Rolling Stone Australia September 2017

R& R

IN THE STUDIO

26 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com September, 2017

DMA’s Prep Second Album

Sydney outfit conjure new LP with the aid of the Presets’ Kim Moyes

S

ydney’s dma’s are two songs

deep into the recording of their

second album, but the band mem-

bers still don’t know how it’s all

going to sound. Working with producer

Kim Moyes from dance-pop wizards the

Presetsonthefollow-upto2016’sbreakout

debutHills End, the group are keeping their

minds open and their song structures fluid.

“The crux of each song is there, as in the

lyrics and the melody and the chords,” ex-

plains guitarist/vocalist Johnny Took, “but

we’veleftalotofspaceforcreativeideas.

Thatinvolvesalotoftrialanderrorinthe

studio,butthewaythefirsttrack,‘Inthe

Air’, has come together has felt truly organ-

ic and not contrived at all.”

The first two tracks finished – which

have the working titles “In The Air” and

“Dawning”–wereasortoftestbedfor

therestofthealbum,andbothDMA’s

andMoyesaresatisfiedwiththeprocess

and the results. The drum tracks were

laid down by the band’s hired-gun drum-

merLiamHoskinsinthecavernousroom

at The Grove Studios on the NSW Central

Coast, while the rest of the work is being

doneintheirownworkspaceaboveThe

Lady Hampshire Hotel in Camperdown.

“Thisisthefirsttimewe’veseriously

goneintoaproperstudiowithdrumtech-

nicians and assistant engineers and a pro-

ducer telling everyone what to do,” says gui-

tarist Matt Mason. “It’s cool having drums

that sound, like, really big. And we recorded

totape,too.It’sheapsdifferentthanwhat

we’vebeenworkingwithbefore.Ithinkthis

record is going to sound pretty polished.”

Asfarasstylesandinfluencesgo,they’re

readytojustseewheretheprocesstakes

them. “Oneofthereasonswelikeworking

withKimisthathecomesupwithalotof

ideasthatwewouldn’t,”saysMason.“Acou-

pleofsongswehave,like[workingtitles]

‘The End’ and ‘Time and Money’, are full

synth-heavy,andIthinkhe’sgoingtohelpa

lotwiththat.Maybesomeofthesongsthat

arequiteguitar-ynowmightendupbeing

supersynth-y,it’shardtotell.”

ThebandhaveuntilOctobertofinish

the record, but during that period they’ll

beflyingtoEuropethreetimesforsummer

festival touring engagements. The first sin-

gle is tentatively scheduled for a September-

October release.

“A lot of the time we don’t really know

which songs are the good ones,” says Took.

“Wejustwritethem.” MATT REEKIE

AUDIO-TECHNICA

LP3 TURNTABLE

As the renewed love affair with

vinyl continues, many are looking

at upgrading from their initial

forays into hi-fi by upgrading

their components. You could

do a lot worse than the Audio-

Technica LP3, a fully automatic

belt-drive turntable. It comes with

a balanced straight tone arm and

a high quality diamond-tipped

stylus cartridge, but most im-

portantly, its universal cartridge

mount allows you to upgrade

to a huge number of compat-

ible audiophile cartridges (not

just those from Audio-Technica).

This means that at any time you

can upgrade your sound with a

different stylus, without having to

replace the turntable itself. Being

automatic, you can press the stop

button and the arm will return

to its cradle and the table will

stop spinning. Best of all, the LP3

comes in under the $500 mark,

making it a great mid-range

turntable.

AM CLEAN

SOUND

Once you’ve started to hoard a col-

lection of vinyl, you’ll need to keep

it nice, and AM Cleansound have a

range of no-fuss cleaning products

for vinyl collectors that will look as

good as your records. A set with a

vinyl brush, record cleaner, stylus

cleaner and a cloth will set you

back $50. MATT COYTE

DON’T DELETE

ANYTHING!

Johnny Took and

Tommy O’Dell in

the studio

MUSIC TECH