Chad Sexington

Nadastrom

Forming in the fall (as Americans say) of 2007, Washington based duo NADASTROM – comprising Dave Nada and Matt Nordstrom – have enjoyed the kind of early success typical of their ilk. Signed to the mighty Switch’s Dubsided label in 2008, the fun loving duo have been spreading their glitchy brand of house ever since.

After dialling a seemingly infinite number of digits, the wonderfully enthusiastic Dave Nada tells me about this most auspicious occasion, and how their devastating Nadastrom sound came about. It’s all Tittsworth’s fault, apparently.

“It started with a good friend, [DJ superstar] Tittsworth, who introduced us two and a half years ago. We grew up in the DC hardcore punk and rave scenes, had plenty of mutual friends, so it’s funny we never crossed paths until then. We were trawling through the early 2000 scene when Baltimore and electro house started to become integrated, and we ran into each other on Tittsworth’s urging.”

Whilst today Nada would describe their outfit as “being able to read each other’s brains,” the unique Nadastrom sound came from musicians with two contrasting sounds and approaches to music making.

“I was heavily involved in the Baltimore club scene, and really into that aggressive, ‘tear the club up thing,’” Nada enthuses. “With early Nadastrom tunes I’d take a piece of music to a point and hit a wall, then Matt would step in with a dubstep approach and take it in a new direction. It was crazy! Almost bi-polar. It was a big wake up call for us as producers, and really helped us mature and develop our sound.”

It’s a sound that has caught the ears of millions across the globe, from sweat-soaked general punters to major labels and artists, with remixes of Art vs Science, Laidback Luke, Kid Cudi and personal favourite Udachi’s P Funk Skank already under the belt. Also catching the ears of the All Our Friends festival promoters, Nadastrom will be joining the likes of Laidback Luke, Steve Aoki, Proxy, Sonic C and a host of others. “You just named half our friends,” Nada extols. “This is going to be wild.”

“We’re always looking for places to play. We’re having a blast. There’s so much good music out there at the moment, the standard two hours for a set is just not enough. We like to trade back and forth on the turntables, and we’ve started to introduce new toys to the live shows. We both played in bands for ten years, so we’re real music-heads and know how to play instruments, which will come in handy for album preps.”

A tantalising tidbit for the future, but for now we can salivate at the prospect of catching the dashing DC upstarts early next month. The man himself said it would be wild, and you’ve gotta trust a man from Washington, right?

Nadastrom join Felix Da Housecat, Joachim Garraud, Tiga, Concord Dawn and a stack of others at All Our Friends at the University of Canberra on Saturday June 5. Tix from Moshtix, Q-Jump or Landspeed Records. Wild.