What is it with humans and flying? Is it the insatiable desire to conquer the unknown? Or perhaps jealousy at the birds and bees who seem to float around with such gay abandon? Whatever it is, life changed for our species when the Wright brothers got their rudimentary wooden flying machine off the ground, and from there on the world was a different place. It has an important place in popular music; M.I.A locked her glock and started popping shots at a Paper Plane, the Red Hot Chili Peppers sang an ode to them with Aeroplane, Jefferson Airplane even named their band after one.

With flying so closely associated with exhilaration, it’s no surprise to learn that Belgium duo Aeroplane aim to replicate this feeling with their music, “We always try to bring a bright feeling and bright music, and play positive stuff, not falling into dark or ravey stuff.” says Vito De Luca, one half of Aeroplane. “We always try to bring happiness in the records we choose. Maybe a little melancholic and emotional but happy, to see smiles on peoples faces, and not see them high on drugs, just to be happy when we are playing our tracks, that’s the only real thing we want to do.” The irony is that De Luca is not a fan of flying at all, which is the reason who only Aeroplane’s other half Stephen Fasano made it downunder for their string of club shows last year. “Stephan went to Australia by himself, because I really hate flying, so when they told me it was a 24 hour flight I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it. I know everyone tells me how ironic it is. It is just for flights over 2 hours, I just start getting crazy with the air conditioning and the uncomfortable seating, it’s all a bit much.”

The sun is shining in the South of Belgium, where De Luca is speaking to us and where Aeroplane started, though only De Luca resides there now as Fasano has relocated to Brussels. De Luca says he moved to Brussels for a couple of years but prefers the small-town life of his little home town. The duo met at a club when De Luca owned a record store, and initially approached Fasano when he was DJing to entice him to come and visit his shop. Fasano obliged and the two got talking about production, as De Luca was into rock bands and played instruments and had started buying some gear with the intention of creating a small home studio. Fasano had already expressed the desire to start dabbling in production and the two were sitting in front of a computer a week later, tossing about ideas of what they were going to do. Their first release was the Caramellas/Aeroplane 12” and De Luca explains how it came together.

“I’m actually the technical side of Aeroplane, I’ve studied music for over 10 years. I take care of the composing and arrangements, but Stephan is still the DJ, so when we’re in the studio he thinks in a dancefloor way which I don’t really have. I have been a DJ for years too, but playing more freestyle stuff like funk and old disco, whereas he was a real club DJ so he knew how to make the people dance. So what we did was apply this dance music structure to a really poppy song and really slow stuff, so that’s what makes a track like Caramellas, it’s not really a dance record, but it builds up like a dance track, even though it’s not really aimed at the dancefloor.”

Their ‘nu disco’ sound is far-removed from the more abrasive electro associated with Belgium brothers Soulwax and it’s no surprise to learn that they prefer the warm sound of analogue hardware in the studio. “We try to avoid many software sounds,” he says when quizzed about their studio setup. “The sounds we love cannot really be replicated, I mean you can get close, but you will always miss something. The sound we love is coming out of analogue synths. So we bought some analogue synths, even if we couldn’t really afford it yet. Most of the time there are no plugins, there’s nothing played on a computer. It’s all played live with analogue synths, real guitar, real bass. We play everything from the congas to the cowbells, all the sounds you here are analogue.” Thought this method wasn’t the easiest or quickest as he continues, “It was a pain in the ass to do, but in the end it just gives you a sound that is really, really different. For remixes and more dance stuff, we just discovered Ableton, which I really hated for years, because I think all this audio stretching is just messing up the music completely. But we have just discovered all the midi processing in Ableton which saves you a lot of time once you get an idea. After that we also switched to Pro Tools, because it is the industry standard and if you go to a big studio, all you get back is a Pro Tools session, so if you don’t have it at home you’re just stuck and you can’t do anything, so yeah about 6 months ago we got that at home.”

Their debut album, due out in early 2010, is one of the most anticipated of the nu-disco scene and when asked about it, De Luca says it’s been a fairly laboured process but will be worth the wait. “We are trying to finish the album now as it has been a lot of work. It is just going to be Aeroplane with no plugins or anything, just played live. It will not be not as perfect as the rest in terms of computer precision, as that’s what we want. I mean all of the music we love from the eighties, seventies and even the sixties, it didn’t matter that there was no computers. I was listening yesterday to Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel and the drummer is maybe the worst drummer ever and everybody loves that song and nobody notices that the drummer is playing wrong in certain parts. We are not trying to fake that we are good musicians, what you will hear on the record is us playing the instruments.” On the actual sonic feel of the album, De Luca says it will be cinematic and groovy and “always have a catchy feeling so you can dance to it. But as most of the tracks are around 100BPM so they are not really ‘dancey’ but there are some disco tracks on parts of the album.”

Their remix of the Friendly Fires track Paris has been one of highlights of 2009, having the ability to rock club and indie dancefloors alike, it really thrust the duo into the mainstream spotlight. He says the remix was a funny one as “Au Revoire Simone are singing on the original song, but it is a background vocal that you can’t really hear. But when we had the separate tracks of Paris, there was this girl singing and we were like ‘shit, this is way better and way sexier than the guy’s vocals, even though he sings it really well and cool.’” So they decided to bring Simone’s vocals to the forefront, to great effect.

When asked if they’d met Au Revoire Simone or any of their other remixees, he says they’d only really met Sebastien Tellier, who was “Just a weird guy but is really a genius. He’s really a cool guy but he’s in his own little world, I really love him, even being in the same room is an experience. He’s like a really tall guy but is so shy at the same time but is such a genius at the same time.” They are also chummy with fellow slo-mo funksters Low Motion Disco because they are both on the uber-cool Eskimo record label, and he also details an upcoming show they have lined up. “I think in a couple of weeks we have a gig with Grace Jones in Ibiza. I think it’s gonna be a really big party because she is playing a full live show and then we will be doing the afterparty and I’m really looking forward to that, I think it’s gonna be a bit crazy.”

As well as their original productions, their DJ talents are also heavily in demand with the boys playing a constant string of shows around Europe and the globe. Their free monthly mixes now a staple on many Ivy League music blogs like Discobelle and Asian Man Dan. So what can fans expect from their live DJ sets at Parklife in the coming weeks? “They can expect to dance!”

The national Parklife tour is proudly presented by ITM! Keep your eyes peeled to our Festival Page at inthemix.com.au/parklife and check out the national tour dates below…

Sat 26th Sep – Botanic Gardens & Riverstage, Brisbane (SOLD OUT)
Sun 27th Sep – Wellington Square, Perth
Sat 3rd Oct – Birrarung Marr, Melbourne (SOLD OUT)
Sun 4th Oct – Kippax Lake, Moore Park, Sydney (SOLD OUT)
Mon 5th Oct – Botanic Park, Adelaide