Touch Sensitive: Taking You To Paradise
Enigmatic groove master Touch Sensitive has returned with his long-awaited sophomore album, In Paradise. Ahead of the record’s release, the man behind Touch Sensitive (Michael Di Francesco) opened up to The Note about collaborating with other artists, the impact of becoming a father and coming full circle as an artist.
Words Emily Wilson // Image Cybele Malinowski
“You’re kidding me. It’s been eight years?”
This is what Michael Di Francesco - the mind behind the impeccable vibe-crafting electronic project Touch Sensitive - says when it is mentioned to him that his forthcoming release In Paradise is his first album in eight years.
“Oh my god,” he laughs amiably, Zooming in from Los Angeles. “So much has changed.”
Slated for an August 22nd release, In Paradise is undoubtedly a summery record, imbued with mellow, grooving warmth - the perfect album to usher in the returning sun. Characterised by strong Italo-disco inflections, the retro feel of In Paradise recalls a lazy 1970s Sunday afternoon.
“I spent probably eight years working and playing on other people’s records,” Di Francesco reflects. This includes playing in Genesis Owusu’s award-winning Black Dog Band, being part of the Flight Facilities and Izzi Manfredi live shows and contributing bass to countless Australian records. “And then I had this idea just to get together with all my friends and see what happened, and that’s where we are now.”
The album includes appearances from such names as Connie Mitchell from Sneaky Sound System and Larry Dunn from Earth, Wind, and Fire, amongst several others. “My life has changed, and the world has changed too. It’s crazy. It’s unrecognisable. It’s pretty bonkers at the moment, but it’s probably always been bonkers. It’s just way more immediate now.”
The nature of Francesco’s music involves a lot of collaboration, so it is important for him to be able to create a recording or writing environment that is comfortable and inspiring for the artists that he works with, though how he does so “depends from track to track,” he says.
“In the past,” he explains, “there have been things where we’ve gone into a session and we’ve just started something from scratch, or I might already have a few things on the go and I’ll pull them up. But this last record was purely everything from scratch from the ground up with the players. We all just went into a studio and sat behind instruments and I was like, ‘Okay, let’s do something like this,’ and we would just do it on the spot. Which is kind of exciting, but then also kind of daunting. There were thirty-two or so tracks by the end. And some of them were eighteen minutes long.”
How does he cut back when tracks become long and unwieldy?
“You just have to be brutal. That’s the thing - you just have to go, that’s the best bit, that’s the best bit, and from there, build around it.”
It appears to be a monumental process. He sums up his relationship with the artists who feature on his records: “If someone’s coming in to collaborate or to sing on something, it’s like they’re just an extra member of the band, even if they might not have been there at the time of conception.” It is important, even when various players are involved at different parts of the process, for the track to still feel “cohesive”.
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Since the release of his 2013 hit ‘Pizza Guy’ - which attained extra popularity through being featured in an advertisement for the online retailer Very - Touch Sensitive has been an ARIA-charting cult favourite, and he has very much been a regular on the festival circuit.
Maintaining hyped up festival energy for long stretches of time can’t always be easy.
“When you take a break and step back for a minute, it seems like a really daunting process,” he admits. “But once you’re in the swing of it, it’s your life, and that’s what you’re doing.”
After having a child, Di Francesco “chilled out for a little bit” and took a break from touring. “And when I went back on tour - with Roosevelt, it was a bus tour in the US - I remember getting onto the bus and just doing the first show and being like… I missed it so much. So once you’re on a roll and you’re doing it, you don’t really notice how crazy it is.”
How did becoming a father impact his relationship to producing music and making art?
“You know what, I really struggled with it the first year. It was hard,” he confides. “When I think back, I’m impressed at what I was able to do in that time, because that was around the time that the first Genesis Owusu album happened. I was super busy. I was mourning the time I was missing. I guess my priorities shifted a little bit.”
Being a father obviously limits one’s ability to constantly go out dancing and hit the club - youthful experiences he draws from “all the time” when making music.
“When was the last time I went out for a proper good dance…?” he muses. “Oh my god, that’s rough. I can’t think of anything. I probably haven’t been dancing as much as I should. But I feel like I did do all the clubbing things and I do draw from that.”
He hesitates and then qualifies his previous statement. “I guess if I was truly drawing from that era I would probably make a house record. This was kind of more making a record that house people would sample, maybe, is a way of looking at it. This record - I wouldn’t call it club music. But hopefully other people can make club versions of it. That would be cool.”
Is that something he is conscious of when he makes music - that his songs could enjoy second lives through being sampled by other people?
“I mean, not really, but you never know,” he says. “[In Paradise] was more just me trying to impress my friends and be uncompromising, rather than just making songs to make hits. Because I feel like for a little period there, I thought that making a song with vocals was the answer to all my problems. But it’s not.”
He expands, explaining, “I kind of feel like, when I perform and it’s just me, I feel silly playing along to a track that has someone else’s vocals on there, and it’s a verse and a chorus and I’m not singing. And it’s not how the project started. The project started as primarily instrumental. So, in a way, it’s kind of gone back to what it was.”
And it is true - with his paradisial new record, air and nostalgic and grooving, Touch Sensitive has gone full circle.
In Paradise by Touch Sensitive is released Friday 22 August.
