isn’t just about my own pain.” The lyrical arrangements are also sparser, leaving more space for the production to shine. The result is a lush and atmospheric collection of songs, each one zeroed in on a particular style of club music. “Just the way the songs are don’t really lend themselves to specific details. It’s a bit more style over substance, if anything,” Baylis admits. “I think I was more focused on creating a mood and just sustaining it there rather than telling a story or a memory.”
I finished listening to Days After Breaking earlier today and loved it. Both in title and overall sound, it seems to be in some ways a continuation, but also a break from where you last left off with A House Breaking. Could you tell me a bit about what your approach to this project was like?
I guess I wanted to flesh out the more experimental club tendencies of the previous record because it was all indebted to club music, but the structures were arranged in a way that was more reminiscent of pop songs. I kind of wanted to take that to its extreme, so that’s why nearly all of the songs are like six minutes long. It was kind of just an extension of the more club-focused work, but just taken to the nth degree, and also just seeing what it’d be like if I combined really traditional club song formats with my vocal style. With it being an EP, you can only include so much of it; that’s why each different track is very honed into one specific area. Like there’s the jungle song, then there’s the trance song, then there’s the breakbeat song. So that’s kind of what I was going for, just like little snapshots of different parts of pop music done my way.
There’s that song “No Other Dream” featuring vocals from Emma Acs on there. Can you tell me about how that collaboration came about?
I played a show in Paris in February that this guy Louie, who runs this label out there, organized. He booked me, Emma, her band, and this really good post-punk band from Wales called Chain of Flowers. So I met Emma at the show, and then we all went out afterwards to this dive bar that was tiny, like 10 square feet, and they were just playing Bowie and Morrissey really loudly. It was like 50 people–that kind of vibe. I got to speaking with Emma there and we talked about doing a collab, but nothing really came of it there.
Then the next day we were at the airport, where we were all flying back to our home countries. I think Louie was going back to Denmark, and so was Emma, and I was going back to Berlin. After they caught their flight, there was this storm called Storm Sierra that circulated all of Central Europe basically. And so pretty much all of the flights in Europe got cancelled, and then it was just hundreds of us stranded in the airport. We had to go stay at some random hotel which wasn’t even in Paris, it was like in this other part outside of the city. So then I was there, and I was like, ‘When can I get the next flight to Berlin?’ and they said, ‘we don’t know, it could be tomorrow, it could be in a few days.’ So anyway, that night I started on the instrumentals of a very early track because I had nothing else to do. Then I had the basic loop, took it back to Berlin, and a few months later I polished it, then sent it over to Emma and was like ‘alright, what about this?,’ and she was down immediately.
That’s a great story.
It was pretty crazy. I remember being like, ‘Well this is definitely the craziest thing that’s going to happen to me all year.’ But now obviously, it’s a very minor thing given the rest of 2020.
So back in 2019, when I first heard the single “Describing A Pattern” from your then-upcoming album A House Breaking, I was pretty blown away. I kind of considered you as belonging to a new generation of artists who were similarly interpolating various styles of club music into songs with decidedly emo or cloud rap sensibilities. At the time, you were one of only maybe a dozen or so artists who seemed to be engaging with that hybrid sound in a serious, thoughtful way. Now a little over a year later, that formula seems to have gotten very popular. The new wave in the SoundCloud scene right now, whether you want to call it hyperpop or glitchcore or whatever else it’s being called, pulls as much from a sort of rave revivalism as it does other styles like emo and cloud rap, PC Music, and scenecore. Like, kids are spitting pitched-up bars over happy hardcore. There’s hazy cloud rap with trance arpeggios. It’s nuts. So I’m curious what your thoughts are on that kind of thing becoming part of the zeitgeist. Are you paying attention to any of the music coming out of that whole scene right now?
No, not really. I don’t really keep up with SoundCloud anymore. I’m fairly out of the loop. It feels a bit difficult to keep up with at times. Feels sort of like the whole point of a lot of it is like “Man, remember music from this era? Wasn’t that cool?” It’s very self-referential and hyper-aware of cultural trends and it becomes a bit difficult to ingest a lot of it after a certain point in time. So I think maybe that’s why I’m just focused more on classic, older records that I used to like. Maybe I’m just getting old.
