In the Green Room: No News
Adelaide electronic jazz fusion No News are supporting Melbourne quartet Big Yawn at The Lab next month. Here, we get to know the tight-knit three-piece a little better...
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We’re stoked you're supporting Big Yawn at The Lab this July. What should we expect from your set?
We’re so excited to be supporting such a huge influence of ours and our sound. We’ve followed Big Yawn since they released their EP Pressure Acts in 2021 (fanboys). Expect new music, giddy energy and a visual love for what we do together live. Our set is a revolving door of new tracks we find jamming and the personal favs we keep circling back to. We’re always eager to keep each other and our audience guessing, dipping into new realms of styles and genres. We’ll also be showcasing two singles being released in October.
This isn’t your first time performing at The Lab–you hosted your No News Live At Wash Dog Studio EP launch there last year, too. What do you love about this venue?
We love The Lab as it’s the best venue for blending the arts of visual and audio. The Lab is a unique opportunity to let various art forms collaborate and create together–something that doesn’t have much of Australia, even. Seeing the heads from The Bait Fridgeput together one of their shows at The Lab is one of my favourite Adelaide performances I have been to.
How visual media intersects with music is a huge part of No News’ craft, particularly with your collaborative work with artist Miles Dunne. How does this medium add to the experience of your live shows?
Playing with Miles Dunne on visuals organically fuels our live improvisation. There’s an unspoken chemistry. It feels like there's an answer and call [between] sound and visuals, which intertwines the two senses into one experience. It completely changes the outcome of our sets. We’ve always felt drawn to collaborating with other arts and artists. It took a while for us to realise we felt restricted within music. Breaking the barrier and reaching out for other inputs and alternative inspirations helped establish us and what we represent.
What sets Adelaide’s creative/music scene apart from other states?
As creatives in the scene, one thing that sticks out is how supportive everyone is of anyone trying something new across any art form. The community in Adelaide is a safe space to try any new direction. With so many creatives bobbing around, it’s not hard to get involved and start your journey networking in the community and finding your groove.
What influences the sound direction of No News? How do you balance so many interests?
We’re lucky the three of us have very similar musical interests and there’s a lot of overlap between our individual tastes. Rather than feeling the need to compromise, it feels like we inspire and develop each other’s musical ideas and tastes [to form] a cohesive unit. Huge influences for us are Bad Bad Not Good, Roza Terenzi, DJ Food, LTJ Boukem, Big Yawn, Charlie XCX, Todd Terje and Project Pat. They all play a huge part in our output. Balancing so many influences comes naturally – we give our sets a lot of freedom and wiggle room for many genres and moods [to appear]. By sticking to our guns sonically and not restricting ourselves to a particular sound, our tastes transition smoothly and add to the set's journey.
How does improvisation fuel your creativity?
Improvisation is the foundation of No News. It’s everything to us: where we found our sound, how we let steam off and how we all became best mates. Improv motivates our creativity as it allows us not to have any boundaries with our ideas. It allows us to workshop ideas in a live setting and lets the audience become part of the creative process. We'll have a set list for Big Yawn, but we’re super keen to go off-script and see where we go. We’ve loved playing ghetto/booty house live lately, as well as dub, Latin-orientated house, DnB and West African and Latin rhythms.
No News kicked off 2024 with a bang at Sonder Festival and Wide Open Space. What’s next for you musically?
What’s next is we’re putting more energy into recording and releasing music. We’ll be releasing a few singles at the end of October [and we’re] looking forward to putting pen to paper [and forming] a lot of ideas that have been marinating over the run of shows we recently did. On June 5 we are playing two sets at Section 8, which has been a goal for NoNews for some time. Sonny is joining Cam and Simon over in Naarm/Melbourne after the Big Yawn gig. Having all three of us in Victoria will be a huge step forward for No News–we’ve been divided across two states for the past year. We’re really just keen to play live as much as we can and release tracks.
See No News support Big Yawn alongside Georgia Oatley at The Lab on July 6. Tickets on sale now via The Lab.
