Yolanda Be Cool

Matthew Handley, who along with creative partner Andrew Stanley makes up premier Sydney house duo Yolanda Be Cool, might not hate ‘We No Speak Americano’ anymore, but he certainly did once. “We did stop playing ‘Americano’ for a long, long time,” he says, a vague note of resignation creeping into his voice as he begins to talk about the chart hit.

“We actually did a kind of tongue-in-cheek product recall of the song, saying that it was bad for public health. But it’s kinda funny – now that it’s so old, we’ve played it a couple of times recently and it’s gone down kinda well. But it’s more of a fun thing. We sometimes like to go underground with our DJ sets, and if we throw ‘Americano’ in it’s still kind of tongue-in-cheek.”

It’s not hard to see why Handley might have mixed feelings about his biggest track. People became so enamoured with ‘We No Speak Americano’ that they temporarily ignored the rest of Yolanda Be Cool’s work, unfairly branding them as one-trick ponies. In truth, Handley and Stanley are more inventive and diverse than most ever realised, as their frequent collaborations with DCup (AKA Duncan MacLennan) have proved over the years.

“We’ve been buddies with Duncan since even before [‘Americano’],” says Handley. “We did that track and then we had a break, then we got together again – I feel like it must have been 2004? Time travels so fast,” he laughs. “When we did ‘Sugar Man’, that was our first track together after ‘Americano’. That was pretty successful. From there on we said, ‘Obviously we have a good thing together, let’s keep writing tunes.’”

Describing ‘Sugar Man’, a remix of a Sixto Rodriguez tune, as “pretty successful” is a case of Handley being humble – some might even say disingenuous. The tune went platinum, and firmly established Yolanda Be Cool as one of Australia’s top house acts. But despite the eventual mainstream appeal of the track, it was born out of a desire to resist the norm entirely. When asked what draws him to certain hooks and remix projects, Handley replies quickly.

“They can’t be obvious, in the sense that every kid on the street knows that sample. For us it’s kinda got to be, ‘Oh, where’s that from?’ It’s also gotta have some sort of quirk about it which makes it stand out from any other sample out there.”

Handley argues that remixing a pre-existing track and crafting a Yolanda Be Cool tune from the ground up using samples aren’t necessarily two separate processes, and his unromantic view of the music-making method hints at a significant creative ease. “It’s [all about] chopping up the sample and finding the hook. And the hook’s always going to be the same. So it’s more about going, ‘Yep, guys, we can see the potential in this,’ and going, ‘Let’s kick it together.’”

But though Handley seems utterly in control of his own craft, he and Stanley still frequently seek out collaborations, turning again and again to the likes of MacLennan. The fact that the man behind the DCup moniker lives in Melbourne is only the slightest of inconveniences, and the trio frequently find themselves passing ideas back and forth, bouncing rough mixes off one another.

“If we’re in Melbourne we’ll go into the studio with Duncan and if he comes to Sydney we’ll record together,” Handley says. ‘It’s one of those things where whenever we’re in the same city we’ll try and have some studio time. We also do some touring together, so it’s quite easy. In the between times we all send each other sample ideas and do little rough sketches just to make sure the sample can fit into the vibe the Yolanda Be Cool and DCup tracks have.”

Given this strict style, perhaps it’s unsurprising that ‘From Me To You’, the new single crafted by the trio, is immediately recognisable as being in the same vein as something like ‘Sugar Man’. But that’s not to imply it’s a simple rehash of the past – the song has a euphoric, frenetic energy that seems resolutely modern. Handley is excited about the track, keen to see how it will be received by the public following its release earlier this week.

“Normally it takes so long to release music, from when you finish it to when it actually comes out. It’s such a slow process. So it’s always really exciting by the time it’s out. Because we’ve been playing a version of the track, well, for at least five months I’d say, we’re just [pleased] to get it out. We’ve given it to a few people and the feedback’s been really good.

“The biggest thing is we play it in our sets, and our goal is always to make it one of the biggest tracks in our set. If that’s the case before anyone knows it, then we always feel that it’s in good stead, cause it’s competing with our favourite songs already.”

A very significant sense of pride rises in Handley’s words; a markedly different tone from the one he used when discussing ‘Americano’. “I mean, we’ve been playing ‘From Me To You’ for a while now … people always come up and ask what it is.”