"Although I didn't write this song, it spoke to me in a way that made me feel as if it was my own story,” Brandon said. “I found myself playing it over and over again in my bedroom, remembering situations that I've been through.”
Check out the video for yourself below.
Tell me about the new record.
Brian: We’ve been making records and this one we’re making tracks every day, pretty much, and posting them on the computer. We’re always making rhythms, and this one was something that we sort of collected over two years. Yea and this is kind of like, this album we had a lot of different people playing on it too, so this one's kind of like a special one for us definitely. We’re excited about it.
Justin: We mix music all the time, and we’re always posting it and making mixes and all these kinds of things, but this was made over a longer period of time, more specifically for Lindsey who runs the label, which is called Firecracker.
I'm interested in how much of it is live and how much of it is digital.
J: I definitely play digital instruments in a kind of live way, if that makes sense. Like the way someone might play a drum and it’s kind of performative. It’s like using digital instruments like using drum machines or synthesizers, but then once that happens we sculpt it afterward.
B: I think with this record we had lots of improvisational jams that were even acoustic. So a lot of times we’re playing acoustic instruments and then making rhythms, and then kind of sampling them and collaging them afterward.
J: So it's pretty equal if you think about it. It's pretty 50/50 in terms of how much stuff is improvised with acoustics and how much stuff is sequenced or edited in the computer.
I listened to a little bit of it, someone sent me a track and I don't even know, it almost felt like it was from around the world or something, or it felt like tribal. Is that on the nose?
B: We’re interested in basic poly-rhythm kinds of concepts, simple subdivisions of rhythm. Rhythms that are kind of like building blocks for us. Ones that can pop up in places around the world. But I'm sure that's how it comes off as. And there are a lot of people that try to figure out what it sounds like, they think it’s from here or here or here, but we kind of come with the intention of starting from the really most minimal rhythmic structures and branching out from that.
J: Rhythm is just math and patterns, you know? The rhythm breaks down into these little grid structures and those can be super wide-ranging, but they all can kind of interlock. We play with how those grids interlock, and when you start doing that it starts feeling more what people might term ‘tribal,’ but I think that's just by association, not intent. We’re inspired from a lot of music from all around the world.
B: A lot of people say it’s like a global morphing kind of thing. A lot of people say it’s ‘avant garde.’ A lot of times we don't compose with a specific genre or style in mind.
J: Yeah, we’re not like, ‘Oh this is going to be our African song.’
B: We compose more from waves or different kinds of frequency rhythmic patterns.
It sounds almost scientific.
B: It is, in a way. It definitely is in a way.
I loved what you said earlier, how you described it as a collage, because I think what makes it sound so worldly is just the sheer amount of different sounds and instruments and, like you're saying, the rhythms. Can you talk more about that? About the concept of collage?
B: Yeah, I mean we’re playing all kinds of different instruments from acoustic all the way to like coded or computer programing-type instrument things, so when we make tracks we’re starting from a really wide pool, and then a lot of times what our intention is is to make it in a way where you can't really tell where the sounds are coming from, which is a platform for a trance in a way. Basically we’re trying to make it look like a river, where everything comes together as one.
J: I think that with electronic music, and actually all music and all instruments, you hear something and it signifies so much, this sounds like this kind of music or this sounds like this kind of rhythm sounds like house music etc, but I think that it’s fun to play with that a little bit. You can hint at something but then it’s also fun to put something up against it that pulls it completely away from that and so then it becomes a singular collage, and so what I think Brian's saying too is that you do so much of that, that you lose all the individual parts, all the rocks and stones and grass and other things, and you just get to a single thing like a river. You know what I mean? So you're not getting caught up in every single little detail like, ‘oh, that’s snare drum or that’s a synth sound.’ It becomes flattened out and you get to a single image.
B: I guess it's like people don't really want to pay attention to the fact that they're actually listening to music, they want to be more kind of hypnotized or transported and in another place, in a sense.
Above: Justin and Brian, and the album cover for 'Time.'
