E. Ethelbert Miller was not the only one to ask a burgeoning question about music. The way it makes us feel. The way its piece fits into the puzzle. Nor was he the only one to find pleasure in the puzzlement of trying to deconstruct it: the equilibrated rhythm, the weeping melodies, the peppered bass, and the loose harmonies. So when he asked himself a paradoxical question in his writing he buttoned down all of his readers. He made them think. He asked, ‘what did Ellington mean when he said “I love you madly” his hands touching a piano not made of flesh?” What did Ellington mean when he told the black and white porcelain keys that he loved them madly? Perhaps he meant that there is something in the sonic feeling of music that makes you experience fragments of life in an emotionally and sensory heightened way. That the Phunk de Sonique moves you.
The Duke is not here to answer that question. Yet there are still people, today, that understand exactly what he means when he touches that piano not made of flesh and pronounces the words, I love you madly. In Melbourne, Australia, there are three people sitting on a couch that have created sounds that are just waiting, not alone, not blue, but just waiting for the world to hear their sonic vibrancy. Like Thelonious Monk… I record my love for you and no one understands it… the complexity of my declarations… the strange way it makes you feel…
Here is Phunk de Sonique: the union of Christian Vance, George Galanis and Chris McLean, and the complexity of their declarations, the strange way it makes you feel, has made them a strong and innovative musical body in Melbourne’s electronic hub. As musicians and as people they have garnered the respect not only of a wide and appreciative audience, but also of musicians and industry stalwarts around the world. Their sound has bridged borders, time and space. There are rhythms and strings adapted from Detroit, eastern tinges harvested from Singapore, and stripped back feelings and thoughts manifested from their own triage in Melbourne.
They sit back and laugh about how they met. “It was the late eighties in Detroit and we got together…” says Chris and they all laugh. “There is this place called Belleville high. Also known as Caulfield Grammar, Wheelers Hill.” If they were born twenty years earlier, in the United States of America, one could be forgiven for mistaking Caulfield Grammar for Belleville High in Detroit. Their sound and spirit embodies the evolutionary essence of the music that was harbored in Motor City with a Melbourne touch. Since high school they have joined their three minds and experienced music and life on varying levels.
“Christian and Chris used to write guitar songs when they were little tuckers together,” says George. “Yeah, we wrote this blues number called ‘Sitting on a Country Road’,” adds Christian. “It was the shit though,” George laughs, which forces Christian to bust out in a chorus and reflect on that youthful music ambition. Only now the guitars have been replaced with synthesizers, samplers and effects and their attention has turned to the depths of electronic music. With three heads to work with, Phunk de Sonique have an abundance of thoughts and textures to manipulate and work through their music, and it is more than evident in the instinctive connection that presents itself on stage during their live performances.
“Christian is head programmer without a doubt,” says George. Yet each of their musical input is a known force. You can hear George. You can hear Chris. You can hear Christian. “Last time when we spoke and I was playing all sorts of stuff off all sorts of discs and I said this is Chris and this is Chris and I can tell straight away even though there were discs with lots of unlabelled stuff on it,” says Christian. “Christian’s stuff is very, very complex and deep and has all of these elements. Where as my stuff, it tends to be, at the moment, well, there is less to it. There are definitely differences with our personality coming through,” adds Chris, while according to George, of late, his sound has been a little bit harder and more bass line driven. They can even associate their individual sounds and styles to the integral musicians that have influenced each of them. “George writes like Kenny Larkin,” says Chris. “I write a bit more like Theo or Moodymann or something that is a bit more stripped back and Christian is almost a combo of Carl and Derrick.” At this point Chris and George both stare at Christian with a smile on their face. “That is a pretty good compliment, but I don’t know how he is going to take it…” laughs George.
