A Quick Chat with Duel Native

‘Biophilicall (Live)’ was recorded in one take with a choir of friends — how did that spontaneous process influence the emotional tone of the final performance?
It gave the performance breath - a kind of excitement. You can hear the nerves, the deep listening. It wasn’t perfect - and that was the point. The vulnerability made it more human, more communal.

The song feels both ancient and modern — there are echoes of folk and indie, but also something spiritual. Who were some of your touchstones when shaping the sound of this track? (Fleet Foxes, Nick Drake, and The Waterboys come to mind.)
It's hard to post-rationalise references when I wasn't that consciously aware of them at the time! The song originally started in a really unusual way. I incorporated samples selected from a vast library of field recordings made by the charity Greenpeace. These include the sound of activist boats going across the ocean, native plants catching the wind, magnified samples of insects, and tribal communities from the Amazon and Papua New Guinea. A conscious sonic reference of how these samples were pieced together was Moby's 1992 album Play. The piano melody was a meditation - just me playing the piano at home without any fixed plan.

Can you unpack the meaning of ‘Biophilicall’? How did the concept of biophilic design become a metaphor for human connection and repair in this song?
‘Biophilicall’ is a made-up word — a kind of combination of “biophilia” (which means 'a love of life') and "call" - like you're being called to return to the world as if you are part of it, not above it. The song is not only about returning to being nature, but about repairing it, and in doing so, we can repair ourselves.

You mentioned the solstice as a symbolic anchor — how does that theme of cyclical change show up in your writing across this EP and in your broader artistic approach?
We're so disconnected from our Universe! That's why I try to remember the solstice. It's a marker, a turning point, a transition. That cyclical energy is everywhere in this EP and in DUEL NATIVE work: decay, return, growth, rising. I write a lot about life in terms of memory, but it’s not really linear. It loops, and ideally spirals upwards each time those solstices come around.

Your past life in Greyhound Green saw you on stages with The Libertines and Cornershop — how does DUEL NATIVE’s quieter, more contemplative mode compare with that era of your musical journey?
That chapter was loud, fast, urgent. DUEL NATIVE reflects a lot of what I want to be feeling - quieter, closer, centreing. It's mostly for me, and hopefully resonates with others - this channelling of energy inward now.

With the full live EP coming in October, what connects the tracks? Are they meant to be seen as a collective statement — or is each one its own environment?
The title of the EP is A.I. - and it's a deliberate collection. I’m particularly interested in “Natural Intelligence” - as opposed to Artificial Intelligence. AI relies on data and logic, while Natural Intelligence - or you could call it human intuition - operates on lived experience, emotions, and subconscious reasoning. AI follows algorithms, but our natural intelligence is nonlinear and unpredictable. This collection of songs are similar in that they were made in various Naarm / Melbourne studio sessions and are wonderful and imperfect. Seeing as you're the first to ask, I will tell you that what "AI" stands for in this EP is "Always Imperfect". If you know, you know!