“It started a really long time ago. I wrote the record in June-July last year, so over a year ago now. And before that it all came about through meeting Daedalus and hanging out with him at South By Southwest and playing a little show there. So he got me thinking about putting a record out,” he recalls. “The actual writing of the record was just like a typical bedroom producer, just locking myself up for six weeks and making music every day constantly – 16 to 20 hours a day, something stupid where you hardly sleep. It was a really long time to see a proper release, I think it was March of this year.”
While his compositions are intricately crafted in his home, the tracks take on a cyclonic life in the live setting thanks to some sampler mastery. “I love performing that way. I come from that improvisational background so it’s really important to me that I can come up on stage and create something new and not necessarily play something like I did on the record. I can kind of pride myself on being able to take my recorded songs and reconsider and recontextualise and hopefully let them make a bit more sense to an audience in the live context,” he muses. “I like improvising and coming up with new melodies and modulations with previously recorded things. People who have heard the record at home are still excited by it, and for other people it’s accessible and based around melody and harmony.”
In the lead-up to the release of the album, Trent suffered a massive setback just as he was due to depart for New Zealand’s Camp A Low Hum festival. “It’s not something I really love talking about. Basically I got in a bike accident and broke my collarbone. That’s the long and the short of it,” he states. “I was out of action for three months. Sadly, it also happened in September last year, then the day before I was heading to Camp A Low Hum I did the exact same thing again. It was quite a bit of bad luck. I had my right arm in a sling so I was told not to move it at all. I made a lot of music with one hand, I put out a little cassette tape earlier in the year as well called Nuance, which is stuff I just made with one hand while injured. I tried to keep busy with it, but it was difficult to play guitar or play keyboard. There was a lot of time spent staring at a computer screen watching movies or chopping samples – stuff you don’t need two hands for.”
There’s a tangible newfound appreciation for electronic-based music, with barriers being broken down particularly in the Melbourne scene. “I think it’s a combination of finding my place and creating my own place,” Trent ponders. “I’ve been spending a lot of time working with the This Thing crew and trying to build up more of an electronic scene in the city. It’s not so much that the city is changing, it’s just that there are more opportunities opening up. Those artists you mentioned, Collarbones have a weird R&B-pop angle that enables them to connect with people in a different way. Seekae are a funny on for me, I’ve never been able to pick what it is that makes people latch onto them. They’re doing super well and those guys are doing a great job making some really good music and reaching a really broad crowd. I supported them a while ago at East Brunswick Club and it was the most varied crowd I’ve seen in a long time. I did my album launch at Phoenix Public House – again, another amazing venue that shut down – and that show was incredible, it had a whole cross section of the Melbourne community.”
Performing at the Game Masters exhibition enables Trent to head down a little early and indulge in some videogame action. “I’ve been overseas so I haven’t had much chance to head down to the city. I’m really looking forward to going down and checking it out. I’ve always kind of been a bit of a videogame nerd at heart, so it’ll be fun to go down there and relive that a little bit. I guess mine were Mario-style games, but the crazier ones,” he reveals “I was into Super Nintendo back in the day and would play Super Star Wars forever. The aim of the game is to get from the left of the screen to the right of the screen. Just a really simple task. I guess that’s why it captured my imagination.”
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
