“I don’t think CLU will ever be a finished project, and I actually pride myself in saying that. We’re not called Solution. We’re called CLU for a very specific reason.” For the uninitiated, CLU are a Dublin based audio-visual act. That is, rather than either of these two elements taking a backseat in the project, both aspects of their show receive equal focus, in what can only be described as a symbiotic relationship. The act is comprised of Sean Cooley, who handles the music and vocals, while Kevin Freeney creates accompanying visuals live and on-stage. The two met through a mutual acquaintance over three years ago, as Sean recalls: “We have a mutual friend called Kyle McDonald, and he showed me what he was up to with Kev. Kev was videotaping Kyle doing a painting and then using his program to add stuff to it and datawash it, just really messing it up. I saw that, and I was like ‘this is really good’, and I thought that it would really suit what I was doing.” It did however take a while for their relationship to actually get off the ground. It all started with Sean sending Kevin a facebook message, and a friend request that initially wasn’t accepted. Sean laughs: “He wouldn’t add me at first, he didn’t know who I was!”

Although the guys see themselves as striving towards creating a timeless musical experience, their project is one very much grounded in its contemporary twenty-first century moment, and it’s fitting their partnership began over Facebook. The pair are completely aware of the resource for inspiration that the internet can prove, as Kevin explains: “Art isn’t linear, it’s circular. Through the internet people can now draw creative influence from any sort of time or place. So I guess where we are, we definitely try to start talking about the internet as a system that we are very interested in for gathering influences from loads of different sources and bringing them together.” Musically speaking, Sean draws on a ream of sources, working with sounds that would sound familiar in trap-styled hip hop, vintage computer games and contemporary dance music, blending them all together seamlessly to create something that sounds unique. Kevin’s visuals are equally arresting, presenting as they do a hypnotic and organic wall of colours, shapes, and images that add a whole new layer to what would otherwise be a mostly static show. It’s rare that you’re given a chance to watch music itself, to see it actually visualised before you, and Kevin offers just that.

The duo are keen to push perceptions of what an electronic music act can be. Their music is multi-purpose; it’s not so much “dance music” as it is music that you can dance to. It is refreshing to see an electronic act also pushing boundaries in terms of performance space, and as Kevin explains, CLU are equally at home in a grimy nightclub, an art gallery, or a festival field. On the evening of this interview they are to play Trinity College’s own Science Gallery. It’s a seemingly unconventional venue for an unconventional act. The duo actively try to build their live act around the space they’re playing in. Kevin explains: “every space has pros and cons. Some places, their function is to support a good sound system. You know, they might have a sound system in a venue that you wouldn’t get in a gallery.” Referring to the Science Gallery, he continues: “I suppose the best thing for me tonight, with a gallery like this, is that it would have a lot of visual tech that you might not get in a nightclub.” Their willingness, even desire, to adapt to the spaces around them is admirable. Sean describes in-depth, the fantastical sounding rig they had for their Dublin Fringe Festival show: “A concave kind of circular object, with glass honeycomb pieces on it, so that the visuals were refracted – or is it reflected? I’m getting words wrong, but like, it was just… You’d never see that in the Button Factory. Ever like.” He trails off in his own excitement. Kevin chimes in: “When we started we didn’t know what we needed. Now we can go into a space and we’re like oh, we can figure this out.” “Yeah”, Sean says, “we can fuck with a space if we want to.”

Kevin is quick to point out, that whatever about venues, the most vital aspects of the show are the audience and the audience’s attitude. “The most important thing for us is actually people – people that are open to developing an idea and open to taking on an experience.” Oft-associated with electronic music culture, the duo are ambivalent about drugs. Speaking on the subject, Sean says: “I do not make music to enhance someone when they’re fucked on drugs. That was never the thing. I remember somebody came up to me at Body and Soul and it really pissed me off, because they were just like ‘Oh yeah, I wish I was a bit more out of it’ and all that. It is still club music, and I’m not telling people that they should or shouldn’t do drugs or whatever, but everything has a time and a place”. Kevin gives his opinion: “I don’t feel that anybody is doing us a disservice by turning up fucked at our shows, but everyone needs to be educated, responsible, and fully aware of the drugs that they are doing. A lot of problems come from people not being responsible and taking too much to get the most out of a really short amount of time.” Both Kevin and Sean see Ireland’s licensing laws as a definite problem – rather than pacing themselves to “survive” the night, people get to a club, and because they’re going to get turfed out in a couple of hours time, they try to get as much drink into themselves as possible. “That’s when things get messy”, Sean claims. Thankfully, however, the duo don’t necessarily see the future of Dublin’s electronic music scene as being confined to the nightclub environment. Kevin sees there being huge potential in new, smaller festivals like The Beatyard, and Metropolis (where they will be playing). He also expresses admiration for the DIY attitudes of people into the scene. “It’s going to find life at after-parties, people are going to do things themselves, they’re going to DIY it and be very clever with it. They’re going to do things for their friends. That’s why we did early shows, we did them for our friends more than anything”. CLU are an act exemplary of this ethos: they’re committed to their craft, innovative, and aren’t confined by any feeling that they should be following any route in particular.

It’s been just over a year since the act last put out an EP, Gems, but they don’t feel the pressure to release new music for the sake of it. The duo impress that they want there to be a stronger narrative on their next release than they perhaps had on their last, as Sean explains: “On the new EP I’ve focussed on not using a million sounds. With the last EP, there were loads of textures, and it was quite deep that way – all the instruments in the songs were different. The new EP is going to be more fluid. There’s the same synthesizers, over and over again. I kind of went through them, and said, ‘Have I heard this before? No. That’s in the good pile. Have I heard drums like this before? No. In the good pile.’” Sean has been working in this way for the last year, looking for stuff that gives him the feeling of “I’ve never heard this before.” He continues: “I’ve just been cataloguing all these sounds that I think are fresh, and building a four or five track EP that has them all in it. It’s going to be a fluid fucking EP. So that’s what I’ve been doing a the moment. As well as working at the live set.” Kevin explains that a narrative does not always have to be thematic or emotive, and that sometimes it can be very abstract. “A lot of it could be very much about drawing attention to the technology or the machines that we’re using as much as anything else.” Sean goes on: “I like the way that Nicolaas Jaar plays things, where he’s just not genre bound – at all. He’s just like, I can do folk, or I can do whatever the fuck I want. I wouldn’t go as far as he does, I’m not going to do folk!” He laughs at this, before continuing: “I like the idea though of not being grounded in anything, so I can just be like ‘OK, I’m feeling like I just want to make some banging 4/4 stuff, or I want to make something chill.’”

Their future plans sound wonderfully ambitious – there’s talk of an accompanying computer game to go with their next release, and a diversification of their live efforts. Whatever direction CLU go, it’s exhilarating to see them really tamper with perceptions of what an electronic music act can be. CLU are much more than just a music act, they’re a fully-formed art project, and one would hope that their innovatory attitude is something that will further inspire the Irish cultural sphere – whether it be a DJ in a dark club basement or a gallery-based artist.

CLU play Metropolis on Sat. 7 November.

Photos by Mike Hanrahan