F  L  A  U  N  T

 After touring some of the world’s biggest arenas, there was only one way up according to dance duo ODESZA—and that was to start from the beginning. Three years ago they decided to take a leap of faith and completely rebrand themselves. A new identity, a new sound, and a new member of their group—Australian producer Tom Stell, also known as Golden Features. Together, they formed BRONSON. The sonic makeup of BRONSON is nothing like that of their former projects. Dark escapism tones meet moments of hope and humanity, despair and clarity. It’s an album that resonates in our current chaotic reality, and one that the trio have long wanted to create. It’s reflective of their own personal tastes, with no rule book in sight. This week they released an emotional video for their latest single, “DAWN,” comprised of stitched together scenes from all over the world in lockdown. The moving track serves as the closer to the album, featuring British producer and vocalist, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. We sat down with BRONSON to learn more about why they dove head first into uncharted territory. What did you admire about each other’s projects (ODESZA & Golden Features) that made you think teaming up would be a good fit? We really just started collaborating with no real objective or goal in mind. We’ve always respected each other as artists because our styles are so different; we began working together out of that mutual admiration and because we were friends, but it all came together organically. We quickly realized that the project was going to take a life of its own. I think what we admired most about each other was our willingness to be open-minded and try anything. We had a very honest dialogue about all the music and we didn’t set restrictions on ourselves while writing.

What made you guys choose Berry, Australia as a recording location and how did it influence the creative process? (Harrison & Clay): Well, we were originally in Australia for an ODESZA tour and decided to stay behind for a few weeks to lock ourselves in a room with Tom and really work on the project. (Tom): I found the AirBnb in Berry, I looked everywhere within driving distance of Sydney with the only prerequisite being it was somewhere secluded where we could make noise at any hour. We ended up at this little farmhouse 3 hours south of Sydney in the Kangaroo Valley. There were literal Kangaroos and Echidnas passing through our yard. I think the isolation helped the creativity flow and the internet connection was pretty much nonexistent so it helped us remain focused.

How did your collaboration with Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs come together? Did you all know each other previously? We actually hadn’t met before but did have a mutual friend in common, so we approached him about a collaboration for the album. We’ve wanted to work with Orlando (Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs) for a while - he’s such a talented, versatile artist. We felt as though there was a gap that needed to be filled on the album when we first started writing “DAWN”. Like there was a piece missing. Something that would be able to tie the whole album together. Right out of the gate Orlando understood what we were looking for and was able to capture the theme of the album both conceptually through the lyrical content and sonically through the melodies he was writing. The end result is a track that we hope creates an uplifting journey for the listener and is able to help people with whatever they are going through in their life. Describe the ideal setting for listening to “DAWN”. Well, as we said, “DAWN” is meant to take you on an emotional journey. It’s a seven-plus minute long song, which explores all these different concepts and themes from the album - it’s got peaks and valleys for sure. So, the ideal setting is one where you’re prepared for that and ready to be immersed in it. BRONSON [album] was three years in the making - are there songs that didn’t make it on this first LP? Can we expect more? The album was indeed a long time coming, and there were lots of ideas that we bounced back and forth until settling on the 10 tracks that we did for the album. We definitely hope to create more music in the future, for the immediate, we’re just focused on releasing this project out into the world!

What do you hope new fans will take away from the album? And what about your existing fanbases - how are they receiving BRONSON so far? On an overarching level, we hope that everyone can find a sense of escapism in the record. We hope that it can serve as a form of relief in one way or another to the listener. It’s a bit too early to tell exactly how fans are going to react. Sonically, we do think that the project bridges the gap between a lot of different influences that we’ve each pulled from, to create something entirely new and different than what we’ve respectively done in the past. So, we hope the album can resonate with a whole range of people/fans, both pre-existing and new. Has it been difficult to manage BRONSON at the same time as ODESZA and Golden Features? During the writing process, it definitely was a trade-off and took time to really build the entire album, but having that different creative outlet (BRONSON) at the height of our ODESZA and Golden Features’ albums was energizing; it allowed us to channel and develop ideas that didn’t necessarily fit elsewhere and opened up this liberating artistic space, giving us a chance to really explore new sounds & inspirations. It naturally sort of worked out that both of our respective projects’ album cycles were coming to an end in 2019. This gave us space to really dive into BRONSON and give the project 100% of our focus, which is what it deserves and where our heads are at currently. Do you think the popular dance music landscape is shifting toward more underground sounds? (Harrison & Clay): That’s hard for us to answer, because we definitely have been listening to and been drawn to more underground sounds, especially through this project, but that’s within our own bubble. Certain elements from the underground scene tend to find their way to the top over time. You can hear how inspiration is drawn from a lot of these more modern niche music scenes in a number of ways on many of the recent big pop releases. (Tom): That said, I do think the underground is absolutely the focus of dance music right now. We went from this wave of oversaturated EDM which has now rolled back to leave a lot of the meaningful music that was hidden underneath. The rise of artists like Peggy Gou, Bicep and Mall Grab are proof of that. It’s very refreshing Where do you hope BRONSON will perform when live shows return? That’s a tricky one, as the live music landscape is so uncertain at this time, who knows what that will look like and when shows will return, right? We can’t wait to share the live set at some point down the line. It really is a record that is meant to be experienced collectively and we look forward to the time where it's safe to do so. In the meantime, we just hope the music resonates with people and helps provide an escape amidst a difficult time.