Anything At All is out now!
Image: Hikaru Watanabe, Jack Cassidy, John Hoang.
Australian singer-songwriters and producers, Nuum and dœgægé have joined forces on their dynamic new single, Anything At All. We caught up with both artists to go behind-the-album and unpack their collaborative relationship and so much more.
This almost feels like a speed date because I'm about to ask, how did you guys meet?
DŒGÆGÉ: It was at a club
NUUM: Yeah, it was. It was out the front of Colour Club, I think. I don't know what show that was.
D: It was Teeth. One of the first teeth shows, I think Stay Healthy played in the Orange Room. Or it was the Nocturne show.
N: I think it must've been Nocturne. I think it was Nocturne. Because I was with TJ.
D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That same time I met TJ as well.
N: So Daine used to hold those Nocturne events in Melbourne and I played it. I think I DJ'ed at it and I was like fresh in Melbourne. Like I was thinking of moving. Then Daine offered me the show and I was like, 'oh okay, I'll just come over.' But I feel we became friends when we like started playing basketball and stuff together.That era of shit
D: Yeah. We were like cool, but we didn't really hang out until then. I think that was right as I moved to Melbourne as well.
N: Really? I swear you were in Melbourne for a while before I pulled up.
D: It's so blurry. That would've been 2022 though.
N: Yeah, when I got there. Wait no, I moved over March 2023.
D: Oh no. What?
N: Wait, no, no, no. March, 2022. Sorry, my bad.
D: It must have been then because I was living with Rupert in the city. Then I became friends with Jack and Daine.
N: But we met at Colour Club at Daine's show that I was playing at. Fresh in the city, you know, one vibes. I'd talk to Rupert prior to that. I think someone was like, 'oh, it's Nuum.' Because no one knew my fucking name
D: Yeah. I just remember you being like very scarily tall
N: I remember I pronounced your artist's name correctly the first time we met.
D: Oh, true.
N: No one has done that.
D: [Laughs] Yeah, true. Wait, put you on the spot Vasili - do it. Do you think you can?
Pronounce your artist name?
D: Yeah.
dœgægé [doh-gah-zhay].
D: Okay. That's pretty good. That honestly sounds better. It's dœgægé. That's very close, so that's pretty good.
I remember when I met you, I was like is it pronounced Noom or Numb?
N: [Laughs] Yeah, everyone says that.
I remember on that weird pathway to where we did that photo shoot in that random park in Kingsgrove.
N: I was watching our video interviews recently. It's pretty fun.
That was such a beautiful little spot in Kingsgrove. So you guys met at the club, you then became basketball friends. So how did it progress from there, to a point where your decided to work together? How did that creative relationship and friendship evolve over time and brought you towards the point of making this song?
N: We had worked in bits prior. I'd asked like Caleb to help track some guitars at his before when he was living in an apartment in the city. I feel like I'm quite like a solo guy.
D: Me too.
N: Or I'm surrounded by all these incredible people but I just like never tap into them I guess in that sense. I just work better writing by myself. What were you even doing that night? Did you just come over or?
D: Yeah, maybe. I was dropping off Devon's guitar. No, I borrowed it that night. I left with it. Maybe because I was seeing a girl in Brunswick. Maybe I was just like around and then I was like, 'yo let's make a song.'
N: I don't think we really planned it or went into it like, 'this is a session.' It was just chilling in my room listening to like The Smashing Pumpkins and Chiro and just sharing music. We were just jamming actually. I was on the piano, Caleb was on the guitar, and I think he played the riff.
D: I remember we took about 20 minutes, like going in a random direction.
N: I feel like it was one of the best sessions I've ever had. It felt really like problem solving as opposed to just like trying to force something. We had such strong references because we were listening to this type of music the whole night and just trying to hit that. It sort of just happened. It was very random. I guess we were just hanging out.
So it was a fairly organic approach to creating this one.
N: Super organic actually. Usually I find sessions so confusing [in terms of] what to do. Yeah.
D: It felt like we were, like it wasn't serious. Like we were just messing around.
N: I was on the piano and you were on the guitar.
D: Kind of like first take most things. Problem solving things like incredibly fast. It probably took an hour or two to get like the whole song done and then I just left.
N: Yeah, pretty much.
I love that being like, 'yeah, we did an hour or two and then I just left.' Switching to gears to the lyrical side. Can you unpack what's explored across the song thematically?
N: We wrote separately and initially Caleb wanted to take the song and wrote verses. But when we were working on it during the session, he was writing and recording and then whilst he was doing that, I was always also like writing out stuff in my notes. When Caleb left, I did a take on it. We sort of landed on like similar pages.
D: It was about like giving up on a girl pretty much, like what's the point?