Do you guys do concerts?
B: Yeah, we play in all different kinds of waves for sure.
J: I would say we don't really do a traditional kind of concert. We tend to play when someone asks us to do something that seems interesting and worth doing, and when we do that it tends to be long and stretched out, so that it’s not like, ‘Here's our concert for 30 minutes and here's our 5 songs that we want you to hear,’ it’s more like creating an atmosphere and a background for people to exist in this space and they can interact with the music as much or as little as they want to.
B: So we might play a festival or a museum or a weird person’s house or events. So sometimes we’ll DJ more kind of party vibes and sometimes more kind of quiet acoustic things, like drumming at a gallery. So it's a range of stuff.
What is your ideal performance situation?
B: I think when we’re playing outside and we’re playing in nature and when we’re playing with heavy technology. We like playing with a lot of technology. You know, like a lot of sound system type stuff. Like a futuristic sound and futuristic-type venue is always nice for us instead of anything else.
J: I think the spaces where most people interact with music are so uninspiring, like whether that's a concert venue or most clubs or bars or whatever, that I think something opposite of that would be wonderful.
It’s almost like a clash between nature and technology, which in a way is sort of like your aesthetic.
J: Exactly. That's another thing, too, is that when we play we’re kind of looking for the same thing as when we are working on music: you want to be inspired and you want to find something new. It’s less of a presentation and more of an exploration.
B: It’s a communication, too. Because I think at times nature can break off and look like knowledge or something or technology or whatever, where we find we can intercommunicate. It's really interesting.
J: It's nice, too, when people can come into a space where they feel very, I don't want to say ‘safe’, but yeah, safe, but also they have no idea what to expect, you know what I mean? Like we had a space on Canal Street and it would be like the most random collections of people there from completely different spaces, ages, whatever, and it’s a little jarring and confusing, like you're not getting something typical that you can sort of recognize, but when you stick with it for a while it creates space for a lot of magic to happen.
Did you do one of the pop-ups on Canal?
J: No, we had a big loft.
B: Our studio was on Canal and Elizabeth for a while, so I think it’s more where we’d always be popped-up.
Did you let people wander in?
B: I mean, we would just work on music a lot so we’d have performances or shows or concerts or we were making a lot of films at the time, so people would kind of just be coming up a lot, yeah.
So you guys do a lot of stuff, you do film and visual stuff as well. Does that play into your music, or how do those two inform each other?
B: They completely inform each other. Basically, I think we’re saying the same thing just in a very different medium. It's just a different sensory limit or boundary.
'Time' is available now from Firecracker Records. All images are courtesy of Georgia.
office chatted with co-creator and resident DJ Loren aka GODDOLLARS to find out just what Coachella-goers can expect this year and how the dynamic duo has managed to make their legendary mark on LA nightlife.
Who is GODDOLLAR and what is A Club Called Rhonda?
GODDOLLAR is me. I am the co-founder of A Club Called Rhonda, which I started a very long time ago with a friend of mine, The Gregory Alexander. Together we've actualized what would we describe as a pansexual party platform that exists for the exaltation of faithful dance music and for the progression of self-expression.
How and when did the parties start?
Gregory and I had been living in a loft downtown at the baby stages of downtown's gentrification, so we were still able to do some crazy things down there. We had a unit that was basically on top of a rooftop so we'd have these parties where we would fill the entire space with a bunch of people dancing. That got us evicted from that building, unfortunately, but we caught the bug and we knew that this is what we wanted to do. Eventually, we found a venue in east Hollywood called Guadalinda. It was like a dilapidated Guatemalan disco-tech of ill repute. It looked like a drug dealers den from like the 80s. It had checkered floors and fake Grecian statues and we went in there and started doing our thing. We were trying to bring the concept of bridging various communities that wouldn't normally party together to life. Gregory is part of the gay community and I’m straight, and we’re best friends, but we found that our separate friends weren't interested in partying together - we wanted to create a place where everybody could hang out. We certainly weren't the first people to do that but it definitely resonated at the time and it still resonates today. So after the first event, it was something that we could obviously see was very special because it just seemed to have clicked right away, people seemed to get it right away, and we haven't stopped since.
