AT/ALL is a Melbourne-based electronic trio featuring Pascal Babare, Matthew Nicholson, and Lucy Roleff.
In 2014, the trio, who are long time friends, created what was to later become their debut LP, Sun Dogs.
The album is centered around progressive and alternative electronic music that is both avant-garde and pop. The album features a fair amount of delay and sequencing all backed by powerful vocals, rich guitar riffs and intelligible phrasing.
Below you can stream their single “Deeper,” which properly showcases their ability to create downtempo, thought-provoking and warm electronic music.
We’ve also included a brief Q&A with Matthew Nicholson of AT/ALL, which you can also find below.
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Casablanca Sunset: How long have you been making music?
AT/ALL: Making music I’d define as coming up with it myself, and not the years of conventional piano lesson repetition prior to that. Actually making stuff up began for me around 1990 when I was about 13 and first started playing around with tape manipulation, audio collage and simple guitar-based songs, still living in Geelong. I used to make cassettes of bizarre collage made from manipulated recordings from the radio including my emerging first songs.
CBS: How would you describe your sound to someone that has never heard AT/ALL before?
A/A: Dance music for the inside and the outside. Dance music for music nerds. Pop music for anyone. Experimental musicians making their first electronic pop record together. What I’d prefer to dance to when people at parties put on lame shit. A psychedelic music troupe passing through a disco bardo.
CBS: How does Australian culture influence your music as an artist and composer? It seems there is a lot of really good music coming out of Melbourne.
A/A: I certainly came out of a rich local music culture, both in Geelong as a teen in the early 90s, then in Melbourne whilst there on and off over the years. There’s a certain down-to-earth-realness in Australian culture and the music community which reality-checks egos to some degree, and at best, encourages a healthy sense of striving to do great stuff artistically, the healthy side of competition in a fairly dense and saturated music culture. In the 90s, I felt like I had a handle on most of what was good going around town, now it’s much bigger than that in Melbourne. Loads of interesting new stuff emerging all the time. Living in LA now, which is even more huge & indefinable in terms of its arts culture, having come from another strong music culture, it’s interesting and I dig it.
CBS: The Sun Dog album spends a lot of time floating between the background and the foreground of the listener’s listening experience. Both vocally and from an instrumental perspective. Is this by design? Are there any other artists that’ve influenced you to put together an album like this?
A/A: The pieces mostly began as instrumentals, so they are designed to kind of tell a story in and of themselves. We were so lucky that Lucy wanted to be a part of this early on – as she came and brought such a feeling of human intimacy and closeness to the songs. Between us we have such a wide palette of musical appreciation, so anything could happen really. The artists that have influenced us are innumerable, and I’m perpetually curious about merging the experimental sound-arty side of things with fine pop – so, the strange nature of this record speaks mostly of the combination of its authors – we each have very full musical lives, numerous bands, solo releases etc.
CBS: What’s next for AT/ALL? Any shows or upcoming releases?
A/A: We’re just beginning to look at ideas for the next album – so we have some fun ahead. Working with Pascal and Lucy is as exciting as working with musical heroes, these just happen to be good friends. We might play some US shows next year if the right opportunities roll up.
Thanks Matt! Look forward to hearing more from AT/ALL down the road.
For more on AT/ALL you can check out there website here.