N: Baby [laughs].
D: Baby [laughs]. So it was really simple and first thing, I think you went to the bathroom or something. You weren't in the room for like three minutes and you came back and I had the whole chorus. It was really simple. But yeah, it was just that idea. It was like giving up the girl and I think we were maybe having similar...
N: Girl problems [laughs]. I wrote about just reflecting on a past relationship really. For me, like the, 'what's the point?' is summed up in the chorus. It's like you put so much like energy and you're so consumed by this relationship. But then when it just doesn't work out, it's like, 'what the fuck? Why did I just spend a year of my life obsessing over this person when I should have just been getting my bag up?' [Laugh]. It's a very hindsight song. Lost love or love that's not worked out how you wanted to and trying to force something that shouldn't be forced. Like Caleb sings, 'can I still make you feel anything?'
You mentioned like, some of the influences there on the sound. So in terms of the soundscape, did you guys keep working on it after that first night? Or is what we hear what you created that evening?
N: It's pretty much exactly the same. I feel like we sort of swapped out drums and and like re-tracked stuff, but at its core nothing was really changed.
D: Yeah, nothing changed. It was just more, we just polished what we had. I think we had the full like three minute song from the first time we worked. And then it was like month or two after I just met Sol in a studio and then we just tracked it.
N: We tracked out studio vocals because I wanted to get everything done before I moved to London. I just booked out this library studio and just tracked all my next project that week.
I think what the song does well is it brings both your sounds together. It's very cohesive. You mentioned the musical influences before but how did you arrive at the realm the song exists within?
N: I think we were literally like playing instruments together. We both come from like EDM producer backgrounds, but we were just hitting a real life instrument. I guess that's sort of like where my writing has shifted to. I'll write on the instruments and then produce it after as opposed to like, making beats. But what's in there is like what we were just playing, if that makes sense. It wasn't really like a thought process.
D: It was also super simple in terms of like being from an EDM background as well. When I produce, I get really geeked out about each specific layer and like a million plugins on it and get really OTT basically. In this case, it was really different from how I usually work, but it worked really well. W were just playing instruments.
N: We weren't really producing. We were just like recording. It was like old school shit.
D: As far as I was concerned, we barely touched the computer. It was like zero thought went into kind of like crafting.
On the visual side, Nuum you've been leaning into this angel imagery throughout your current project rollout. For this music video, I really liked the contrast in like all of your scenes Nuum being bright and shot outside during the day. Whereas your scenes dœgægé, were more dark and distorted.
D: Angel and devil.
Yeah, it's very cool. It was very well done and effective. Run me through the process of bringing it to life and the conceptual side.
N: We didn't really like talk about it. With my current releases, like the first song was angel themed - and I still had the wings. So then like my friend filmed me walking around London with the wings on and stuff. I don't know, there wasn't like a lot of thought. It was more like, 'oh, that looks cool.'
D: We had kind of a different plan about that, the LED wall Room.
N: True, true. It wasn't going to initially be that. There's this studio in London called Virus Studio, and they basically have like a full 360 wall. The initial concept and treatment for the video was going to be a lot more romantic, like me, like singing the songs and then basically like having Caleb's face or the visuals like on the wall blasted around me when it was his chorus, and very like strobe, flashy and intense. More like studio cut and clean. So I guess it was just sort of like that fell through. It still came out sweet, and a friend in London did the editing and processed it through his CRT VT.
The final product is pretty sick. Do you think we'll hear some more like collabs from you two down the line?
N: Because we both like writing for like other people, I could imagine working together for others. We didn't plan this song at all, it just happened per se. I feel like when I write for my own project, it's pretty solo most of the time. We just happened to write an awesome song. So we'll see what happens.
D: Yeah, I'd say I don't usually work with anyone. It was just a very good song. Like we had to put it out and put our names on that instead of giving it to someone else. I think it was very strongly and perfectly represents the music we wanna make as well. Like the music that we wanna stand or be like associated with. I'm not against writing with someone or working with other artists. It's just like that this was the one time it was like really easy [laughs]. I usually hate it but it was dope. But yeah, I think we're bound to work together more. I'll be in London at the end of the year probably expecting to crash at his [laughs], being like the only person I know in London.
What's next for the both of you? What can you tease?
D: Last meal and electric chair music is, uh, the, the vibe of music I'm making.
N: For the next, next era of dœgægé?
D: Yeah, that's how I'd sum it up. That's what it feels like, what I wanted it to feel like. But yeah, I'm trying to do just good songs.
N: I'm releasing a project soon and then lots more. I feel like I'm more excited for like the music after. I've been in my K-pop bag writing pop. Good music. Better music. Always better. Always growing. But yeah, lots of music.
Anything At All is out now!
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