Speaking from their Brunswick studio-slash-“sexy party space”, Ed Service - one half of explosive DJ duo SHOUSE - keeps reaching out for the end of the same thread that knits the musicians’ ethos all together: communitas.
The Latin word underlines everything SHOUSE does. From the word-of-mouth parties they throw in their studio space to their recent stint at RISING that saw them turn the audience into a choir, the duo’s practice of communitas may have began on their astronomically successful single Love Tonight, but it’s as potent as ever across their debut album Collective Ecstasy.
While Love Tonight received its time in the sun in 2021 after finding its way across the decks of DJs like Vintage Culture and David Guetta, Ed and Jack Madin’s 2017 track is back again on their recent record. It’s an apt reminder of how far they’ve come in the almost-decade since the song’s inception.
SHOUSE Collective Ecstasy album launch
- With a live choir
- Saturday 30 August
- Northcote Theatre
- Tickets here
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“The album has essentially been a record of the last 10 years of our lives,” Ed says about Collective Ecstasy. “All these songs that we recorded in Collingwood in our first studio and in every studio in between, and studios we visited in Europe and America. It’s in a sense a ‘best of’ the last 10 years of our lives. It’s a collection of songs that sum up that period.”
The record is brimming with collaborations both from near and far. Local legends like Cub Sport and Vance Joy float to the surface of respective tracks, grounding the cascades of electronic haze with their incomparable shimmer.
Elsewhere, friend and indie-folk musician Dandelion Head appears in what was one of Ed’s “favourite experiences – creation-wise – on the record”, making Slow Road. “He gets away with singing lyrics that you can only do with that accent, you know,” Ed says.
“It went from being a short little pop song to being this 10 minute journey with guitar and all these shifts and drum machines and synths. It actually really inhabited the idea of the song, which is slowing down and chilling out.”
From a warehouse in Naarm to stages in Ibiza
For an album that was almost 10 years in the making, the creation of Collective Ecstasy has been itself an exercise in slowing down. While there were slivers of pressure on SHOUSE to follow up Love Tonight with more music after its explosive reemergence in 2021, Ed clarifies that there wasn’t as much pressure on them to make an album.
“Interestingly, Love Tonight thrusted us into this DJ world, you know. We come from this Melbourne underground electronic scene – which was 10 years ago – that was experimental, emerging electronic music. Things like computers and drum machines were for the first time kind of going on stage; rock bands were bringing on synthesisers or someone making beats on a computer or whatever. It was this weird crossover time.”
A ‘weird’ time in the scene is perhaps the most ideal kind. When sounds are being discovered and roads are yet to be paved, anything can happen. And everything did. “It was quite beautiful and people were just experimenting – and we were one of those acts,” Ed says. Fast-forward five years and SHOUSE were soundtracking raves on beaches to audiences of tens of thousands. “That was very different,” he adds.
“The DJ experience can be kind of alienating for us at times. Particularly when we’re thrust onto big Ibiza stages and things like that, which can be wonderful and amazing, but also this aspect of it, like, you’ve got thousands of people here and you’re deciding to watch these two guys with their hands in the air. Why aren’t we all doing something musical together?”
“It’s nice to wrap a little box around [it] and move on”
Another difference to the DJ way of things “is that albums are not really a thing in that world.” Ed says, “We always wanted to make a record and it’s always been on the back burner. At times we’ve oscillated to make this big, deep, introspective record – you know, as artists are wont to do. And other times we’re like, let’s put some bangers on there, let’s make a collection of tracks.
“Eventually we settled on working with our team and label to select [a collection of] tracks that sum up this last period of our life musically and that people might want to hear. It’s nice to wrap a little box around this period and put some artwork on it and then move on, you know.”
When Love Tonight blew up in 2021, SHOUSE started to jet all over the world to appear on stages and hypnotise crowds. It was time – clearly – for Ed and Jack to quit their day jobs and take on music full-time. “One thing I miss from working in a job is big teams of diverse people that you work with to achieve a goal,” Ed reflects. “But the way we’ve supplemented that has been having a very social and active studio.”
Connecting to community through choir
“We’ve found ways to continue to plug into society, to make us still feel connected,” he continues. “I think it’s easy for music, particularly these days, to be an experience of one or two people on a computer sending stems around. I’ve enjoyed the social aspects of our practice lately a lot. I guess the success of [Love Tonight] – where it’s catapulted us in our lives – has taught us about the value of collaborative music and choirs and people coming together.”
Ed points out that the only place SHOUSE has unleashed their live sets is in their hometown of Naarm. The same goes for this upcoming tour. The duo will be bringing Collective Ecstasy on the road this August, with DJ sets in Sydney and Brisbane and a very special live show on 30 August at Northcote Theatre.
“We’re going to try something new and we’re going to see how it goes. We’re going to get a big choir on stage, we’re going to have live singers, instrumentalists,” Ed says. “I’m very confident it’s going to be pretty special.”
For tickets to see SHOUSE on Saturday 30 August, head here. To listen to Collective Ecstasy, head here.