Yet, as Chris explains, their sets are a juggernaut of input, which cannot be measured. “It depends on time, and who is doing what. If you have a couple of months to write something than we will each get in there and do stuff, and if it is tighter than it is who has got the time or whoever is going to get it banged out quicker.” On stage, it is free for all, and their sets feed off the people in the room. The way it makes you feel. One hundred percent live. “The stuff that happens onstage is just manipulation of what has already been put down in the studio,” says George and Chris concedes that this is the fun part of being a live act. “If there is a good response we tend to do more, and it becomes more live because you can take it further. You are sucking people into a story,” says Christian. The crowd’s reaction is at the heart of their live performance, says George. “The little tricks and effects that you do are usually the result of whether the crowd are reacting to a certain thing.”
Being a live act, however, is not as swift and easy as it sounds though. A lot of time and energy is executed in the writing and performance of their music, and drawing people into the atmosphere of a live electronic act is part of the challenge of enthralling and educating a dancefloor. “It is very hard because you are playing an hours worth of music that people have never heard before and it is electronic. It is not as if people are going to be doing guitar solos or diving onstage with a microphone and stuff,” admits Christian. Yet Phunk de Sonique are well aware of the movements of a dance floor. “People are hanging for new songs they know when they are out. A lot of people get something out of hearing a live act, hopefully,” says George. “They’re not that bad in Melbourne now. When you first started there would be people DJing and playing songs you know… people are a bit more educated now.”
Still, a Phunk de Sonique performance nowadays is a rarity, despite the fact that they have played many an event, small and large, since their debut performance at Phreakin’ in nineteen ninety-eight including a guest appearance in Singapore. “It is really hard in Melbourne. There might be two hundred people in this city that are truly going to dig what you are doing and they are not going to be going wild,” says Christian. “They can’t go wild because they are as bored with doing things as we are. You don’t have to compromise to do anything you just have to keep at it and make sure that when you do your shit you do it well.” Also, there seems to be a lack of venues that have a regular and dedicated clientele to support the sound that Phunk de Sonique emanates. “I know it is a hard thing to say because it is a different crowd and stuff, but the regularity is almost a Revolver kind of place with a dedicated clientele. It just happens to be the wrong dedicated clientele. That is a great place for live acts for like your breaks and all your dedicated and associated sounds, but unfortunately there is nothing like that for the Detroit-like sound.”
The lack of regular events, however, is not a paramount concern for this trio says Chris. “It just dilutes our product, the pureness of it,” he says. “It keeps us boutique. It is boutique music and we are a boutique act.” “And,” adds Christian, “it is very hard to be a boutique act for a big floor. So we could play those little gigs and do some cool stuff, but it is not really what we feel like doing. We want to reach more people. If we are going to invest so much energy in to writing a whole lot of music to go out and play to 50-100 people every few weeks or so, even if they are really getting into it, it is not wide enough.” Phunk de Sonique are still reaching the widest possible audiences all the same. Recently they were asked to write a set of music for a promotion at a boutique spa retreat in South Yarra. “It was actually refreshing to hear the whole thing go down with no dance floor in mind,” says George. “Because that was under time restraint as well and it just took it some place else. It just developed.” And it will continue to develop. Phunk de Sonique are about pressing forward. Never stagnating. It is sophistication, soul and funk. A journey that starts in one place and finishes in an entirely different place. Their complex declarations will hopefully reach the world in the form of releases in the coming year.
Before the year two thousand and three ends, however, Phunk de Sonique will be blowing their own way one more time. This Friday Truth Events, Christian’s production company, and Soma Corp, Shane Buckland’s vision will collaborate for an event that will have us all declaring, I love you madly… Blow your own way... And, the Phunk triage will be performing one of their very special live performances. “This is one of those intimate gigs that you will know seventy-five percent of the people,” says George. An event where everyone is looking in the same direction and where Christian Vance, George Galanis and Chris McLean will have the opportunity to make us feel that strange feeling.
Phunk de Sonique blow their own way:
Friday 12th December 2003 @ Blow Your Own Way at Passion Nightclub.
Thursday 1st January 2004 @ Sunshine People at Atlantic South Wharf [ BUY TICKETS ]
