INTERVIEW: Dominique of N.Y.C.K. on their second album 'United Places': "It's the intricacies of the non perfections that give a sense of relatability and rawness to the sound."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Published 15 August 2024

Australian duo N.Y.C.K., featuring Dominique Garrard and Nick Acquroff, have recently released their second album United Places. It is their first release of new music since 2019.

Featuring seven tracks, it has been 12 months in the making, during that time Garrard and Acquroff began sampling their favourite records, secretly recording friends’ conversations they’d overheard, streetscapes and the sounds of life to build up a library of sound they incorporated into the songs.

Known for their stripped back piano ballads of love, United Places sees N.Y.C.K. develop their sound and while the piano is still an ever present part of their music, more electronic beats and rhythms are introduced, giving the album a intriguing experimental feel that keeps you guessing as to where every song will go next.

The EP starts with ‘Cult’, a largely instrumental song that starts with a piano until shuffling beats are introduced that give the song a trancey, trip hop feel. Second single ‘New South Wales’ has a soundscape that builds and builds in a glorious way, moving from a pared back indie track into a beat heavy swirl of feels.

Title track ‘United Places’ is a compelling song which mixes electronica with a strong sense of country, while 'Weightless’ is a gloriously upbeat song with pure pop elements, with the perkiness offset by a sense of melancholy in the lyrics: ‘I should have been there / I should have said that / But you know, I didn’t’.

‘Forest Fire’ is a highlight on the album and agains confounds genres with strong synth and electronic beats effortlessly trading places with piano and rock.

The album ends with first single ‘Love’. A driving beat forms the foundation of a back and forth conversation between Garrard and Acquroff of a relationship that has clearly turned sour: ‘He’s still posting pictures of me like we’re star crossed lovers / I never did like him, it was a rush for me but believe me / I saw it coming,’ Garrard sings with an almost delicious contempt. It’s electronic base builds and builds as the lyrics ‘to love’ are repeated before the song, and album, ends, abruptly on a synth note.

United Places is a brilliantly crafted collection of music that expertly does what N.Y.C.K. have always done - turn structure on its head while still drawing you fully into their world. With lyrics that resonate, and soundscapes that endlessly fascinates, this is music that almost demands you immerse yourself in it totally, locking out the rest of the world, to fully appreciate every note. We recently spoke to Garrard to find out more about the creation of the album.

Hi Dominique! Thank you very much for your chatting today, and congratulations on United Places.
Thank you, it's been a long time coming!

What a beautiful collection, it's really gorgeous. You said it was a long time coming, talk me through that.
We had written this album or EP, however you want to look at it - some people say album, some people say EP! - a couple years ago. A lot of the ideas came out of covid, we started working on it then, and put it all together as soon as we got out of covid. And then it kind of just sat for ages. Part of that was trying to figure out when the best release time was, and who we would work with to release it and whatnot. I listened back to it, and I kind of go, ‘we sound so young, there's a difference’, but it was such a special thing for us to do together at that time, and we put so much effort into it, and we just loved it, every second of it. And I think that shows in the songs.

You guys really struggled there in Melbourne with lockdown and so really this collection came out of this incredibly isolated place. Now to hear it and have it released in a completely different space for you as the creator, does it resonate strangely? Or does is it still very now?
I do think it's still very now. I’ve been thinking about what the album means to me, and a lot of it comes from the sense of nostalgia. And I can kind of get that from when we recorded it to when we released it, but also I think forever it will put you in a state of nostalgia, just through the lyrics and the themes of the album.

I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Weightless’, it’s such a beautiful track, and your vocals are just stunning. You have talked about this album was sort of born from you playing your favorite records, and sounds and samples, and I guess that's something very nostalgic to do. You also recorded local sounds and snippets of conversations. What was the most unusual sound that you pulled for this album?
Nick and I collected a whole heap of things, and actually, on most of our releases, we've had some interesting clip in there, whether you can hear it or not. He works at and part owns a furniture company, and he got some sounds from machinery there, and some of them are embedded in the track. When we went on tour, we took snippets of talking to the taxi driver, and just funny conversations that happened. And again that plays into the nostalgia for me, definitely.

I think that's lovely, because it's like a photograph of a moment, but an audio photograph, which is so beautiful and such a beautiful idea. Let's talk a little bit about the single, ‘New South Wales’, it's got a really beautiful story to it, and I'd love you to talk me through it.
Nick wrote the lyrics to that song, he writes the majority of the lyrics. It paints a picture of on the go traveling and all these iconic places that you get to and things that you share on a road trip like that. It came together really easily that tune and those lyrics, especially for Nick, he had it in his head and then I put the harmonies to it and wrote some other sections. It's such a back to basics track for us. I is really collectively just us in a track and everything that we love. And he's such a romantic too, so his stories are really romantic about places that he's been and people that he's met, and I think that's great.

