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 JESSE F. KEELER, of Canadian electro crew MSTRKRFT, catches up with ALASDAIR DUNCAN on the eve of his forthcoming Australian tour, and gives fans a taste of what to expect from his group’s forthcoming album.
“I’ve been into dance since long before I was in bands,” Jesse F Keeler told me the last time we spoke, a year or two back. It was at this point when his group’s debut, The Looks, was on the verge of becoming huge – he was eating fried chicken in the studio he shares with production partner Al-P, and was in something of a nostalgic mood. “I had a cousin who was a hardcore raver and used to sell drugs at raves … after every rave he’d bring back some crazy tape of the stuff that was being played.” Keeler first came to prominence as a member of the punk band Death From Above 1979, but their success was short-lived – Keeler’s love of making beats won out, and MSTRKRFT was born.
The typical MSTRKRFT set is a profound experience – dance music, but with a noisy, dirty punk sensibility. Parklife punters won’t soon forget the duo’s headlining slot at last year’s festival, when the duo burst onto the stage in their trademark Friday The 13th-style hockey masks for a squalling hour and a half of madness. The kicker came near the end, though, when Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale made a surprise appearance to howl along to the MSTRKRFT remix of Woman. Stockdale screamed, the crowd screamed ... the whole experience was rock and fucking roll.
MSTRKRFT will release their hugely anticipated second album in the second half of 2008, although when it comes to the sound and the overall direction of the record, Keeler is somewhat coy. “The record is somewhat of a concept album. It’s made the writing process and planning much easier for us in some respects. Making an LP is never easy, though.” What kind of a concept does the album hang on? Keeler doesn’t say. Rumour has it that several vocal collaborations will be included, something MSTRKRFT have never done before, but Keeler won’t reveal anything about these either. In fact, he won’t even come clean about the title of the record – “that’s a surprise too,” he says.
When asked the new MSTRKRFT tracks represent a continuation of the distorted electro sound of singles like The Looks and Work On You, he is also a little coy. “I suppose they are,” he says, “but I’m too involved in it to look at it objectively...” The one piece of information Keeler does offer about the album is the release date – “it’s out October 22 in North America.” So there you go. One could accuse Keeler of being many things, but a shameless self-promoter is definitely not one of them.
In terms of the band’s forthcoming Australian shows, though, Keeler is a little more forthcoming in terms of what we can expect. Like many electronic performers, MSTRKRFT have spent a good long while grappling with the problem of how to reproduce their intricate tracks in a live setting. So far, they have stuck to being DJs, spinning their favourite records alongside the odd MSTRKRFT exclusive. Will this situation be changing any time soon, I wonder?
“We have plans for an actual live show for 2009,” Keeler says, “but this new album would be impossible to perform live without a lot of people. Our idea of live and other dance artists’ idea of live seems to be very different,” he continues. “Our live set-up doesn’t involve a single computer. It’s still two turntables, Serato and a mixer. We are changing all that for our fall tour, but we don’t have time to switch set-ups right now with all the touring and working on the album. We are very excited about changing set-ups, though.” That being said, Australian fans can expect to hear a good deal of new MSTRKRFT material when the group play their round of DJ sets. “We’ll play about half the album or more,” Keeler promises, “as well as some other unreleased new stuff...”
As well known as MSTRKRFT are for their storming DJ sets, they are held in equally high regard for the remixes they have produced over the years. The group have already lent their magic touch to the likes of Bloc Party, Justice, Chromeo, Kylie Minogue, New Young Pony Club, Gossip and ... erm ... Jesse McCartney, and the deluge will continue well into the foreseeable future. “We try not to mess with the tracks too much,” Keeler says of the group’s approach to reworking others’ songs. “If something comes to us that’s pretty indie sounding, we’re not gonna pull all the indie-ness out of it. We just try to imagine someone in a club playing it, and if we can’t, we let it go. We just finished a remix of John Legend and Andre 3000, and we’ve done another one for Usher.”
“Lots of other people have done remixes for us,” Keeler continues, letting me know what we can expect to hear once the new MSTRKRFT album is released. “The Bloody Beetroors, Yusek, High Powered Boys, A-Trak, Tommie Sunshine ... There are many more coming too.”
MSTRKRFT play the Mix Up tent at Splendour In The Grass the afternoon of Saturday August 2, followed by a special Brisbane sideshow at the Arena the same evening. The Arena show starts at 9pm, with Ajax. Aniki, Jonathan Wall, Sampology, Danny T and Vans Vs Cons in support. Tickets from www.tenpoundcrew.com
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