Odd sonics with soul

James Duncan grew up on a diverse diet of music; from Jeff Buckley to electronica, pop and desert-stoner band Kyuss. Photo / Supplied

Driving away from the cafe where I'd just interviewed James Duncan, I spied the wiry, leather and denim-clad musician skipping along the footpath.

We'd both just had a couple of strong long blacks, so maybe it was a spontaneous burst of energy. Or maybe it was a chuffed, celebratory leap for joy as he thought about having just released his debut solo album, Hello-Fi, a woozy, poppy, and at times menacing dose of electronic songwriting wizardry.

"What an odd chap," I thought.

I had thought this even before I'd met the guy after listening to his album quite a lot over the last three weeks.

And I thought it again during the interview, because Duncan has a slightly awkward yet polite demeanour and comes up with beautifully flippant remarks about everything from tupperware to Taylor Swift.

While Duncan might be slightly odd, he's likeable and humble with it - yet it's his eccentric side that comes through in his bent-and-twisted music.

For example, the song A Obvious was made with traditional drums - "recorded on two really shitty mics" - and the rest of the beats were tapped out on tupperware containers, of all things.

"You get one of those tupperware lids and tap it lightly and you get this really low dub bassy thing," he says.

And then, most telling of all, he claims he's "falling more and more in love with flawed music. Music that you kind of go: 'F***, that's terrible.' But you still love it."

This is where he cautiously admits to loving country-pop diva Taylor Swift's song You Belong With Me. "It's a really good song but I guess the flawed thing about it is the enormous big bombastic American production is foul," he laughs.

"But I like other flawed music like Lou Reed and all that too."

As well as releasing music under his own name, Duncan is probably best-known as the guitarist in Shayne Carter's band Dimmer, and in the SJD live band.

He also records as Punches, a project with Dimmer's bass player Kelly Steven.

According to Duncan, while Carter and Donnelly are very different musicians, they both influence what he does and he tries to pick up tricks from them.

"Sean's a heads musician, thinks about things, and he's very good at production. Whereas Shayne is more of a mythological creature to me.

"I don't know where his songs come from. They tend to come out of the blue, and they are all quite weird and gnarled in some way, and then you try and make them into a pop song. And so when you see anyone do something, you can't help but be inspired by what they do and you want to have a go at it yourself."

Yet Hello-Fi is utterly unique. If anything, the album is similar to SJD's punchy and loopy album Dayglo Spectres from last year - only darker, more warped, and, well, flawed.

Stylistically the album is all over the place which, in this case, is a good thing, and Duncan says it's a reflection of his musical tastes and the experimental way he likes to write songs.

He grew up on a diverse diet of music; from an early obsession with Jeff Buckley and a fascination with Lou Reed and other musicians from New York, he then went on to pop music, and then got into making computer music as well as developing a penchant for Krautrock and desert-stoner band Kyuss.

He describes his music as "electronic songwriting". It's an apt description, because often electronic music tends towards either being electro-pop or static soundscapes. Rarely does it come across as genuinely singer/songwriter influenced as Hello-Fi does.

"It's not like I'm searching for my sound or anything. I'm not looking for a sound.

"I just like trying different things and different ways to approach songwriting rather than just sitting down with a guitar and coming up with chords. I have songs come to me when I'm hung over in bed."

That particular example was the track, Do U, from Mirror Minor, Duncan's debut EP released back in 2005.

"A hilarious idea for a song that I worked on for way too long. A year working on this joke that turned out not to be funny," he laughs.

Since that EP Duncan has been busy touring and recording with Dimmer and SJD, but in the last two years he has also been able to focus on finishing Hello-Fi.

The opening track is the bittersweet break-up song My New Flumes, a collaboration with Wellington-based electronic pop rebel Bachelorette, then there's the eerie Jesus and Mary Chain drone of Don't Close Your Eyes and the My Bloody Valentine-style Of Everyone Around You, a song he wrote with Jeremy Toy of the Open Souls, which turned up loud is the sort of song that might make you feel nauseous.

Ultimately, though, despite all the weird and wonky sonics, Duncan says he's "in love with pure pop songs".

"It's just the nature of how I got into music. I was in a pop band, then got into computers, and then I was over there making moany pop songs, and then went over there and started doing soundscape computer stuff, and now it seems to be coming together a bit more."

LOWDOWN

Who: James Duncan
What: Electronic songwriting wizardry
Debut album: Hello-Fi, out now
Also: Plays guitar in Dimmer and SJD's band