Tell me about your back story, how you guys got together and started making music
We've been together 10 years as a project, we're best friends, and we've developed so much together in the past 10 years, overcome some things and gone through some transitions in life. Nick has two kids now and a wife, and it's all just a different side of us at the moment. ‘Decision’ was our first track in 2016 and that obviously got picked up quite well, and we’ve just been creating since then

Your music, your style, these beautiful things you're creating. I feel like they're always have such depth because it's a soundscape, it's the romanticism of the lyrics, possibly also it's your relationship as best friends. You allow space within a song because you're so comfortable with each other, it doesn't need to be filled.
Completely. When we first sung together, it was this unusual feeling and sound that we got, our voices just clicked so much. And when that's evolved into creating music and putting melodies together and harmonies and production, there is just a sense of ease, and as you say space in the songs, but space for both of us to do our own thing and shine when we need to, and then pull back and give the other person some space. It comes so easily for the both of us, and that's why I love writing with him, because it's super easy.

I'm always curious to know not necessarily what your favourite song is, but what was your favourite moment of creating a certain song?
Yeah, I love ‘United Places’, the track. For me, it feels really true us, from our first track ‘Decision’ all the way to here, it has really similar vibes to it. Writing it was a similar kind of process for me, chucking in a separate line or moving to a different section that I've written, it came so easily and replicated, for me at least, what we used to sound like as well. Our sound has evolved, we don’t have much romantic ballads anymore, there's a kind of grit to it with the electronic side. There is that natural element and rawness of our vocals together, and that's what I think ‘United Places’ brings, the fact that we're not perfect, and we don't strive for perfection ever in this project, it's actually quite the opposite. It's the intricacies of the non perfections that give it a sense of relatability and rawness to the sound. You'll notice that some of the phrases are not amazingly linked together in terms of rhythm, they they ease off, and they come back together, and they move around, and that's what makes us special, and ‘United Places’ has that in it a lot.

I love that, and it's like what you said about collecting those sounds and those memories and the nostalgia, a lot of it feels like you're sat in a room and you're getting snippets of everything around you. It's not laser focused, but it's just a beautiful moment of everything that’s going on at the same time, which I think you have captured really perfectly. And it's also very hard to describe to anyone that hasn't listened to it.
I agree! I find it really hard to explain what these ballady harmonies, but with electronic elements are. I don't know, put it under the indie umbrella!

Is that what it's been like? Of course, the Australian music industry is an interesting place. Do you feel like that you've just been there, like ‘I think it's indie?’
Oh, when we do distribution and stuff, I say indie or electronica is another one that I put down, it's elements of electronic music. There’s samples, none of them are live drum beats, they're all sample drum beats. And there’s layers of synths, so I'll just go, ‘indie is good, indie is what it is.’

I mean, also, you have a really beautiful, strong fan base that know exactly who you are and what you do.
Yeah, we do have a really nice, strong fan base. And it spreading, there's a few people in the UK that always reach out to us, and our Australian fan base is quite strong. We've always been really straight up, what you see is what you get with N.Y.C.K. There is a romanticised idea around the music too that comes from Nick and I being best friends. But the fan base knows what they're going to get, maybe a little bit of spice with the more heavily electronic elements in this album. They're committed, and they're good.

On that note, where can we expect to see you guys? Are we going to get some performances off the back of United Places?
I hope so. It's a pretty tricky time at the moment, but I'm pushing for some special gigs that won't be like a tour or anything, but maybe something special from the both of us, if we can find some time in there. But we’re probably more so working towards another product, another creation for us, maybe another album or just singles, and release them as we go. We’ll see what we can do.

That’s always the tricky thing, isn't it, because by the time the music comes out for everyone, you're already absolutely knees deep in the next project!
Yeah, and we both work full time. I have other bands, Nick is a dad with two kids. We live such busy lives, and it's hard to find time in there. But we would absolutely love to do something special for this release.

Before I leave you, can I ask what has been the most rewarding experience creating this particular collection?
Because I've gotten a little bit older since our first release, I actually feel stronger in my talent, and my ideas to what I used to feel like in this project. I was quite young when we first started it, and it can be a bit overwhelming. Everything was a whirlwind and I wasn't truly me. This project gave me a lot of opportunity for creativity, and Nick really facilitated that, and obviously put his own creativity into it too. So I feel like I've just developed as a person, and I think that shows in the music as well.

United Places is out now. You can buy and stream here.
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