Gorgon City are Always on the Go

Two djs performing energetically at a club, with one arm raised each, standing in front of a mesmerizing circular blue light display and a table filled with dj equipment.

Music

Gorgon City are Always on the Go

Portrait photographer, director and content producer Karston Tannis, for example, recently stopped by the newly opened W Philadelphia at the recommendation of Tania Araradian, co-founder of The Styleguise.

Ahead of a crowd-pleasing Wake Up Call set at W Barcelona full of their signature thick bass and uplifting choruses, we caught up with Gorgon City before they moved onto the next party, next studio session, or possibly some much needed rest, during their whirlwind schedule.

Two men dancing playfully in a red-lit corridor, making finger guns and playful gestures towards the camera.

Gorgon City causing trouble at W Barcelona

They’ve become one of the most popular electronic music artists of the past several years, touring the world and placing hits like “Ready for Your Love” and “Go All Night” onto the UK singles chart, and collaborating with artists like Wyclef Jean and Jennifer Hudson. But before all that happened, Kyle Gibbon and Matt Robson-Scott were just two steady gigging DJs that happened to have the same agent.

“We were touring around together and we both sort of knew each other’s music and we just randomly had the idea to make a tune together,” remembers Robson-Scott. “We thought it would be fun to just get in the studio and bounce ideas off each other, and it worked really well. We started finishing tracks pretty quickly and then we sort of came up with a whole album’s worth of working material. That was about five years ago.”

Gibbon adds that he thinks that the reason he and Robson-Scott had such instant chemistry was because “we both grew up on U.K. underground music like Jungle, Drum And Bass, even Garage and Grime. Even though we make mainly house music, it still has those influences in there, those deep baselines,” he says, “all that stuff that we listened to growing up does have a big influence on the music we make.”

Two men walking energetically down a corridor with red walls. both are gesturing animatedly with their hands. one wears a black t-shirt with

The turning point for Gorgon City was the 2013 single “Real.” Written with the vocalist Yasmin, it hit number 7 on the UK Indie Chart and marked a creative turning point for the pair.

“We were making more underground club music, using vocal samples and stuff instead of recording live vocals ourselves. That was the first track we made as a proper sort of song with a vocalist. That really opened up that world to us, when it came to working in the studio and sitting down with a singer and actually writing a whole song from scratch,” Robson-Scott says. “It just worked really well and then suddenly a few months later it was being played on a breakfast show on Radio One which is completely mind-blowing for us, and that launched more kind of vocal, commercial side of our music.”

Their debut album Sirens followed the template of what Robson-Scott calls “the formula of working with a female singer and with our bassy beats,” he says. “We sort of really delved into that side of our production and kicked off that sound from there.”

Two men having fun throwing playing cards in a well-lit room, both wearing black t-shirts, looking focused on their card-throwing action.

They refined that sound on their acclaimed second album Escape, which was released at the end of this summer. “We wanted to take what we did and expand on it, experiment more, try different styles of production,” Gibbon says. “I guess one of the other challenges of this album was writing it on the move. Ever since the first album, we’ve been just non-stop touring. We’re never in the same place for more than a couple of weeks. So that’s been a big challenge writing this album, but at the same time, it made it fun because we’re always in new places, meeting new people and that inspires us to make more music. So, in a way, it has been a blessing.”

As Gorgon City has become more popular over the world, so has dance music itself exploded into a cultural phenomenon. The current popularity of dance music and EDM-centric festivals is something Gorgon City is excited about, but also something they sometimes find confusing.

“Some of the huge festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival, it’s crazy. Like, you never would have seen that when we first started out. Even before Gorgon City, when we were like making music ten, twelve years ago, just as kids,” Gibbon says. “It’s gotten very big. Big and loud!,” he adds with a laugh.

“If we knew what was going to happen when we were kids to the music, there’s no way we would believe it,” adds Robson-Scott. “It’s a completely different world. It’s great in a way, now there are many more people that love it and it’s a massive global phenomenon now. It’s amazing to be a part of it.”

CREDITS

Words by Michael Tedder

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