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The shadowy and melodic music of London-based beat-collective Dark Sky has caught the attention of a worldwide audience. The trio have even re-worked the likes of the Xx and Kelis. Defying the category ‘dubstep’ their music mixes elements of resounding bass and textured melody throughout their acclaimed EPs Frames and more recently Black Rainbows which was released through Black Acre Records. Ahead of their upcoming Australia tour, ACCLAIM chats to Matt Benyayer, one third of Dark Sky, about the London scene, the evolution of bass music and what we can expect from a live performance.

For our readers that don’t know, can you tell us a little about Dark Sky and about how you got started?

Dark Sky consists of three people, Matt Benyayer, Thomas Edwards and Carlo Anderson. Carlo is from Dorset and Matt and Tom are from South London. Carlo met Tom whilst doing a diploma in audio engineering, whilst Matt already knew Tom from secondary school.

How would you describe your sound?

We try to create a sound that is diverse and always progressing. The music is often made with the listening environment in mind, whether it be the club, headphones or both. A lot of our studio time is spent just exploring rhythms and experimenting with synthesising sounds.

Dark Sky has released a lot of incredible remixes, what do you look to draw out of the original track?

Thank you, I’m glad you’re feeling the remixes! What’s exciting about remixing a track is getting the opportunity to flip the original into something totally new that the initial artist didn’t see coming. Sometimes it works, sometimes not but its always good fun to get a chance to work with vocal stems and raw audio.

Your music seems to have evolved from the Frames EP – how do you think your sound has changed since Dark Sky began?

The sound has changed quite a lot, but I like to think we have tried to maintain a sense of continuity between each track. Whilst working on the project for the past four years we have inevitably learnt a lot about technical aspects of making music, which has kind of led to an evolution of our sound sonically. It takes time to fully get to know the software… I’m still learning everyday!

The London scene for music seems like it’s constantly evolving, how do you stay ahead of the changes – do you go out a lot?

It is good to get out of the house, yes! Especially after spending all day in the studio… But I do really like the energy of the London scene; there are a lot of promoters putting on great nights so we are kind of spoilt for choice a lot of the time. It’s hard to stay ahead of the changes as you never really know what direction the sound is going to take, which is kind of what makes now a really exciting time for making music.

This is your second Australia Tour – how was the experience last time? Do the crowds differ from the UK/US?

Carlo played the last Oz tour, and he said the crowd was really up for it and knew a lot of the tracks that people in the UK didn’t even know about which is pretty mad. We haven’t played in the US yet so I couldn’t tell you how they get down, but the UK crowds are becoming more open-minded about music, which is great.

What can we expect this time from a Dark Sky performance?

I’m really looking forward to playing a lot of the new Dark Sky stuff but also a mixture of new talent and maybe some classics thrown in for good measure.

You’ve said that you get sent a lot of promos from young artists, what would be some advice you would give to up and coming producers?

Stick at it and really get to know one or two pieces of kit inside out. Also try to spend some time just experimenting, a lot of the time it leads to nothing but it’s the happy accidents where the magic lies.

What’s coming up next for Dark Sky?

We are working on a live show at the moment, which we are hoping will be ready by September this year. We are also working on an album, which should hopefully be completed by early 2013.

Get more info about Dark Sky’s Aus Tour here.
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