The sound of popular dance music in America might be entering a new phase. EDM is as strong as ever, but, entering the back half of 2014, radio and streaming charts are being infiltrated by a number of pop-oriented house tracks nurtured first by dance clubs: Disclosure’s “Latch”, Naughty Boy’s “La La La”, and Clean Bandit’s “Rather Be”. In the States, this trend is still just a trickle, but the return to more traditional house sounds is a full-fledged wave in Britain, culminating in a series of #1 singles this year by artists like Route 94 and Kiesza that make a direct line to the classic sounds of Chicago and Detroit.
Though history may one day credit Disclosure as the trigger, the house-pop dam fully breached last year with UK chart topper “Need U (100%)”, from a then-little-known underground producer and DJ named Duke Dumont. The track was never a hit in America, but 31-year-old Dumont (né Adam Dyment) is something like a sensation in his native Britain. Follow-up “I Got U” also topped the pop charts there, and his latest single “Won’t Look Back” figures to make a third run at the throne.
Duke Dumont: “Won’t Look Back” (via SoundCloud)
Though it’s a more blatant throwback to the booming diva house of the ’90s, “Won’t Look Back” shares a bloodline with Dumont’s two previous hits. All three songs are big, sweeping, open-hearted devotionals: “Give me 100, need you 100 percent,” “As long as I got you,” “Your love, it makes me stronger.” Though Dumont says his success was initially accidental, given the current climate, he’s now making streamlined songs that seem tailored for success.
Duke Dumont: “Hold On” [ft. MNEK] (via SoundCloud)
To cement himself, his forthcoming debut album must be nearly as good. When I meet him in a studio in south Brooklyn this spring, he is still sketching the record out. He plays me a handful of demos, including early version of “Won’t Look Back” along with others that hint at a diversity that could reveal Dumont as both a skilled classicist and a pop craftsman. There are more banging house tracks, yet the best songs I hear are the outliers: a rippling instrumental that he compares to Toto and a stunning bare-bones soul track he wrote with How to Dress Well in mind.
We chatted about the sudden rise of “Need U (100%)” and the shift it helped create, as well as his newfound songwriting strategy, his expectations for his debut LP, and how his music has been shaped by memories of Daft Punk.
Pitchfork: A lot of people saw “Need U” as the moment when dance music that’s not EDM really hit it big again on the UK charts. Did you feel that way?
Duke Dumont: “Need U” was the first house track to get to #1 in about 15 years, and that kind of set the ball rolling—for the good or for the bad, I’m not sure. But when you have a group of [like-minded] people coming through, there’s usually not discussions behind the scenes, like, “Hey, Disclosure, let’s put our minds together and try to take over.” It’s not that. As far as comparing it to EDM, it’s supremely arrogant to say to someone, “Hey, man, you should prefer this.” Certain EDM causes an emotional reaction in people that no other type of music can do. Fuckin’ hats off to them. But for me, the lights of Disclosure led the way to a change in the sound pallette on a popular level.
Pitchfork: It’s happening slowly in the States, too. Disclosure’s “Latch” is finally a pop hit here, for instance.
DD: “Latch” is one of the best pop songs in the last 10 years; it’s a pop song but it’s not a throwaway. It’s perfectly executed. Right now is the first time in a long time where a kid can still be living at home with their mom and dad, make a beat on a laptop, and get a #1 song. So I hope there’s a legion of kids who are taking inspiration from what we do. We use the same equipment that all the kids use; everyone has access to the same stuff. When you get to a certain level, you can record live in a studio, and now I’m spending a lot of money on a studio to record live instruments, too.
But I like the pipe dream that if a kid in their bedroom who doesn’t have many opportunities in life works hard and puts their heart and soul into something, they can achieve it. I don’t come from money. I took out one loan in my entire life, and that loan was to get my first laptop to make music, and I made it pay off. I learned how to make music for like 10 years—if I had another job, I’d do it on the weekends. I never stopped.
Pitchfork: How did “Need U” come about originally?
DD: Three years ago, I wasn’t reaching it with my music because I was procrastinating way too much. My threshold of quality was too high, and I was sitting on about 200 demos. So it was like: “OK, I actually can’t pay the gas bill now, maybe it’s time to start doing it.”
I did this eight-minute instrumental track with a spliced-up vocal and then put it away. It was a house dub: big piano chords, big drops. My manager said, “I think this could cross over into commercial terrain, would you be willing to try more of these slightly-more-accommodating vocals?” I was like, “There’s nothing to lose, let’s see where it goes.” So I took that eight-minute house dub and turned it into a four-minute pop track. [Vocalists] A*M*E and MNEK jumped on board, and that’s how the final song was done.
But the roots of it was purely for the club. It almost turned out as a mashup, but not many people heard the original, because I don’t want to spoil the illusion of what it is. The original actually sounds really good.
Pitchfork: Was “Need U” the first time you worked with a songwriter?
DD: No. I worked with a pop act—whose name I’m not going to mention—who’s had a little bit of success. That was quite a sterile environment. With record labels, it’s all about confidence. I’ve seen producers who have all the confidence in the world but are really bad at making music. And I’ve seen some who are the best producers but lack confidence. I wasn’t the most confident at that stage, but the irony is after having a #1, I got a phone call from the label saying, “Hey, that music you did was quite good, can we release it?” I was like, “Ah, OK, it’s because you’re not listening with your ears.” I’m not one for the Wizard of Oz effect, where at the end it’s the wizard with all the controls, and Toto runs over and pulls the curtain away, and it’s a little old man and he ain’t that powerful.
Pitchfork: I assume you get calls from so many music people and vocalists now.
DD: I got some today. But I just have to ignore it for the time being, because I’m working on my album with the best people I possibly can, so that I can make the best songs I possibly can, as opposed to the biggest songs. Because I could work with 10 R&B singers who might’ve been in certain girl bands, or whatever, and make really brash dance music. But I want to find the most soulful artists who can put their heart into it.
Pitchfork: So you don’t find it tempting to use your power to get big names?
AD: Not at all. At this point, I’m doing OK. I do a lot of live shows, so for the first time in my life, I’m in a position where one day I might be able to buy a house, which is nice. Things are really good for me right now. I will never sacrifice good judgement because I could get this artist who has a billion Twitter followers. But saying that, if you get a big artist that’s also incredible, that’s a win-win—I’d happily work on a Beyoncé album.
Haim: “Falling (Duke Dumont Remix)” (via SoundCloud)
Pitchfork: Are there dance albums you’re trying to model your record after? It can be hard for some producers to make that transition to a full-length.
DD: Dance albums usually suck because there doesn’t tend to be a dynamic to them. All the songs can be quite similar. For me, Daft Punk’s Discovery is still the benchmark. Where Homework was basically a techno album, Discovery sounded like a punk record to me. And the techniques they were using were way more house-inspired than on Homework. Having Todd Edwards on the record added a lot of soul, too. Their approach to song was a master class. That was a huge inspiration—I still remember buying the CD and getting the Daft Punk membership card. I loved it.
Now, I’m just trying to put together a body of work so that in five years, I’ll look back and have a lot of stuff that stood the test of time. I’m sure there’ll be stuff I’ll cringe at, too, but if I still want to be in the game in five years, I have to make music that’s still going to be appreciated in five years.
