D/R/U/G/S got mentioned yesterday on the Vanity Fair website. Unfortunately it was part of a blog cussing Altered Zones, the new music blogomerate set up by Pitchfork, and it made fun of the band's semi-autistic love of punctuation. The blogger was too busy sniping to actually listen to the music, which is a shame, because D/R/U/G/S, for all their brackets and backslashes make an awesome racket. The duo deal in club music, but with an organic, spacey bent. Their tracks manage to be both languid and dynamic: songs that reach high but stretch out slowly. Here is a new track from them that does just that. I spoke to Cal and George about hardcover bibles and rap music.
Download: D/R/U/G/S, "Virginity" (br600 Demo)
There are no pictures of your faces anywhere. Are you on the run from someone?
Were just not in a big rush to get a picture of us down some gritty urban location stood against a wall looking moody. We're not trying to be particularly cryptic, I haven't got the energy to come up with some image, or anti-image as not appearing would be.
How do you pronounce your name? Is it D-slash-R-slash-U-slash-G-slash-S? Quite a mouthful.
It's just an interesting word, so many different connotations, most people immediately associate negative ones with it which is always fun. It's not meant to be taken literally. The slashes are there so that when 15-year-old kids in Alabama Google the name their parents don't lose their minds and beat them to death with their hardcover bibles. I hope no one is sitting around calling us D-slash-R-slash-U-slash-G-slash-S, what a waste of a life.
Don't Die Wondering said of you: "part of a slow yet highly welcomed reemergence of ambient house music, creating serotonin-inducing textures that are as contemplative as they are danceable." Vice said of you: "In the vein of Blondes or Teengirl Fantasy, but they're not as good as Blondes and they're better than Teengirl." Discuss.
I don't think there's a scene as such emerging but there's a few artists coming up right now that have the same sort of thinking about dance music. We don't go for the massive bass or the super compressed sound, it's a lot more organic with space to breathe. We played with Blondes yesterday which was really nice but I think it's the attitude rather than the explicit sound that the bond comes from. I've enjoyed Radiant Dragon and Porcelain Raft recently, hyped to play with Pantha Du Prince and hopefully we'll do a show with Becoming Real soon, all pretty different sounding artists. The DDW comp [which features a D/R/U/G/S track] should be out soon, some dangerous tracks on it, Aldous Birdlife goes higher places.
There is a bit of hip-hop and R&B in your music, like that Beyonce sample.
Hip-hop is about 80% of what I listen to right now really, some of the most creative shit you're ever gonna hear. Listen to DOOM's production, so fresh. The way he samples is insane. The mindset of hip-hop is something I love, how you fully live the life.
These next questions were taken from talktofrank.com (a UK drug advice website) and amended to feature your good selves. Please answer honestly. No judgment here. Where do D/R/U/G/S come from?
Manchester/London council estate space pods. We don't venture out much after school.
Is D/R/U/G/S harmless?
Only to civilians.
My friend took D/R/U/G/S once—will they become an addict?
Yes. It's a choice between hell and good choons and heaven and Michael Buble.
What is the worst D/R/U/G/S?
Michael Buble.
