tunesday – catching up with beau and casey from this week in the universe

Beau and Casey Golden are brothers with a penchant for 80s music and retro science fiction aesthetics, which manifested itself into the creation of This Week In The Universe, an electronic music project based in futuristic and synth-pop sound. We recently caught up with the brother-duo to chat all about their recent EP, Everything is What We Thought It Was, as well as how working as producers for some of the biggest names in music prepared them for their own solo stuff.

Howdy Beau and Casey! Please introduce yourself and a little bit of what you do. Beau Golden: We are brothers and from Sydney, and we’ve been working on This Week In The Universe for a few years now.

So where did the name, ‘This Week In The Universe’, come from? Casey Golden: I’m pretty sure it’s a specific reference to the TV show Futurama, since we love it so much. We started off working with this strange synthesizer style of music that had a cosmic kind of quality to it, and the name just stuck.

BG: Yeah, when we started this project, we really were into early Daft Punk and those really fun and experimental French disco bands like Justice. They might not sound like anything like our own music, but that heavy synth presence really helped influence our sound.

You guys have also worked as producers for a lot of different musos, both Australian and international. How has working as producers prepared for you making music for yourselves? BG: That’s a good question! I think, with our own stuff, it’s a pretty similar process with how we work with other artists. We work to the point of insanity with our workflow no matter if it’s for someone else or just ourselves.

Are there any similarities with how you work as producers VS working creatively? CG: I would say the process is pretty similar, the only thing with working on our own stuff is that we get final say on everything. If it’s someone else’s music, you might be really into an idea but they aren’t, so you have to make sure they are happy before ourselves.

BG: Yeah, and you’ve got more of a deadline with other artists, but when it’s our own stuff we can literally keep adding and changing stuff forever.

Having more creative freedom in your work; is that more of a blessing or a curse? BG: Depends on the day! I think it is more of a blessing most of the time, though there have been times where we just go crazy with working on one song for days without really doing much. I still think it’s a blessing, majority of the time.

CG: It’s cool to work on something and then put it away on a hard dive to rediscover months later, but it can get a little bit intense with adding and changing it! In those instances, it’s a curse for sure.

Talk to us about the inspiration and themes behind your recent EP, Everything Is What I Thought It Was. BG: I don’t know if there are any overarching themes in specific and we didn’t even really have a plan for it to begin with, it really took shape as we were making it in real time. It’s hard to put into words.

Were there any specific sounds or instruments you were drawn to in the making of this EP? CG: We really got into experimenting with vocal effects, guitar pedals and processing sounds different to how we usually do. There’s some synth, like always, but we really explored it in a different way to what people are used to with us.

Describe your creative process for making this EP. Do you usually start with lyrics, melody or is it a smorgasbord of everything all at once? BG: Yeah, it’s definitely a smorgasbord! We started with lyrical concepts and built backwards from there. Other times, we’d have a baseline or a beat that we send back and forth to change and edit, and then everything else is built from that.

CG: Like Beau said, our songs start off in different areas. There’s a lot of back-and-forth.

Would you guys consider yourselves perfectionists, or do you just get so excited about other stuff you keep adding to your songs? BG: It’s a little bit of both. I wouldn’t say that perfectionism is something to aspire to, but we definitely have perfectionist qualities for sure.

What excites you, or doesn’t excite you, about the current Aussie music scene? BG: I guess I’m excited about heaps of different artists. It’s so easy to discover music these days through streaming, social media or even word-of-mouth, which is amazing, but it also makes it so hard to keep up with everything.

CG: Yeah, you can discover all these cool people so easily, but because it’s so accessible it’s hard to really retain a certain level of excitement for one person or band. It’s hard to narrow your focus on specific sounds and artists.

What’s on the horizon for you guys? BG: We’ve got a remix EP coming up, but it’s still probably a few months down the track. We’re really excited to get it all released.