The mastermind behind Australia’s beloved indie-dance act discusses their first album in nine years and upcoming Royal Botanic Gardens gig.
Australian electropop is incomplete without Miami Horror’s disco-infused synthpop, the brainchild of Melbourne-born, LA-based producer Benjamin Plant.
When that genre of EDM was the craze in the 2010s, Miami Horror’s laidback, summery songs were highlights – and still are. Their 2010 debut Illumination boasts multiple classics: The uplifting I Look to You ft. Kimbra, the nu-disco banger Holidays with chillwave star Alan Palomo, plus the youth anthem Sometimes.
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They continued writing, releasing album two in 2015 and an EP in 2017, but kept quiet shortly after. Miami Horror were figuring out where to go next.
“We wrote a lot of songs in 2017–18 that were funk, soul-oriented like KAYTRANADA and Calvin Harris with Frank Ocean on Slide,” Benjamin says. “We spent two years on it, but were like, ‘Nah, this doesn’t sound like it makes sense.’ We came back to writing the new album around 2020.”
That album is We Always Had Tomorrow, which was released back in February. More mature than the electro-heavy Illumination, the warm and poignant Avalanches-esque stylings are a marked evolution.
The shift to mellower arrangements wasn’t an accident. “One thing I’ve always done is try to find where we fit in,” Benjamin explains. “So, around 2020 when COVID happened, I reassessed what was important and trends went out of the window.”
Benjamin sums up Miami Horror’s new reflective direction as “deeper and meaningful”. The songs explore the cycle of life, the universe and humanity’s role in the cosmos – all things he was interested in as a kid. “I was trying to bring that in which Illumination touched on, but in a deeper way,” he says.
Writing on piano, a first for Benjamin, helped him organically unleash those themes: “It was a new way of finding nuance and emotion that felt like it meant something, so you could start with that feeling, as opposed to it being an aesthetic choice.”
The album’s not all wistful – Glowin’ and Remember are some funkier songs Benjamin reveals were “actually written later”.
“We were at one point considering only having emotional stuff on the album, almost doing two halves – one more sampling fun, the other more emotive,” Benjamin shares, noting it would’ve been “weird” for people to choose a side.
We Always Had Tomorrow wouldn’t exist without the stellar homegrown collaborators like Tim Ayre, Alice Ivy and Telenova’s Angeline Armstrong laying down their talent. I ask Benjamin what was different between his US collaborators and those down under. The answer? He’s on the same wavelength as the Aussies.
“I felt a lot of the [US] sessions were strange… Like, we’re culturally quite different,” Benjamin says plainly. “When I started doing sessions with Australian artists, it was like you were working with somebody on the same level, who’s interested in the same things.”
He adds: “A lot of them, the younger people, had their moment with Miami Horror at some point. That felt really cool – not doing a session with a random person that didn’t know our stuff really helped.”
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Benjamin admits it’s sometimes “quite hard” to have fun creating as Miami Horror, so doing it with peers who understand him took him out of that stress. Tim worked on three sample-based tracks. Alice Ivy helped get songs across the line when Benjamin felt lost. Angeline’s voice was the “special” cherry on top that finished We’re All Made of Stars.
Now, Benjamin’s taking the album to the Royal Botanic Gardens. As part of Live at the Gardens, Miami Horror are set to perform alongside Sneaky Sound System and Bag Raiders, with DJs AROHA and Joey Lightbulb joining in. It’ll be a night celebrating local electropop royalty.
Part of him is unsure – “I don’t know how people see us anymore. I’ve let go of that because that’s the only way I can move forward without overthinking,” he shares – but he admits this lineup is special.
“It builds this super strong nostalgic thing,” Benjamin says. “We didn’t even really get that combo back in the day. The sum of it is so rare that it just makes it a better experience than us doing three separate shows.”
Miami Horror’s return may be tinged with nostalgia, but that’s why it’s wonderful, and doing to one of Melbourne’s most gorgeous gardens makes it all the more beautiful.
Miami Horror are playing at the Royal Botanic Gardens on 29 November. Get tickets here.