That’s certainly true. Everything inevitably becomes an echo chamber of sorts where certain elements get singled out to be iterated on and emphasized almost to cartoonish proportions. So what music have you been listening to lately?
Honestly? Just like metal, mainly. That’s kind of all I’ve really been listening to in the past little while. Like, turn of the 21st century American metalcore, and some earlier stuff as well. I’ve started a new metal project with my friend Morgan and I’ve been trying to get more inspiration for that in terms of playing guitar. So I’ve been listening to a lot of that currently. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Melbourne punk music, bands like Total Control and Lowlife (even though they’re from Sydney). So yeah, a lot of guitar music. Oh, and Eartheater.
Would you say the recent focus on guitar music was spurred by the work you did Wicca Phase on his last project?
I don’t think so, it’s kind of always been my other main thing outside of electronic music. I think they sort of compete in my life. I’ve always been more into one and less into the other, but they’re always kind of coming back and informing each other.
What would you say is next for Darcy Baylis, as a musical project?
Well I’m going to be doing a lot of work with other people for the next little while. I’m working on Wicca’s next record, which I don’t know if I can talk too much about but am very excited for, and new stuff with Zubin as well. Also, new work with Kris [Esfandiari] on Sugar High. Kris and I made the first record a while ago when we were both in L.A. in 2018, but it finally came out this year and we want to make another one. So right now I’m really focused on all these projects with various people because I’m just enjoying it a lot and think I want to continue doing that. And I started my next record, but it’s kind of early stages at this point. But again, I think it’s gonna be another kind of transformation. A lot more guitar-focused than club-focused. More emphasis on the lyrics too, I guess.
So it seems like with each project, at least the ones released under the Darcy Baylis name, you sort of flip between doing introspective lyrics or focusing more on atmosphere and mood instead. That was the case with Days After Breaking, and with this next project you said you’re gonna do more guitar-based stuff instead of club music. Do you feel like that’s sort of a natural propensity you have, not being able to stick to one style or one approach for too long?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I don’t know if I’d call it a propensity, I might call it a flaw. It’s really difficult for me to not see value in a certain style of music. So anytime I hear anything, I’m like, ‘Fuck, what if I did this? How could I do this?’ But obviously I have my main stuff I like that I return to, but I’m always kind of searching for the next thing, I guess. And I’ve always been like that, in every aspect of my life. But I guess there’s common threads that kind of tie it all together. Right now I’m very very interested in just writing sort of very bare songs, with a voice and a guitar and not much else. Maybe I just have a very short attention span. I’m kind of always just trying something new out.
You might call that a flaw, but I think that’s totally healthy and honestly can make for some very good music. You don’t want to become stale and just be doing the same thing over and over and over again.
I guess not. But I mean, I think it would be nice to sort of be known for something. Like, ‘Oh this is Darcy, he does x thing,’ as opposed to, ‘Well, I can’t really say what it is that he does. I guess we have to wait and find out.”
For sure. But you’re young and you have so many years ahead of you to continue honing your craft and to really make an artistic statement that feels truly comfortable to yourself, if that makes sense.
That’s true. I do feel very very good about this next record I’m going to make, just conceptually, even though it’s very early stages. Right now there’s just two songs I’ve recorded in any sort of form. But it feels very cohesive in the sense that with all my disparate influences, I’m beginning to find out where they sort of sit, having them making sense from beginning to end. Which I think makes sense, because I think I wasn’t really maybe self-aware or self-reflective enough until age 25 to sort of properly make something in that way. Like, I think I’ve done things that are good, but I feel very very good about the next phase. But I think until then I’m just gonna spend a lot of time collaborating with the people I enjoy collaborating with, making some new records with them. I think that’s first up.
What are some of the influences of yours that you’re drawing from for this next project of yours?
I think it’s a combination of a few very specific things. I made a playlist to inspire this next project going in. I’m gonna look at what’s on it now … Alex G, nothing,nowhere., the 1975, and there’s a bunch of other weird stuff like Zola Jesus, Tears for Fears, MISOGI, Elliot Smith, Diana Gordon. So, I don’t know — I guess that’s like, emo / new wave / singer-songwriter / folk / pop.
That sounds like a great mix.
I hope it works out.
I mean, I think it will. I’m a fan of your music and think you’re totally capable of delivering great projects and this sounds great. I’m excited.
Thanks for gassing me up [laughs].