Slumberjack Have Made You The Ultimate Bass Playlist
Today's listening = sorted.
Earlier this month, Perth favourites Slumberjack dropped their shiny new EP, Sarawak.
The five-track crusher was written and recorded when the duo — Morgan Then and Fletcher Ehlers — retreated to Morgan’s homeland of Borneo to get away from their hectic touring cycle, which had left them both exhausted.
“There’s been a lot of touring in the last year, all over the globe, and it’s been unbelievably incredible, but it’s left us feeling digitally isolated and has strangled creativity, ” said Fletcher. “This cycle desperately needed to be broken, so we decided to travel… again.
“But this was different – we went somewhere that was very familiar to Morgan and extremely foreign to me. Somewhere we could spend time living fully in the present, experiencing the natural beauty of the rainforest and sampling the unique sounds of the jungles, caves and traditional instruments we came across.”
The resulting EP features collaborations with the likes of TroyBoi, Ekali, and Machine Age, and reasserts the duo’s position at the forefront of Austalia’s bass scene. To celebrate its release, we asked the duo to pull together their ultimate bass party playlist, featuring a few cuts of their own, and some favourites that they frequently drop in their sets.
“We have a set of criteria when determining whether a song is worthy,” Morgan Then tells Music Junkee about the final playlist. “Complexity/simplicity of rhythm, key/scale selection, overall uniqueness and also production quality; so you can safely say we are picky with what we play in our DJ sets.
“A few standouts for us in this list: Salah, Reptilians, Medallion, and Whiplash; these songs score 10 out of 10 on every aspect of what we think is a good bass record. They hit hard yet contain memorable melodic and rhythmic hooks. Quality pair of speakers or headphones HIGHLY recommended. Enjoy.”
Listen to the playlist below, and when you’re done with that, dive into Sarawak. Slumberjack will be taking the EP out on the road next month, check out all the dates and details here.