Hybrid Man Mix
Taking over Tapes #83 is Hybrid Man, the electronic music project of Naarm-based duo Julien Huynh and Will Holden. Formed in late 2018, the pair’s live set suspends time - drawing you in deep for a moment of keen introspection before erupting into euphoric electronica.
Keenly, the imaginative world induced nods at dance music past and present, where it fuses ambient soundscapes with IDM, 90s trance, dubbed-out house, techno and beyond for an all-immersive and timeless experience.
At the forefront of Hybrid Man’s union is a mutual penchant for hardware-based production. This passion sees the duo side-by-side maneuvering their equipment with the precision of surgeons, championing left-field sonic artifacts, environmental recordings and manually-played improvisatory instrumentation. A patchwork of influences; Hybrid Man have trailblazed the contemporary downtempo meets techno movement in Naarm, peppering their sound to technical finesse with dub-style mixing and effects.
TRACKLIST
Work The Peripherals - Hysteria
Admnti - Hypersphere
Earthlink - Flight
Prince De Takicardie - Greetings From Psychedelic Space (Shorftrip Mix)
Anderson - HydroFlux
Salomo - Hydro Twist
Solar Suite - Big Drift
Asphalt DJ & Gzardin - The Figg
Lisene - Square One
Baby G - Dream Routine
Pugilist - Undulate
Reflex Blue - Trip Sit (Elevate Mix)
Gabriola - Worldwave
Harley Ferris - Return
Dylan Forbes - Djibril 9
Hey both - thanks for contributing to the Origins Tapes series! Can you start by introducing yourself?
Hey! Thanks so much for asking us to contribute to the series. We’re Julien and Will and we’re from Naarm (Melbourne) in Australia. We’ve been producing and performing live under the name Hybrid Man since 2018.
Tell us about this mix - where was it recorded and favourite track inside?
The mix is an accumulation of some mostly new dancey/doofy tunes that we’ve been enjoying lately. We recorded it at the Skylab Radio studio which is a great local digital radio station here in Naarm. It’s located in the same building as our studio, so we’re lucky enough to use it when we might need to record a mix or have a bit of DJ practice.
It was too hard to find a favourite track! They’re all amazing tunes that have something we like and something unique that makes them fresh.
What is the ideal setting to listen to it?
Road trippin’ through the Milky Way.
How did Hybrid Man come about? And what’s the best part about performing as a duo?
We first properly met at university when we were both studying sound art and had most classes together. We spent heaps of time sharing music back and forth, working on assignments together, and then started jamming after classes and on our days off. Will had previously done solo live sets with his hardware set up, and the idea of having two people on the controls was appealing in terms of a collaborative process and having more hands on deck.
Having the two of us play live together always brings great energy and is heaps of fun. I think we work well bouncing off each other, surprising one another a few times during a set with something unexpected.
Your sound is heavily driven around experimentation with hardware; tell us more about your extensive setup and how you got into hardware production.
Both of us have a musical background playing instruments, so making electronic music with hardware left like a natural progression. Saying that prior to Hybrid Man we had both released music that was created using samples, a midi keyboard, and a computer.
When we first started, it was us jamming in Will's bedroom with an MPC 1000, a few synths, a drum machine, acid box and a few fx pedals. We’ve now accumulated a variety of hardware from synths, samplers, sequencers, fx boxes, rack units and mixers that's slowly turned our studio into looking more like a storage unit. We’ve also begun incorporating Ableton Live for some more complex processing and sequencing for the live set and studio sessions.
At the moment we’re trying to condense the live rig down a little to make it easier to travel overseas and perform in 2023.
Been loving your recent release on Butter Sessions! How did you get involved with the label?
Thanks! Will has been friends with Maryos and Corey (Butter Sessions) since our early 20’s from going out to park parties and warehouse raves. We became better mates when Will was living with Maryos 4-5 years ago. We had our studios setup in the house and Jules was coming over a lot to make tunes and play table tennis in the garage. We’ve always been fans of the label and the Butter boys are very supportive of the local scene.
What preparation goes into your live sets - how much is pre-planned or improvised?
Our live set usually starts out as an ideas dump for sounds that we want to experiment with. We get whatever synths and samples we want to incorporate and start programming them into patterns. The tracks in the set will always morph into new styles over hours of jamming in the studio. Every live set we play will be a bit different from the last.
When we perform, most of the improvisation is done on the mixing console, this helps drive the arrangement of the tracks. We enjoy using the console as an instrument in its own right, taking inspiration from dub-style mixing, dubbing out sounds with echos and reverb, and bringing in and out elements on the faders to create dynamics in the arrangement. We’ll also improvise on the synths themselves changing tones and swapping patterns in and out, although what's written in the patterns and samples we use are preplanned.
Lastly, Live or DJ?
We’ve been enjoying DJing a lot more recently as it takes the pressure and stress off performing and writing - plus it gives us a break from rehearsing to allow us time to transfer our live set ideas into upcoming records. Although, nothing can beat the energy and reward of playing a tight live set to a great crowd.