LANCELOT

Doing The Disco Dance

Sydney based DJ and producer Lancelot has only been DJing for six months. Having studied at the Sydney Conservatorium Of Music, the 22-year-old who formerly wrote and produced electro tunes as two-piece AEONS, has just released his debut EP We Can Dance. ANNABEL MACLEAN chats with the man behind the moniker, Lance Gurisik, about the EP and the future for Lancelot.

“We have a coffee machine at work and I’ve become a pro at doing double espressos,” Lance Gurisik says down the line from Sydney, revealing that he’s roughly a month behind in sleep. Reluctant to intertwine chatter about his composition and score work for film and television and Lancelot’s productions, Gurisik says there are certain elements from this studies at the Con which have influenced his work as Lancelot and he’s been conscious as to how these elements have been manifested. “There is a certain mould and there is a certain ‘you know how things work, where it should go’ [formula] and that is a great thing but breaking away from that and doing something interesting, that’s my passion – taking all that knowledge and putting it into a cool place,” he says.

That “cool” place is Lancelot’s debut EP We Can Dance which saw him become one of the top 10 most blogged artists on Hype Machine after the release of the EP’s first single Spoken Word which topped almost 20,000 streams on SoundCloud in less than two weeks. “I’ve always had an issue with sticking to a certain path of what I want to do but I think I’ve kind of found a sonic sound that I’m happy with at the moment,” Gurisik says of the EP.
Gurisik invested the help of Brisbanephotographer Matt Kahn whose image of a young lady curling over in a swimming pool graces the EP’s front cover. “He’s an amazing photographer,” Gurisik says. “We were actually going to go with this other image but thank god we went with that one… I wanted something that isn’t too serious and replicates that kind of poolside setting where it’s like chilled out new disco stuff; no harsh colours. People keep being like ‘Lance, is that you?’ and I’m like ‘that’s a chick, that’s not me!’. Trust me, my legs are a lot hairier that that (laughs).”

Gurisik’s remix of Matt Corby’s Brother has been disco-smattering the Triple J airwaves and it won’t be long until he delivers a Cat Call remix and another forSydney three-piece Rufus. And, with a love forArtDepartment, Lovebirds, Soul Clap and Moon Boots, Lancelot fans should prepare themselves for more disco mania coming their way. “The new EP is hopefully set [to be] out end of the year and I’m still in discussions of what will be next – it could be another few EPs or if I’m ready for an album I’ll do an album but I’m in no rush to do an album,” he says.“I’m 22 and I want to make sure that it’s something that I’m ready for. It’s kind of a big commitment; writing for a long period of time and staying consistent and I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet.”

As for his DJ set here tonight, he’s definitely ready for that. “I only started DJing seriously about six months ago; I picked it up really quickly,” he says. “The response has been overwhelming to be honest; DJing is a lot of fun. Being in a band – I’ve been there done that with all these sound checks at like three hours before the gig – [with] DJing your responsibility is for people to have fun and set up a sonic vibe from start to finish, there has to be a build, you kinda tell stories through tracks you love and that’s a pretty powerful thing.”

LANCELOT
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2 @ RED SEA