Who is Rhonda? Is it a person, a personality?
We always consider Rhonda as this prototypical, mythical party person who exemplifies all of the best qualities of who Gregory and I want to be. Rhonda is the ultimate example of an epicurean kind of party diva who would be accepted and honored at any party throughout history, from ancient Greece to now. We created the kind of person that we wanted at our parties, and from there it became a really fun creative outlet for us. It became less about us and more about her.
Are the parties still as good as they were when they first started all those years ago? Do you have just as much fun?
I have so much fun! I think I'm having even more fun now. It's gone through so many phases. It’s hard to keep riding this crazy pony ride, but we stuck with it. The party went through a lot of different, subtle changes, and a lot of people that came at first aren’t the same people that come now. We may have been through everything and have made every possible mistake along the way, but we’ve managed to find our groove while maintaining our original ethos, which is sustainable magic. I’m very happy that we’re still able practice what we've been all about from the very beginning.
How did your parties become so big in the LGBTQ community?
The queer community in LA is such a beautiful thing and that's where we come from. There's such a robust queer nightlife scene and we’re just honored to be a part of it. It seems that we’re not gay enough to be a gay club and not straight enough to be a straight club, we're somewhere in between. We’re also a place where people that might not know who they are yet to become - we’re apart of people discovering their identity, whatever that identity might be. So us being able to be a platform for that kind of self-discovery and self-expression is kind of what distinguishes us from the rest within the diverse and colorful landscape of queer clubbing in LA.
For someone who has never heard of or been to one of your parties, how would you describe them?
I would describe it as beautiful, controlled chaos where you should never be afraid to be who you are or afraid of who anybody else is, and you should always expect to meet beautiful people and have sex with them. I just want people to feel free, but also confident and beautiful. Someone might be shy or they might be afraid to wear a certain thing out or to interact with certain types of people, and this is the place where you can discover and be all of that.
Coachella is in a couple of days, are you excited?
I’m always excited about Coachella. I always say that everything that people say about Coachella is true, no matter what it is. Its gigantic, it’s full of fake-ass people, it’s also full of real-ass people. It’s full of people that want to be seen and it’s also full of people that want to see the music. I think that no matter what is going on or who’s playing, I always have a really good time because they do such a good job at making it so beautiful - it’s in one of the most beautiful places on the planet to me. I've never had a bad time.
Tell us about the annual Rhonda Queen of The Desert party.
Coachella is a big part of Los Angeles. The young and the relentless make their way out once a year to have a really nice time together. Because we’re from LA and we love to party, we've always been really drawn to the desert during this time, so we started throwing our Rhonda Queen of the Desert parties. The name is a throwback to one of our favorite movies Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and we do it at a lot of different places. We’ve done big pool parties, we’ve done private villa parties where Chaka Kahn has played, we’ve done a party inside of a big airplane hanger in Palm Springs with like 4,000 people, and now we have our party this year at HITS, a place where they do equestrian competitions. It's located very close to the festival and it has very beautiful grounds. We have a big, beautiful, artful rave and it's quite a beautiful thing.
How will this year's event differ from previous ones? Any surprises?
I'm so stoked about the lineup because Nina Kravitz is one of the most genre-bending DJ’s I know. She's not really afraid to take chances and do wild things musically-speaking. She pushes the boundaries. She personally requested to have Virgil on, whose reputation in the fashion world precedes him, but the way he gets nods from DJ's I really respect like Nina and DJ Harvey makes me very very excited to see him play. I can't wait. Our party has the best sounds and the best lights and the best DJ's so that you'll be able to dance your ass off. We take the art of party-throwing very seriously, so all of those technical aspects will be on point. It will be as close to a club as you can get in the desert, next to the Yuma tent of course. I am very excited for a completely juicy weekend.
