features

	18/9/2003
	Ally Michalk

�Yeah we�ve never been to Brisbane before, we just flew in.� Benjamin, aka DJ Speed of Adelaide duo The New Pollutants, has just landed in BrisVegas for the very first time and is giving noise a rundown of what it feels like. �We travel with our manager, Paul, quite a lot but this time it�s just the two of us. When we tour by car Paul has to come, because Tyson [aka DJ Tr!p] and I can�t drive. We have to ride our bikes everywhere to gigs; we bought travelling rucksacks and put all our gear in them. I think we�re the only band to arrive at the Big Day Out � or any major music festival � by bike!�

The bike-riding gadget-toting twosome has been cooking up hip-hop inspired electronica since 2001, joining forces after years of making music separately Tyson, 24, was busy studying Music Technology at the Flinders Street School of Music before recently graduating, while Benjamin (25) is currently studying Music Technology full-time at the Adelaide Conservatorium.

This electronic hip-hop duo can be heard on the noise CD with their pumping track �50k Backtrack and a 2 Dollar Mic�. Listen closely and you may pick up a video-gaming influence courtesy of gadget-man, Tyson. He makes all his music on a Commodore Amiga, which has an 8 bit, 4 channel mono audio tracker program called Octamed, which is used for most of his music making.

�Yeah, I�m a bit of a video-game collector freak,� he laughs. �I get a lot of my musical influences through playing video games and their soundtracks. I just modified a Commodore 64 joystick, and hooked it up to our turntables, one of which I bought for $10. We use the joystick at our live shows to scratch records instead of using a cross fader and a mixer. So I can get really fast scratching and it sounds quite digital; it�s quite good because the way I�ve programmed it, you can use it up, down, left and right.�

So are the New Pollutants going to take their South-Australian electronica to the world?
�We like to think of ourselves as an Australian act, rather than a South Australian act,� says Benjamin. �That helps us breakdown how scary it is to take your music overseas! We just want to keep making music and pushing forward on our tangent, our perception of electronica.�

If you want to see DJ Tr!p in action, head to the Crown and Anchor Hotel on Wednesday and Thursday nights and the Exeter Hotel on Sundays in Adelaide�s East End.