Dan Hazard has watched the breaks scene roll through waves of decadence and downtime in his eight years at the helm of Brisbane break beat and electro duo Soma Rasa. With his brother Bill by his side, he’s resisted the glossier side of the genre to produce music that’s good for mind and body - it’s refined, intelligent and thumps on the dance floor. Dan and Bill’s ability to transcend the clichés that often blemish contemporary electronica have allowed them to play alongside everyone from Fatboy Slim to drum and bass mastermind Roni Size and collaborate with hip hop legends Digital Underground. Dan explains while he loves the breaks scene, he sometimes yearns for a little DIY punk rock attitude…

“I really wish it (the breaks scene) would lose that glossy, hyper-marketed, Euro, high paying attitude that floats around globally and maybe took a leaf out of the rock and roll book,” Dan muses. “There’s rock bands that can get away with not having to worry about really contrived marketing and just focus on what’s really going on.”

Dan’s leaning towards the home-grown rock aesthetic stems from his love of live music. He’s been drumming since he was a kid, while Bill messes with keyboards. With DJ Kristian Hernandez and an MC on board, Soma Rasa take their music from the studio to the stage.

“Because we work on the live music end and we also play in clubs we see a bit of both sides of the industry,” Dan says. “From where we sit there’s been a lot of phases it goes into the superstar DJ phase where a lot of the music takes a backseat and it’s all about someone’s image… but there’s no real focus on the music. Then every now and again a strong breaks artist releases an album, cuts through and brings it all back to the level.”

Soma Rasa set up their own label, Freefall Records, to avoid such image and commercial pressures. The strategy has worked. Along with their musical prowess, their straight-up attitude has attracted collaborations with locals Miss Brown, Kino and MC DNO. The duo’s leaning towards a more vocal sound was most recently extended as they teamed up with legendary US hip hop crew Digital Underground. The outcome, Sat What You Say, with Shock G, Money B, Metaphysical, Humpty Hump and DJ NuStylez on board, has been dubbed “a humming electro masterpiece”.

While the vocal tip is currently working for Soma Rasa, the brothers are more commonly known for a sound that’s been called “electro phonography”. Dan can’t remember where the term came from - but it has stuck.

“Electro phonography probably has a bit of an old school twist to it, with the phonography sound,” he explains. “We do digital break beats but we like the organic element to our sound. Given that we perform lots as a live act, it’s pretty important. What we try to achieve in a studio is not generic or derivative of most dance music. We try and have a twist to it, something with a bit of grunt and bit dirty, as well as being designed for the dance floor, we put a bit of organic tread in it.”

The duo makes a conscious effort to put energy and spontaneity into their recordings. They’re careful not to over produce their sound.

“Because my brother and I write both together and separ

ately, it’s really useful to have each other to bounce off,” Dan says. “It’s good have someone come in and be objective and go, ‘no man, stop writing now because you’re ruining it’. It’s good to have someone there because you can really get stuck with your head up your arse, it’s good at the end of the day to have someone come along and say, ‘hey man, come back out!’.”

While working together has its advantages, the brothers endure the usual sibling quibbles, Dan laughs.

“Working with Bill is awesome because there’s so many things we can do without saying anything,” he says. “It’s just got to that real intuitive point… that’s not to say we don’t have arguments, but we’ve just got really good at fighting, I guess. You’re always going to have problems and if you know how to resolve them quickly to get on with the job, that’s good. We have differences in some musical elements. Nothing huge, it’s quite finite and minimal, like the volume on the high hat or something - but that’s a positive thing, because you’ve got to get your hats right in dance music!”

words: Michelle Read