All Set Mo Need

Celebrating the release of their sophomore album ‘Flux’, we caught up with Set Mo as we premiere the music video for ‘All I Need’

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Image credit: Jordan Munns

For over a decade, the Sydney-based duo of Nick Drabble and Stuart Turner AKA Set Mo have been at the forefront of Aussie EDM, bringing songwriting sensibilities to their melodic electronic productions, making a name for themselves with their high energy live shows, string of EPs and singles, and their acclaimed 2019 debut album Surrender.

The duo are now back with what is sure to be another classic record, in the form of Flux - a record that was several years and hundreds of track ideas in the making, and given the recent state of the world, is an album that “zeroes in on the concept of change itself, and its effect on the human condition – regardless of if the changes are good or bad”.

Across 13 tracks, Flux invites the listener into the diverse and delightful electronic world of Set Mo, packed with emotional electronic sounds full of pop sensibilities & ear worms.

To celebrate the release of Flux, we’re stoked to be premiering the music video for latest single All I Need as well as catching up with the boys - have a watch and get to know below!

Congratulations on your new album Flux! I read this one came together quite a bit differently compared to your first album?

Thank you! Yeah, our first album was written all over the world in different studios and with different people which led to a collection of songs we’re really proud of but there wasn’t an overarching concept of narrative behind the body of work. That’s why the first album was called Surrender as it was about surrendering to the process and letting whatever happened happen. We took time to reflect on the massive amount of change we’d been through ahead of this second album. The 18 months leading into the writing process were full of radical change both together as Set Mo and individually - plenty of ups and, some things within our control but a lot of it wasn't. We realised the only thing we could control was how we perceived what was happening and then how we responded to it. There was a constant dance of flux in our lives and our reaction to that was to write this album.

How hard was it going from over 100 demos to the final 13 tracks on the album? What was the selection process like?

The 13 songs kind of presented themselves. For the first few months we were coming in and laying down a new idea each day, then after a couple of weeks to a month we’d listen to all the ideas and the best ones stood out pretty quickly. We added those to a shortlist and kept writing and continued on until we realised we’d hit 100 demos and figured it was time to start cutting it down. From here we picked the songs that spoke to many of the changes we’d been through and were left with the 13 tunes that make up Flux.

How’s the new album feeling live?

There’s a few tracks we’ve been playing from the new album over the last little while but it hasn’t been until recently that we’re starting putting all the tracks together in different contexts, like a minimix we did for the album, some mixtapes and now building the album show. To be honest I think we’d been a bit scared to play some of them as there’s some stuff on the record that's quite different to some of our older stuff. However after putting them in amongst other stuff it feels better than I think we thought it would. We’re so pumped to tour this album and for people to fully experience Flux.

The All I Need video is gorgeous and there’s a lot going on imagery-wise - tell us about the meaning of the video?

The video was put together by The Daughter Collective and directed by Michael Dole. They absolutely smashed it in our opinion. The video’s exploring how tied to screens and devices we are and how staged a lot of our life can become to serve these devices. We’re missing the greater world right in front of our eyes but smashing the screen halfway through the video allows the 2 people to reconnect amongst the nature around them. The incorporation of the younger girls in the clip is to demonstrate the playful, curious and innocent nature we have as children before growing up and becoming more conditioned to behave in a certain way.

How did the concept & the video for All I Need come together?

All I Need is a song about going out on your own and realizing that all you need is self belief. We can often be distracted by all the noise around us that it can feel suffocating and scary to go out and do new things and leave behind those things, people, habits etc that don’t serve us anymore. The line in the chorus “All I need is the air surrounding me, just breathe” is a reminder that you already have what you need and to feel confident in yourself.

You’re about to set off on a national tour in June - what can fans expect? What are you looking forward to the most?

Looking forward to playing some awesome venues around Australia, New Zealand and Bali. A lot of thought has gone into how we want these shows to look and feel and the venues we’ve chosen have been a part of that. The show is definitely pretty high energy overall. We’ve tried to incorporate elements inspired by some of our most loved electronic acts. In terms of what we’re looking forward to the most would be just seeing people reacting to the new music. As musicians you spend so long in your little bubble writing and tinkering with music that when it finally comes out it’s like you hear it again for the first time as people get to experience it brand new.