Goldfish: South Africa is cooking

Image: Goldfish 

Performing a live set provides a unique challenge, that if approached with skill offers exciting, varied results unlike anything before it. Goldfish, a South African dance duo, happen to be masters of the live performance, and are also equally adept in the studio. 

What started out in a beach club in Cape Town keeps on expanding, and quite rightly so. Bottling up the convivial tones of South Africa through a catalogue of instruments (see below), they're connecting with house heads worldwide who can't seem to get enough of their sound. 

A residency at Pacha soon blossomed from the hunger generated for their product, a hunger which has also seen them called upon by London's Coronet Theatre alongside Robin Schulz on Saturday 25th April. 

Ahead of that date, we wanted to know more about one of the most revered live acts on the world circuit. And that's exactly what we did, getting onto the subject of their native South Africa, the makings of the aforementioned musical inventory, their fixation with jam sessions and a whole lot more.  

You’re playing alongside Robin Schulz at The Coronet Theatre in London, do you look forward to playing in the city and how does it differ in reception to South Africa?

London has always been an amazing place to play for Goldfish. We’ve been lucky enough to play places like Brixton Academy, Electric Brixton, Qube Project, Clapham Common and we’ve also played the Coronet twice before - every time London goes off.

The London crowd is super sharp with dance music and there is a strong night life culture that know their stuff. So it’s always a pleasure and a challenge. We bring something different to the DJ table with our live instrument performances and it doesn't matter where you’re from, I think everyone responds to human emotion and performance. 

It’s not something we come across daily, how is the whole dance music scene in South Africa fairing at the moment, is there perhaps anyone we should look out for? 

SA is cooking and has been for ages. Deep house is absolutely huge in our home country and there are strong scenes in all of the different dance music genres.

Guys like Black Coffee having a residency at Circoloco at DC-10 in Ibiza, and Ryan Murgatroyd putting out some brilliant releases on Get Physical are definitely putting SA on the map. It’s really cool to see some South Africans making inroads into the scene.

We figure it’s only a matter of time before those mindsets of surprise about music from SA disappear and it’s just like, music is music wherever it’s from. Woah Luciano is from Chile? Does Flume sound Australian? You know what I mean? It almost doesn't matter really so long as the music is good.

Your sounds almost encapsulates everything we’d imagine South Africa to be, how much of your music is influenced by your home country?

Well, they say that you are the five people you hang out with the most, so I suppose that it transfers to music as well. Our stuff just comes out sunny, uplifting and optimistic. It’s just who we are, and South Africa is an optimistic place.

Dave and I always try and imbue the music we make with a warmth, be it the chords or melodies, or the sonics. A lot of dance and electronic music can sound a little sterile so we try and rub some dirt and analogue vibes into it. 

It’s constructed with a wide range of instruments which gives it that authentic, recognisable Goldfish sound, what are your favourite and more extraordinary instruments you like to use? 

Sheesh. We use a lot of stuff. Sax, flute, double bass, piano, wurlitzer, rhodes, and fun stuff like clarinet, kalimbas and bits and bobs. Everything has its place and probably is as important as each other. That said there’s nothing worse than using a musical instrument like a ’trick’. It has to work in the music and be there on its own merits. 

And of course you multi instrumental approach is integral to your live act, do you endeavour to try and do something different each time you perform? 

The great thing for us about what we do is being originally jazz musicians, it’s all about jamming. We would get so bored if we didn't. When you’re playing 95% of your own music, edits or remixes you don’t have an infinite source of music to choose from like other DJs do - so it really inspires us to try different stuff with our music.

Sometimes we’ll just stop the track and just start jamming if the crowd is into it. For us that’s the future of the genre, technology has got to the point where you’re not worrying about beat syncing etc these days it’s almost inexcusable to not be pushing it further.

We’re loving your reworks of 'Divine Sorrow' by Wyclef Jean and Avicii, and Lexers 'Feel Like This’ (below), how’d they come to fruition and how do you approach these kind of projects? 

It was actually cool to get asked to do these remixes from such different ends of the dance spectrum. The main thing is having a great top line to work with, then you can do whatever you want and both those tracks do.

I think they turned out really well and we’re really pleased with both of them. They represent where we are heading musically I think. Melodic, organic and soulful. It’s music that you can listen to whatever you’re doing, and then turn it up and it works on a dance floor. Robin Schulz is actually the king of that so it’s a good combo to be doing this show in London together.

And have you get any productions in progress you could let us in on? 

We've got a couple collaborations coming out soon. One with Dimmi, a French producer and DJ to watch for is coming out on Spinnin Deep and another with Dutch hot stuff kid Bakermat coming out later this year. You can catch a sneak preview of this track on the Ultra Europe Aftermovie here.   

We’ve also noticed you’re extremely busy this summer playing all over the world, what dates stand out for you, and if there's anywhere you could play in future where would it be? 

Red Rocks is definitely on our to-do list. Glastonbury, Coachella, the list is endless actually. Oh and Burning Man. That’s something we’ve been watching for years and wanting to experience. It’ll happen.

Thanks guys.

Want to catch Goldfish in action? Get tickets for their London date here. 

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