A project started in the turbulence of lockdown and an epilepsy diagnosis, Our Carlson is the brainchild of carpenter-by-day, beatmaster-by-night Carlson.
Known for the infectious energy that accompanies his intensely bantery live show, Carlson – who lets me know that “only doctors and cops call me by my full name. It’s like Madonna or Prince. Prince had epilepsy as well” – is set to release A Bit2Much at the Northcote Social Club on November 17.
Featuring tracks Acid Kicks In, Domming The Doctor and Hyperbolic Paraboloid, with the B-side featuring remixes from Rings Around Saturn, Toecutter and Vessa, A Bit2Much is being released through his own record label – BDSM-420 Records. It’s the long-awaited sophomore offering to 2021’s A Bit Much.
“I got epilepsy when I was 33,” he explains on the inception of Our Carlson. “My whole world had changed – from having to change my job and just thinking at any second you could have a seizure, it changed so much about my life.
“And then I don’t know, one day I was just walking around the house and I just had this narrative in my head and I just got this device out and recorded it.
“Then I got together with one of my mates, Izzy [Stabs] and just started making beats and putting it to it. I just thought it was going to be a little pet project. It was my therapy. I was working out what was going on.
“When it all started […] it was in all that lockdown time and we just were like, it’s like a silly joke. We’ll call it Our Carlson. It’s a direct rip of Our Kylie – Our Kylie Minogue. I thought it was just going to be another one of my little bands that plays three shows and a couple of people buy the record or download it and that’s it.”
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Collaboration is at the heart of Our Carlson’s creative process, which is reflected in his onstage antics with DJ Cash Daddy, the remixes featured on A Bit2Much and beyond. “I just want to keep collaborating. I dunno when to stop by myself.”
If you’ve caught an Our Carlson gig before, the blistering and uniquely Australian onstage banter between DJ Cash Daddy (frontwoman of Cash Savage and the Last Drinks) and Carlson makes up the comedic backbone of their performance. “We spend a lot of time together talking shit, drinking … which is our band practice pretty much,” he explains.
“My first Our Carlson show was going to be at the Old Bar just coming out of lockdown, but then Cash Savage and The Last Drinks got offered the Forum the same night and Cash asked me to open for them.
“I was like mate, I ain’t going to sell you one ticket to that thing. But she was like, no, let’s do it.”
The rest is history and Our Carlson has been on a roll ever since. From a Saturday afternoon slot at Meredith, to last weekend’s Yours and Owls, to Dark Mofo, it really seems like Australia can’t get enough.
Their performance at Meredith was my own personal introduction to Our Carlson. It was a show characterised by Carlson’s interstitial reminders that “strobe lights are ableist”, which has since had wide-reaching effects on the stance that the team at Meredith have taken on their strobe policy.
“I guess I’m pretty loud,” he laughs. “Yeah, when I get onto something, I’m kind of on it.
“And to be given Meredith – that stage and that microphone – it’s a big opportunity and I dunno, people had been complaining about the strobes the night before a lot and I guess I just started going, and the crowd responded to it.
“Something like 10% of people with epilepsy struggle with strobes, but then just also listening to all friends with autism or friends on the spectrum and how much [strobe lights] affect them.
“A lot of us whose brains work a bit differently love electronic music. And you don’t need strobes to enjoy yourself; they’re a cheap trick.
“Meredith does have the whole feedback form afterwards, they ask you what your experience was like and I think a lot of people wrote ‘great festival, but easy on the strobes’ and Meredith is just the kind of festival that would do that, that’ll listen. But to do it so quick and to cut it back so much by Golden Plains is such a testament.”
Our Carlson’s collaborative spirit extends to the tracks on A Bit2Much, which features remixes of his original tracks by three different producers/DJs. On the Hyperbolic Paraboloid remix, he explains, “I found Vessa through WIP Project, a database of women, non-binary people, and trans people within the electronic music industry. I was looking for non-cis males to do some producing.”
Then there’s Toecutter, who Our Carlson affectionately describes as “a bit of a legend. He’s got just an amazing record called We Topia that I play a lot when I DJ. When I play it, sometimes it goes off, sometimes it clears dancefloors. It’s just, yeah, it’s insanity.
“He sent [the remix of Domming The Doctor] to me, and I sent it back and was like, ‘say Toecutter more, mate. Everywhere. Put more Toecutter on it.’”
Carlson was a big fan of the self-titled Rings Around Saturn album and the XL-3NDLES5 XL mix and felt the track Acid Kicks In was perfect for Rory McPike (Rings Around Saturn) to remix. It sounds like the three Matrix movies playing at once.
Carlson is no stranger to the Aussie music circuit, having been a part of the 2000s hardcore scene. “In Naarm, the electronic music scene is just full of hardcore kids,” Carlson explains.
“[Electronic music] is quite punk – you can make it yourself. In your lounge room, in your bedroom, on your computer, you just download Ableton. You just do it and then you can just release it yourself.
“And I kind of got sick of bands and losing members. When I was in hardcore bands when I was in my 20s, it was fine. You’re kind like, ‘do you wanna go on tour?’ And you would just go do it. Quit your job and go into it. It doesn’t matter. But in your 30s, not so much.”
The suit that Carlson wears to all his live performances was hand-painted by 20-year-old Declan Kavanagh-Bugel, aka Deckie. An artist with autism and an intellectual disability, Deckie recently made headlines for selling every piece at his first-ever exhibition in August, which Carlson DJ’d at.
“I met Sienna [his support worker] and she brought Deckie to a show at the Brunswick Ballroom,” Carlson says. “It was the Dr. Sure’s Unusual Practice’s Odd Ball Show. And they were both dressed in suits that Deck had made.
“I had this Flowers denim suit that I was waiting to get something done with and I saw that and was like, can you paint me a suit Deck?
“He handed the suit over five days later it was back painted. They’d gone to a screen printing place and ran it through so it can all be washed and everything and it pops. It looks so good.”
Our Carlson will be bringing it all to his record launch at the Northcote Social Club on November 17, where he’ll be spinning the remixes alongside support from Quality Used Cars (“their new record [Quality Of Life] is just amazing”) and Hot Tubs Time Machine (“long time favourite lyricist of mine, Marcus. Yeah, I’ve definitely been stealing from Mark for a long time”).
A Bit2Much will be released on vinyl via BDSM-420 records. Catch the record launch at the Northcote Social Club on November 17.
