News
Featured Artist: DUAN
03 Dec
DUAN is here to provide bountiful beats for your summer with his fresh new EP Momentum. DUAN is at the forefront of moulding his story, having rallied various talents around Melbourne to create this eclectic collaborative project. Momentum is available worldwide now!
Tell us about yourself?
I (Duan) am a producer, beatmaker, artist and collaborator. Based in Melbourne, enjoys occupying cafes, and producing various genres of music through electronic techniques. I then take these creations to various artists around Melbourne for them to flare their own unique style on. Main inspirations include Flume, Kaytranada, Mr Carmack, Medasin, Laxcity, Quiet Bison.
Momentum EP
Ways
This was the most collaborative yet most difficult track to create, and it was intended that way to challenge my abilities as a producer to mix and blend various creative ideas together into a coexistent artwork. In total there were 6 minds working on this track, all applying their own unique layer of creation and artistry. Ways is simply about us all finding our own unique way around, as we all share the same goal but take different paths that personally work with us.
Confident
Confident is a lofi late-night club track, there to produce that feeling when you’ve left the club with a special someone. It’s about finding that confidence within yourself, and maintaining a certain style of confidence that is un-obnoxious and tamed within your own character. This one is the most Kaytranada influenced track, with a saxophone topline recorded by amazing artist Yang Chen (Melbourne).
Barefoot
Rawness… as raw as planting your bare feet to the ground, feeling the texture of the world. It is as raw as sashimi, as raw as the dirt between your toes… the grit, the grime… all encapsulated in this banger. Shogun and KVYNL were perfect for this track as they brought a raw side in their bars, stuff that normally isn’t seen around Melbourne.
Naked Dancing
This track started off with the piano sample from Medasin and was then refixed into a house rhythm. I wanted to create a song that was a celebration, hypeness of the greatness of simply living! It is why you Naked Dance because you are free from shame and simply embrace yourself in your raw form, your naked form! This was the most fun to create and both Reyko! and R.EM.EDY both work so well with the instrumental and themselves. The trap drop is the peak of this EP, accompanied with R.EM.EDY’s rapid flows that absolutely amp up the whole energy of the track.
Momentum
This track is a simple instrumental which starts to cool down the energy from Naked Dancing. It goes into more experimental production techniques like off-grid drums and granulated piano recordings. This track is my biggest producer flex moment. The reason for Momentums name is to display my own progression and how the movement of my projects are starting to come to light and the momentum gained to grow myself forward. Exponential evolution.
Round & Round
After Momentum’s heavy drums and sounds, it dips into a calm with Belle’s vocals. Round and round is how we go when lost in our own minds. Whether it be indecision, hesitation or delusion, we can easily catch ourselves in this state of mind. A state of blur most especially comes from expending so much energy (such as the tracks before have done). This is a song about chaos, our own mental chaos spiralling round and round and round.
Flakes
My favourite track of them all and the perfect one to finish. Around 2 years ago I broke my leg in a climbing accident. My left leg split in half, with my tibia sticking out the skin. It was a horrific moment, and a patient recovery period (6 months). During that intense period of pain, there was only one song that I could produce, which was this one. This track captures the short period of time falling from the wall into the ground, that moment before my life changed forever. Personally, the breaking of the leg was the catalyst towards my growth into proper adulthood from adolescence. The track is the final blissful moment of innocence, and overall, as an EP, a farewell to that stage of my life. Like shedding skin, with the flakes peeling off you like petals in spring. The start of a new birth.
You can stream and download Momentum here.
If you want to hear more from DUAN, check out his socials below:
