Gorgon City goes primal

Matt Robson-Scott (aka RackNRuin) and Kye Gibbon (aka Foamo) formed Gorgon City in 2012. Two years later, the North London DJ and production duo’s 13-track debut, “Sirens,” premiered at No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart.

Since then, they’ve done things like co-curated a compilation album with Pete Tong and remixed the likes of Basement Jaxx and Underworld. Robson-Scott and Gibbon have also watched their weekly Kingdom Radio show on Sirius XM - which is now broadcast in more than 40 countries - collect over 14 million live listeners.

This summer, the pair had their collaboration with Duke Dumont, Real Life (feat. Naations), hit the top spot on Spotify’s US Viral Chart.

Gorgon City’s current 22-date Kingdom tour celebrates the release of new single Primal Call, as well as the pair’s own REALM label. It also finds Robson-Scott and Gibbon swapping the live show for extended DJ sets.

For now.

A full-length follow-up to Sirens is in the works and scheduled to be released by the end of the year.

Last in San Diego at CRSSD’s 2016 spring edition, Gorgon City returns on Sunday for a special afternoon rooftop show at the Hard Rock Hotel.

PACIFIC: Do you have a preference between the full live show and regular DJ sets?

ROBSON-SCOTT: We’re always DJing, no matter what - even when we’re on a live tour. We’re always doing after parties and side shows at clubs. But we just thought that we did a massive American tour with the live band on the bus. And it’s a long way to come with a full band and a crew - it’s a really big operation. It’s no joke. You have a crew of 16 on two tour buses doing the whole of America. It’s no easy feat. And it costs a lot of money as well.

But we just wanted to get back to DJing. We launched our new label with the new single, Primal Call, which is more of an underground track. So we thought it was a good time to come out and play some really good club nights and put on some shows that aren’t just all about us.

And we’re bringing an amazing array of artists with us. We’re not just bringing a couple of support DJs. We’re bringing monster artists like CamelPhat and Solardo. (Kill Frenzy, Matthew Dear, Claptone, and Moon Boots are also on select dates.) And we’re playing extended sets at most of the shows. We’re not going to be in and out. It’s going to be an experience and it should be fun.

We want people to come and stay all night, have a proper rave and a really good time. And that’s what we want to do with this Kingdom tour.

Live show at CRSSD was amazing. But there has to be advantages to both.

Some people tell us that they prefer to see us DJ than the live show and vice-versa. But when we’re DJing, we get to play tracks we’ve never played before and tracks straight from the studio. So we’ll have loads of fresh material to play in these DJ sets.

Options are always a good thing.

We are very lucky to be able to do both. But at the end of the day, our DJ sets fund the live show. Putting on the live show has never been a money-making thing. We do it because we want to do the live show and push the boundaries of our project. But to be able to do that, we need to fund it through DJing. Luckily, we can do something that we love and something we’re just as passionate about. And we can carry on DJing whether we’re putting out music or not. It’s a constant thing. We play every week and we play every season. It never stops.

Not to mention starting a new label.

REALM is a way for us to put out our more underground records - club tracks. We’re using it as an avenue to release music quickly and bring it straight into the clubs, before we launch the next album. That’ll be coming at the end of the year. We’re just finishing it now.

So this tour is a primer for the new record?

It is. There will new music dropping from now until the end of the year. We’ve been playing Primal Call at all of our shows in Ibiza this summer. It’s a cool tune. And it’s a good boost for the tour.

Will the releases leading up to the album be on it, or will they be separate?

Separate. We wanted to keep it that way. Hopefully, in the near future, we’ll be signing some new, up-and-coming underground artists and producers to the label as well. It’s going to be a separate thing with its own identity. And it’ll have its own image and brand different from our more commercial stuff. It’s just another avenue for us to be able to release dance floor, club music and not mess with the Gorgon City album project.

Seems smart.

It’s a good thing to do. And we’ve been meaning to do it for a long time.

Singles or albums?

Well, I’m a big lover of the traditional album. And I think, deep down, everyone is. You just need to have a little more patience and attention span. There’s nothing better than getting a new album of an artist that you love and sitting down and listening to it from start to finish - or being in a car journey and driving and listening to the full album. I don’t think there’s anything better. That’s not just a song. That’s a story of how the artist is feeling and what their vibe is. That beats everything.

But then again, it is amazing to be able to just put out a big tune and tour on that. We released our song, Real Life, with Duke Dumont this summer and it did really well. It was enough for us. So having just seen that this summer, I can see the attraction to put out one tune and then touring on it for a few months. It’s just how the industry is working right now. Labels don’t want to invest in an artist making an album anymore. And it’s a shame because people don’t get to hear the full story. If I could, I’d release albums forever. It’s just not reality.

But you do get the best of both worlds.

Both Kai and I feel very passionately about being an album-making act. We don’t want to be an act that just puts out singles. We were lucky. We put out an album that got into the top 10 in the UK. We were lucky to be guaranteed, sort-of, as an album-making act when we first launched Gorgon. And we want to continue having that status. We don’t want people to forget. We’re a live act and a production duo. We’re trying to hold that up and not lose that credibility and integrity as artists. And we’re passionate about getting this next album out.