RAVE spends five minutes catching up with Brisbane indie-electronic champions TOY BALLOON, who are currently mid-way between their acclaimed 2009 Toy Division album and anticipated new recordings.

It’s been seven months since the release of Toy Division. Are you working on new material already?

Absolutely, our new sets are pretty much all-new material. Our sound has shifted immensely over the past few months and we are incorporating a lot more percussion and saxophone, and most importantly we have switched from an analogue sequencer to an Ableton-based laptop setup. The new stuff is sounding a lot more modern and diverse. We’re working on a new album, which we will be recording in July and August. All the songs are pretty much written.

TB seem to like gigging consistently – is that a reflection of how much you enjoy playing live, or a strategy to ensure people don’t forget about the band? (It is Brisbane after all, people have short memories…)

Probably a bit of both. Name recognition is a powerful thing. If you read ‘Toy Balloon’ often enough, maybe you’ll think about seeing us play sometime or check out our MySpace. I think last year we were pushing the album heavily, whereas lately, we have just been getting great gig offers that we couldn’t say no to. Getting the opportunity to play alongside bands like YACHT, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Rat Vs Possum and Love Connection were too amazing to pass up. Plus there were shows at interesting venues like Soggy Sundays at the Ithaca Pool. Ben did a 25-metre lap of the pool while playing cowbell. 

As one of the core bands in the Lofly and Hangar scenes, what do you see as the most beneficial aspects of the way the label and the venue operate?

The really rewarding thing for us has been the community feel that you get at Hangar. It’s a place where everyone can not only watch great bands, but you can talk to your peers in an open and frank way. Brisbane is too small for anyone in the scene to have a massive ego, which is why Hangar is such a great fit. From a label perspective we get the help and opinion of some of Brisbane’s best music minds for free and exposure to the hangar crowds. As a label we are still pretty grassroots, it’s more of a ‘creative collective’ than a record label really.

In your 2009 wrap-up, you noted the lack of Triple J radio support for TB, despite a widely positive reception elsewhere. How important do you think J support is for the continuing survival of a band like TB?

It depends. I would love to be able to make music and tour as my nine-to-five, and I couldn’t do that without Triple J airplay at the very least. But maybe we’re just not good enough, or not what they are after. I don’t really know. We have fun so I think we’ll survive for a while yet with or without Triple J airplay. In hindsight, we didn’t think about stuff like that when we made the first album. The production (by Phil Laidlaw) is amazing but it was too interesting and cluttered for a Triple J audience to digest in a few minutes. We didn’t have the budget to record vocals well enough so we put really interesting effects on them or ran them through a vocoder instead. It sure makes for an interesting listen, but perhaps it’s not so radio-friendly. It’s best digested as an entire album, and we’re proud of that fact. It’s a nice little artefact of our first year of being together. It’s essentially a DIY recording with an amazing producer attached. I think sometimes we were too poppy for the abstract crowd, and too abstract for the pop crowd. We have worked on separating material into one of the two categories a lot better this time around. Songs that lend themselves to pop formations and high production values will be recorded as such and the abstract stuff we will be pushing the envelope a lot more. Expect wonky beats, sawtooth basslines, and swirls of noise with skronky saxophone and percussion polyrhythms, next to straight up disco pop. We’ll see how the new album goes down with JJJ.

What’s the glue that keeps Toy Balloon together, and what’s the fuel that keeps it running? (If you can excuse an analogy that makes band sound like some kind of petrol-powered model car…)

I think just having fun is the key. We all have day jobs/other things going on in our lives. We all have long-term partners, and we’re all pretty close mates outside of the rehearsal room, so basically this is just our hobby. I think keeping it fun and interesting, while at the same time striving to get better and more professional are the keys.

Will we see members of TB going nuts on 299’s light-up disco dancefloor after the show, or is it important to maintain a dignified poise when in the public eye?

I’m more into dignified poise myself, but we’ll see how the others go. “Sweaty Sweaty Fun!” is Nimai’s catch phrase, and I’m always impressed with Ben’s dance moves. His talents are wasted behind the drum kit.

TOY BALLOON play Gossip at Club 299 (299 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley) this Saturday May 29, supported by Goodbye Gravity, Tape/Off and Gossip DJs. TOY DIVISION is out now through Lofly. www.myspace.com/toyballoon / www.facebook.com/gossipclub

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