Duel Native

The ‘Biophilicall’ video is raw, elegant, and immersive. What was your vision for the look and feel of this live performance — and how did the Aviary Studio space shape it? The energy of the space, the lighting, and the stripped-back staging feel very intentional.

The vision was to strip everything back to what felt honest. This was about capturing a collective energy, where everyone can just let go and commune with this song. We felt the way to achieve that was to enable a softness in the space - so everyone could feel comfortable, and practically forget that it was being recorded.

There’s a tactile sense to both your music and aesthetic — like everything is crafted by hand. Do your practices as a musician and architect influence each other in terms of design, texture, or spatial awareness?

Often I can't distinguish between the two. For me, the practice of music and architecture have so many similarities. There's composition, rhythm, texture, sequencing, patterns, layering... you'll find them in both. Sometimes there's also tension, contrast, and reflection. Both music and architecture are best when they're crafted by humans.

The choir in the video feels deeply human and spontaneous. What made you want to include a group of friends who had just learned the song, and how does that reflect your creative ethos?

When we play this song live, it is different every time. It's the result of who's in the room. I wanted a gang vocal, and I wanted it to be raw and imperfect. It was important not to let this group of brave people know anything about what we were doing until we were actually doing it. That spontaneity is such an "alive" feeling. I wanted breath and nerves and magic. There’s a beauty in not rehearsing something to death and just being present together. That’s how I want most things in my life to feel - an act of creation.

‘Biophilicall’ draws from biophilic design, which aims to reconnect people with nature. How do you carry that idea into the way your music lives visually — in performance, in fashion, and in film?

Biophilia is about recognising we are nature, not separate from it. Nature’s beauty is always a bit uneven — there are no straight lines, there are no precisely predictable rhythms, there's a bit of unpredictability in every wild environment. That guides how I treat visuals too. It should feel alive and of a moment; not airbrushed.

Looking forward to the EP of live recordings — will each track have a similarly intimate and styled visual world? What can we expect from the full series?

Look forward to a spectrum of songs that go from being a full-band "messy protest" anthem about Black Lives Matter, to an unplugged gentle lullaby, to a bit of light-humoured high-speed... jangliness? (Not sure that's a word). All of these are recorded in different studios in Naarm (Melbourne); the spaces, the visuals - they look and feel like they’re vibrating with the same frequency as the music.