Load up on Red Bull and bring your friends – English house duo Dusky will be playing some seriously lengthy sets on their Australian tour, says DJ Alfie Granger-Howell.

“We have already started our tour in the UK and Europe,” he says. “We’re doing extended sets; about four hours, which gives us the chance to play a lot of different music and new stuff.”

Formed in 2011, the duo rose quickly to play clubs and festivals internationally, including a recent appearance at Glastonbury.

“We hoped that it would kick off and turn into something big,” Granger-Howell says. “At the beginning we were both doing part-time work and other music work. It’s been a while now, but being able to just put our whole lives into Dusky has been pretty amazing, and not something that we really expected. It’s quite a short space of time, but the last three years have been a steady [rise] for us. At the same time, if we look back and think how much has changed for us, it does seem like a short space of time. We had some other music projects before – both producing and deejaying – but for Dusky, it does feel like it’s happened quickly.”

The upcoming Australian shows will give the duo – known for their eclectic tastes – a chance to air an abundance of new material.

“We’ve been playing a few new tracks in the set and people have been getting into the action, which is always good fun. We like to tailor our sets to the crowd’s reactions. Sometimes we’ll play something deeper, something more house or something more techno, depending on what the crowd is reacting to. Either way, we tend to play quite eclectically, so expect a few different styles and genres in the set.”

With an almost unbelievable six EPs already under their belts, expect a follow-up to 2012 debut album Stick By This to be released in the not-too-distant future, albeit after one more EP release.

“We just love the EP format,” Granger-Howell says. “We’ve always just had the music sitting there, so it makes sense to put them out, although we have a few tracks we keep just for our sets. We enjoy getting the music out there, seeing the reaction and letting people listen to it. We just enjoy doing it, and to me it doesn’t seem like a huge amount of music, but I guess when you really look at it, it is a lot. We are aiming to release another album at some point next year, which we have been working on. We began working on it alongside our future EP. It’s probably about halfway there now; we’ve got about six or seven tracks finished, so it’s well on the way.”

With such an eclectic range of music emanating from the mixing desks of two people, it’s certain that they won’t agree on everything, says Granger-Howell.

“We’ve got quite similar tastes but we both listen to stuff outside of dance music that we don’t necessarily share the love of. Looking at my musical background, I’ve been into a lot of classical music and jazz which I don’t think Nick has any affinity to. He listens to some electronica and old soul stuff; I wouldn’t say I hate them, but I wouldn’t listen to them.”

DUSKY PLAY:

FRI 7 – THE MET, BRISBANE
SAT 8 – HARBOURLIFE, SYDNEY
SUN 16 – QUEEN VICTORIA MARKET, MELBOURNE

THEIR LATEST EP, LOVE TAKING OVER, IS OUT NOW VIA 17 STEPS.

For mX