You don’t have to be an aficionado of dance culture to appreciate the sterling pop hooks, infectious rhythms and mischievous eccentricity of this ground-breaking, genre-splicing act. The Correspondents are sonic alchemists who conjure a seamless, coherent and original sound by blending everything from jazz, swing, boogie woogie and ‘60s beat to electronica, drum and bass, and hip hop.
“Both of us have always enjoyed lots of different types of music and we haven’t felt the need to do just one of them,” Cole says of this magpie approach to composition. “In fact, we try to fit as many [styles] as we can in the same track…there’s a certain confused uniqueness to it.”
This dynamic duo have lit up stages at major events such as the Glastonbury Festival, Secret Garden Party, Bestival, Kendal Calling, Shambala UK, Lovebox Weekender, Camden Calling, Big Chill, Sunrise Celebration and Nozstock. With The Telegraph newspaper in the UK listing The Correspondents in their Top Ten Highlights of Glastonbury two years in a row, I asked Cole about the secret to their live success.
“Mr Bruce, our singer, is probably the most energetic person you are ever going to meet!” he said. “There’s a lot of movement on stage…I think we are memorable.”
A great deal of Mr Bruce’s energy is channelled into a spectacular array of compelling, original and fun dance-moves. At times, it’s hard to believe that anyone can remain energised for so long without collapsing into a sweaty heap. The word ‘dynamo’ springs to mind.
“It’s very much personal to him,” Cole says. “He’s certainly never had any lessons. Both of us spent a fair bit of our formative clubbing years going to drum and bass clubs…a lot of [his dance style] came from the pace and intensity of drum and bass…it’s all about intensity…he didn’t even really dance in front of the mirror. It all just rehearses itself as we do shows.” The crowd tends to feed off this contagious energy. As Cole explains, “there can be some serious perspiration going on in the crowd!”
The Correspondents manage to embrace spontaneity and a decidedly crowd-friendly approach onstage. “I tend to keep it fairly simple. I see myself as a producer first and a DJ second. It’s mainly playing the tracks and then adding sound effects and some scratching. Our sets are not static – they change a lot depending on how the crowd is going and what their reaction to it is. We can do lighter, jazzier, swingier sets [but] we probably slightly prefer doing the slightly darker, more self-indulgent sets, but there is a lot of toing and froing between those different styles.”
Away from the live setting The Correspondents have been successful in capturing their spirit and creativity in the form of entrancing and often cinematic music videos. “We have [tried] to capture some of the energy from our shows. There’s so many music videos out there [so] we just try to do something unique [while] keeping the message simple.”
Speaking about the coming 12 months, Cole says, “We have an album coming out in March. We are very excited about [it]…we have been doing this for six years and haven’t actually put out an album. We have put out EPs and singles – we have always toured too much to settle down and get an album finished so we are really excited to put our stamp on our music and see what people think about it. We will be in Australia over the New Year. We will [then] be touring the album anywhere that will take us.”
BY GRAHAM BLACKLEY
