With the holidays right around the corner and travel plans in order, Australian duo NAATIONS, have provided us with their ultimate tunes to help make traveling easier and much more groove-able. Take it from the pair who have racked up those sky miles, moving from Australia to LA and then to London. If you're not familiar with the pair, they most recently had massive success with their collaboration alongside Duke Dumont & Gorgon City on "Real Life" which dropped over the summer. Singer/songwriter Nat Dunn and producer Nicky Night Time (part of the band Van She) and then revealing their follow up release ‘Want Me More’ a few weeks after.
EARMILK had the chance to catch up with this group as they share with us a playlist of the tracks inspired by each city and spanning from artists like Burial to Black Coffee to Janelle Monae, the pair break down why each track was chosen, giving us a glimpse into their life, their moods, and their inspirations during their transformative time. Get to know NAATIONS and check out their fun choices below.
LOS ANGELES
We were in the studio in Hollywood messing with a mate’s OP-1 Synthesiser trying to find the perfect sound for one of our tracks and I remember we played this song trying to describe the ethereal feeling we were seeking. The sparse drums and tasteful choice of sounds used on this record is really nice.
This is just a beautiful and emotional record that reminds me of where we live in Downtown Los Angeles. The people and the cityscape view from the loft. The simplicity of the chord progression is just lovely with the romantic melody.
This one feels like the sexy side of LA. R&B duet with lush vocals and guitar solos. This whole album is the perfect Hollywood to Malibu driving album.
I remember finding this live performance of Future Island just as I’d begun to feel settled into life in Los Angeles. I’d loved the song before that but I played it over and over after seeing it because it made me feel at ease with change for the first time there.
This is the record to put on whenever we want to hear what is pure and true, and living in LA you do need reminding of that sometimes. Donny is untouchable vocally. The Ghetto is just a favourite – a classic, culture-rich record.
LONDON
This album is one of those records that just sounds like East London to us … Headphones, slight cold breeze on your face, coffee in hand with hoodie up walking through parks strewn with graffiti and street scribbles on an overcast day
Being fans of Caribou, Dan’s side project Daphni is always so refreshing when we get tired of writing records … It’s kinda been acting as a palate cleanser when we get too deep into what we think we need to do beat wise. This side is kinda raw and analog, with nice drums and syncussion style hits everywhere.
The album is so nice to listen to and, since being friends with James from The Klaxons days, Nicky loved this track so much, he remixed it for James when we first got to London.
Always another classic wheels down London moment … Hitting the streets after the long flight straight to Hanbury street for some jerk chicken and juice. This sounds like London.
Nat is our one-woman gospel group so all of the vocal gospel moments we do is just like 10 of Nat stacked like this song … But just Nat! Haha
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