Cover photo: Jay Reitze-Swensen
Elise Reitze and Rosie Taylor aka. Feels have been going from strength to strength recently, both on stage and in the studio. The Perth duo have just finished a run of live dates at Listen Out, Laneway and Perth International Arts Festival and are bunkering down to work on an album for Tim Shiel and Gotye’s Spirit Level label.
Outside of their own work, Elise and Rosie run the Ableton community group WOMPP (Women Of Music Production Perth) who have had a bumper summer too, with showcases at both Falls and Perth Festivals for artists on the WOMPP roster.
Elise and Rosie visited us at Liveschool during their recent trip to Sydney, so we took the opportunity to find out more about how they write and perform with Ableton Live, and got the inside scoop on some amazing new tunes coming out of the Perth electronic music scene.
Feels in the studio at Liveschool
Hey Elise and Rosie, first up I wanted to talk a bit about your music background. You’ve both trained as percussionists, do you think this has influenced on your production style?
Being a percussionist was first for both us, so it definitely influences every decision we make when it comes to the writing and how we structure our live show. We are interested in manipulating rhythm and focusing on odd accented beats in our composition. Our background in percussion has made us go to ridiculous lengths to include as many of these instruments as we can!
There really seems to be a common thread with the instruments and drums you use across your tunes, what do you look for when selecting/designing your sounds?
Percussion instruments are our focus. We like to mix acoustic percussion with synths and digital drums. We also love sneaking in some silly samples such as Elise brushing her hair or Rosie gulping down water.
How do you find working as a duo?
We have been friends since we were 14, so we always have a lot of fun working on our music together. We are definitely comfortable enough to pay each other out for a bad idea, but equally, love a good high five after one of us comes up with something solid. When we aren’t writing music together we are often seeing gigs or trying to make it as food critics.
You also run the excellent initiative WOMPP (Women Of Music Production Perth), can you tell us a bit about it?
WOMPP is a community for female, trans and non-binary Ableton users to share and develop their music production skills. The group also acts as a collective, showcasing and representing live electronic music makers and DJs. WOMPP aims to inspire and nurture Perth’s growing electronic music scene and provide a safe place for learning and growth.
Any tunes from the WOMPP roster that we should check out?
Absolutely!
You’ve got a lot of new music in the works, can you tell us anything about it yet?
We are focusing on really high energy dance beats at the moment. During our visit to Liveschool, we explored syncopated rhythmic patterns over solid 4/4 time and had a lot of fun writing new music for 2018!
Your Live set is changing too, right? How is it coming together?
We are about to do a big re-structure of our current live set to include the 4 octave electronic marimba aka MalletKAT. Our new set will focus on music written in 2018 and figuring out how to shred it on the Roland SPD-SX, Push 2, live percussion and the MalletKAT!
Feels with the MalletKAT Grand controller. Photo: Zal Kanga-Parabia
Amazing! And where can we catch your tunes?
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