The Sydney, Australia-based duo Party Dozen deliver a boundary-breaking, rock ‘n’ roll powered dance party on their new album, The Real Work, although other descriptions for the remarkably multi-faceted record could apply. It’s a July release handled (outside Australia and New Zealand) by Temporary Residence Ltd.
The music builds across its runtime, with steady and sometimes blasting percussion, alongside elements including ferocious saxophone and various loops. Despite the remarkable breadth of sound, elements don’t fall away or become unwieldy. Instead, the sprawling palette just adds ever-more intriguing turns, like discovering new, woodland nooks full of previously unseen creatures. The Real Work definitely seems somewhat wistful—often-quick performances keep things feeling light, as though looking skyward.
Party Dozen sound entrancing—you might want to destroy something (like the pair do in their video for “Macca The Mutt,” which features a vocal contribution from Nick Cave), but you’d imagine your sledgehammer hits would somehow make lightning bolts of startlingly vibrant color fly from the impacted concrete. You could dance with the wreckage, elated by the shattering pulses of energy that leave you essentially totally enveloped.
The focus of the groove—diverse, bobbing loops appear, including jarring bass lines—means looking away is difficult. It’s like getting psyched up before some big event. The music grabs your attention, and by the end, everybody is just roaring and ready to go.
The Real Work is physically intense, and it leaves a strangely uplifting feeling behind: the energy is often high, and although nicely demanding, you can leap and punch into the air right along with it, if your heart so desires. Here, the hypnotic consistency of the loops in certain areas leaves you feeling free and suddenly somehow brighter on the inside. And texturally, The Real Work is unmistakably Party Dozen’s own, which is exciting in itself.
Below, check out what percussionist/ sampler Jonathan Boulet and saxophonist Kirsty Tickle have to say about The Real Work.
What are some of the principles, if something comes to mind, you use when shaping a song? Are there particular emotive elements you’re looking for, or some particular sonic vibe you’re pursuing? There’s what could be described as a lot going on across the record—it’s nicely intense.
Boulet: I reckon every time we start a jam, it’s always good to have a specific vibe. If it feels really aesthetic, then it’s always a good start. I think for me personally, I’m always picturing this stuff happening in old movies. Like, if I can see the movie happen with this track underneath it, then it’s going in the right direction already.
Tickle: I guess (it’s) also just trying to make stuff different from whatever we’ve just been working on, trying to make all the aesthetic sounds kind of differentiate from other ones.
Is a sense of storytelling particularly important for you guys, or is it more about the sort of splashes of music?
Tickle: I think we try and make characters when we are recording. (…) Particularly for the more quirky ones, I think. Like “Major Beef.” I always considered that like an actual character walking down the street that kind of thing.
The group’s live shows seem like they must be intense. Is that high on the priorities list for you?
Boulet: Yeah, 100 percent. We grew up watching bands, like Australian bands like The Drones—these bands that had these real thick energies live. And this whole project was kind of designed to be an energy amplifier. We always want the shows to just feel tense. And we want people to feel at these shows. I feel like we have to put in a lot of energy and a lot of effort to get that across, and sometimes when it’s projected back from the audience, you start to incorporate the feedback, and it gets to the spot where it’s an amazing show, and you get that feeling that you can’t get anywhere else.
Do you feel like you’ve been able to have a lot of success on that front so far?
Boulet: Yeah, I think especially in Australia our shows are starting to become a lot more consistent with that level (of energy), which is really nice. Just being overseas recently, we had to kind of start fresh again. There’s some shows where it’s just—you got those people who aren’t sure who you are, and they’re wondering: “OK, are you gonna win us over?” Those are the character-building shows, where it’s a challenge. And it’s nice—it’s nice to have those shows again because if you get too used to having really good shows every time, it’s just—you lose the edge.
Where did the saxophone come from for you guys? It’s not every day you see a group performing with that exact sonic palette.
Tickle: Yeah, so I was a clarinet player for a long time and went and did classical music, and then we were both living in London, and I suddenly started leaning into the saxophone a little bit more. And we saw this band who were these women who put trombone through guitar amps. And I thought that was really inspiring. (…) But yeah, it’s just so much fun. (…) And I can’t play guitar, so it’s nice to be able to use the saxophone like you would use a guitar, with effects and stuff—but with something that I can play really confidently.
What is that moment like for you when a song you’re working on reaches that “eureka” moment where you feel it’s really working out?
Boulet: I’d say that you can tell. When we’re doing a jam, you never really know where it’s going to go. Sometimes you have an idea of where it might end up, and it will completely not go there. So when it does get to a spot where it feels right—You know it straightaway. We’ll finish the take, and we’ll both sort of look at each other and be like, ‘this one’s gonna work.’ And then we’re usually like, ‘let’s just run it again and see if we can do something better with it.’ Because it’s already usually in a good spot. But yeah, those are the best moments, and man, they’re so good. Once you run a track like that, it’ll leave you smiling the whole day. It’s like a nice kick of drugs or something. Every time.
Is there any stylistic ground you could imagine yourself not covering within the context of Party Dozen, if the moment of inspiration strikes?
Tickle: I don’t think so. I think as long as we really love what we’re putting out with the different songs and vibes we’re going for, I think that we see this project as opening up and changing over the years, you know? There’s stuff on this album we never would have put on our first album. I think the possibilities are endless, really. It’s how much we can come up with—our imagination.
Looking outward, are there a lot of current artists you’re listening to?
Boulet: I feel like I’ve just been reaching back a lot more. I keep making new-old discoveries and wondering: Why didn’t I find this earlier? (You know) when you just come across something, and someone’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s that band that everybody knows about. And you’re just like, “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Considering the unique path you guys take, do you think you’d want to see more experimentalism and improvisation out there among heavy artists in general?
Tickle: I mean, I think it would be good for there to be more experimentalism in all music and more improvisation in all music.
Boulet: It’s hard to say. I think improvisation in itself isn’t—like, there doesn’t need to be more of that. I just think there needs to be more of a push towards originality and people seeking out something different. It feels like people just want to repeat; they just want to feel safe; they want to do something that they recognize, and I hate that. There need to be more people pushing into the darkness, like challenging themselves, challenging the audience. And yeah, sometimes it just feels like everyone is slowing down, and everyone’s, like, coming to a halt and just recycling everything into the same loop. And it just gets boring, it gets boring for music stuff.
Tickle: I think it also underestimates the audience to think that they can’t handle different things as well. Like, I think this whole radio-palatable, same-song-over-and-over-again thing kind of undermines the intelligence of the average listener because I think people are open to hearing different things if there’s an opportunity for that thing to be heard by them. I don’t think it’s just because there’s not an audience. I think that it just needs to be put in front of an audience, and the more people that do that, the more accessible that’s going to be.
How did the connection with Temporary Residence Ltd. come into being?
Tickle: We’ve been a huge Temporary Residence fan for a really long time. It was actually on our dream label list when we started Party Dozen—for the U.S. And our manager, who is a Scottish guy, is friends with one of the guys from Mogwai. And Stuart (Braithwaite) passed our record along to Temporary Residence, and then that was that. Jeremy (DeVine) got in touch, and we had a really great conversation. And they’re so artist-friendly and wanted to re-release our first couple of records as well, which was amazing. And it just seemed like the perfect fit for the band. (…) I think it’s also nice an artist on Temporary Residence passed along our record as well. It feels kind of like such a community having that happen rather than us just trying to cold-call people, which is nice.
Watch the video for “The Iron Boot” here:
For more from Party Dozen, find them on Instagram, Facebook, and Bandcamp.
Photo courtesy of Jason Sukadana
