Client Liaison

“It’s a play on the established term ‘lo-fi’,” Morgan explains, “but we actually have a hi-fi sound.”

He isn’t being totally serious, but with his deadpan delivery it can be hard to tell. Other labels that have been flung their way include ‘’80s revivalists’, ‘blue-eyed soul’ and ‘dance-electric’. One thing that is undisputed is their reputation for putting on one hell of a live show, which was enough to win them a place via triple j Unearthed at Laneway Festival in 2014. Things really took off from there – a national tour supporting Miami Horror, two of their own headlining tours (the second of which is about to start) and a slot at this year’s Falls Festival.

But unlike most bands, they won’t be staying in any fancy hotels. Or hotels built in the last decade. For them, it’s all about keeping true to the Client Liaison aesthetic – which means pastel wallpaper, green leather lounges and patterned carpets. “Fiction becomes non-fiction,” says Morgan. “In Canberra, we would happily pop into Parliament House for breakfast… we try to actualise Client Liaison.”

Similarly, their hallucinatory clip for ‘End Of The Earth’ is a gaudy pastiche of some of the most cringeworthy moments in Australian culture ever caught on camera. Everything from a kangaroo hopping in the outback to scenes from the Sydney Olympics is overlaid with disco synths and images of Morgan and Miller throwing shapes.There’s John Farnham, Vegemite and Shane Warne all thrown in the melting pot. None of it makes much sense, or even appears to make a coherent political statement, but it all taps into what it means to be ‘Australian’. It’s equal parts uplifting and hard to watch.

“It’s about trying to embrace [Australian culture] and reinvigorate a sense of patriotism, not nationalism, and it’s important to make a distinction,” Morgan says. “Nationalism is like the White Australia Policy and Cronulla [the 2005 riots], whereas patriotism is more inclusive, and a celebration of the country.”

Despite this clear manifesto, Morgan is quick to insist that Client Liaison were never meant to be a commentary on Australian culture. “We’re not professors of sociology,” he says.

“When people are dancing to ‘End Of The Earth’ in a nightclub, they’re not thinking about the subject matter of the lyrics,” Miller adds. “They’re just enjoying the song. It functions on a range of levels.”

It is true that what Client Liaison produce is primarily dance music, and whatever extra layers are contained within it are additional to the songs themselves. To them, making music from a particular era is no different to making music from a particular genre. It just so happens they were drawn to the sound palette (and presumably, hairstyles) associated with ’80s music, in the same way as someone who plays folk.

“We just like that programmed pop, that’s the tools we use,” says Morgan. “Just like someone in folk music from the ’60s or ’70s. We don’t really think about it too much.”

This all makes sense, but unlike other constantly evolving genres, the ’80s aesthetic is fixed in time. Plus, Client Liaison haven’t just used that sound palette – they have appropriated the clothing, hotel rooms and imagery from an era that no longer exists.

“Any gypsy folk player down in Brunswick will have unwashed scruffy hair,” says Miller. “We don’t discriminate against Monte’s haircut or a folk haircut. We use modern technology so it’s impossible to not have those modern artefacts come through.”

I get the feeling they are a little weary of being quizzed about the decision to embody a particular sonic niche. It’s fair enough – many a band has fallen off the radar after a particular gimmick has lost its steam. Client Liaison are keen to impress the distinction between being a “one-trick horse” and simply working within an established genre. They tread the fine line between irony and honesty, and it gets blurry pretty often. It begs the question, “Are you being serious?”

“There’s seriousness and conviction injected into it,” Miller says.

Listening to Morgan’s falsetto on Client Liaison’s upcoming debut EP, the earnestness is clear. A release that could have folded into cliché very quickly has plenty of surprising twists. ‘Feeling’, which includes the lyric “Take what you do and make it beautiful,” somehow avoids being cheesy at all. Their latest release, ‘Queen’, sounds like a modern incarnation of Hall & Oates soul – new technology providing a clean, crisp production that wasn’t possible two decades ago.

“We’re playing on that, like, white guys doing black music in the digital age,” says Morgan.

“We don’t care about the bass, we care about the treble,” adds Miller. “That’s a real geeky thing to do.”

Their latest releases have gone a long way to demonstrating that diversity, foraying into multiple genres and proving their music has real substance behind it. Obviously they’ve tapped into something meaningful, as their fan base continues to grow. “We hope we are too underground to be pop, and too pop to be underground,” says Morgan. “We’re in limbo.”

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