Today is a sad day for lovers of mashups the world over, as the Australian masters of the craft, Yacht Club DJs, announce that they are splitting up.
“We’ve been talking about this for a while and we’ve decided that 2014 is going to be the last year of Yacht Club DJs,” wrote the duo of Guy Chappell and Gaz Harrison in a Facebook post to their nearly 15,000 followers earlier today.
“It’s been an unbelievable ride, but we both feel like it’s time to put our focus on to other endeavours.”
Before setting the samplers and decks aside however, the Ballarat-bred twosome still plan to “get as weird as possible at Splendour In the Grass this weekend,” warming up the Mix Up Stage on Friday night ahead of international sets from Kelis and Childish Gambino, guaranteed to be the only place you’ll hear 80s classics, Jay Z, bass drops, Metallica and the Captain Planet theme in the one place.
Yacht Club are also planning to embark on a farewell Australian tour before officially calling it a day. “Don’t ye worry, we are currently planning one last massive jaunt around the country to come and party with you all one last time, because it’s been you more than anyone that has made this job the best experience ever!” write the pair in their statement.
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Since first forming in 2008, Yacht Club DJs have become a familiar staple of music festival lineups all over the country as well as regularly delivering high-octane live shows; and “every single time you see them play they are memorable and utterly enjoyable,” as our Tone Deaf reviewer praised of Yacht Club DJs’ April Tour.
The duo’s long-running series of free mixtapes that masterfully spliced together constellations from all across the music universe – everything from Top 40 pop music, hair metal, childrens’ TV themes, hip hop, RnB, soul, and all the strange musical strands in-between.
The Yacht Club DJs’ mixtape mantlepiece ranges from – in chronological order – Kleptomania, Demons of Gymnastics, They Mostly Come At Night, last year’s Find Me A Macchiato Pronto, and March’s Oddity Number 5, which “doesn’t take long to hit its full stride, mixing the strangest of bedfellows from all walks of the musical kingdom to squeeze onto the one throne.”
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Earlier this year, Yacht Club DJs released their first EP of original material, No. 1 – mixed by Ballarat producer Woody Annison (Dune Rats, Children Collide, Hunting Grounds), designed to bring some extra revenue outside of their touring and to offset the necessity of giving away their mixtapes for free to avoid legal wrangling
but the Geelong-bred twosome are better known for their high-octane live shows
“We’ve always been adamant to give our music away for free so I don’t feel like we are ripping anyone off,” explained Chappell in a 2012 Tone Deaf interview.
“Besides, to get a record label to clear all of our samples would be impossible because we tend to let our samples ride for a lot longer than the likes of Girl Talk. But Girl Talk is tied to the Creative Commons law in America, whereas Australia has not instituted as stringent copyright laws yet so we’re not as restrained.”
While we lament the passing of the party-starting pair and await the details of their final tour, revisit some of their classic mixtapes in full below.
