The pop-noir duo consists of Hatty Taylor (vocal and synth) and Nigel Firth (guitar) who first met in 2000 when Nigel taught a then eleven-year-old Hatty to play guitar. Ten years later, they formed a band in Oxford and have been creating exceptional, boundary-pushing music ever since. Nigel is the engine behind Vienna Ditto’s restless experimentation and sonic evolution, while Hatty is responsible for the band’s effortless and enchanting lead vocals, the two half combining beautifully to complete a whole.

Vienna Ditto have already received praise from the likes of Q Magazine, Artrocker, BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens and BBC 6Music’s Tom Robinson amongst others and they have played at a number of festivals including Glastonbury’s BBC Introducing Stage. Since the release of their critically acclaimed EP Ticks earlier this year, the unlikely, delectable and ever-so-slightly dysfunctional duo have gone from strength to strength and, on Busted Flush, the pair hope to continue to push boundaries and defy genres along the way, generating a sound that is truly unique.

In this interview feature, we chat with Vienna Ditto about the digital music era, influences, the new project and much more.

Full Q&A along with streams and links can be found below.

Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?

It probably started with terrifying synthesizer soundtracks to children’s educational television in the 80s; which would do things like highlight the safety of the nuclear power industry with menacing low death- drones and the sound of electronic wolves howling. Of course, I’m far too young too remember that, but I have learnt how to project myself back into this era for research purposes. This ability came about after finding an irradiated copy of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds in a magic charity shop. From then on I’ve always had a tiny reincarnation of Bruce Haack on my left shoulder, whispering “make electronic blues and country gospel”  into my ear in his raspy Canadian voice.

What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?

Pure, ongoing, foolishness. We’ve come to far to stop now so we may as well get our kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in smoke.

Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?

We had a chat with some spiv the other day who was saying how you never really love any music as much as that you heard as a 16 year-old. What a load of old breeze; I’d top myself if I had to listen to my teenage tunes. That said I’m currently having a massive easy-listening resurgence- I used to work in old folks’ homes as a youngster and got massively into Matt Monroe and Burt Bacharach… It always sounded so weird and spooky and trippy to me. Still does.

I think we’ve both got a fairly dark, dank and echoey space in our heads, and everything we do has to fit into that, but otherwise the main thing that influences our creativity is that Ezra Pound thing of make it new make it new make it new. Even though it sounds kind of old. We’ve always tried to find the oldest version of everything to listen to; from gospel back to sea shanties and the Galician folk tunes they came from- but also the oldest, hissiest electronic stuff… There’s squelchy synthesiser shit from the 30s that properly toots my flute.

Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?

Make just a little bit of money to bail out this boat, basically. Creatively we did really want to do a Tarantella or Tango- type thing mixed with a bit of Clockwork Orange grimtronica, and the title track’s like that… We also wanted to do an old black-letter ballad with a bit of a sinister drone in it, so we did that with Cambric Shirt on the CD. The rest of the songs are just experiments really, we do them non-stop and just pick out the ones that aren’t really bad, and then release them. Personally I’ve been spending far too long in the studio and it’s turned me a bit peculiar so the priority with this release was to do it as fast as possible to preserve my mental health.

What was the last song you listened to?

Oh this is gonna sound pretentious. It was Bells of Atlantis by Louis and Bebe Barron feat. Anais Nin. If ya don’t know, Louis made very primitive electronic instruments after reading Norbert Weiner’s Cybernetics. Thing is, these things were designed to have a very basic intelligence and destroy themselves; and the sound of their self-destruction is what you hear… Bebe recorded all this on magnetic tape and edited it; along with a few found sounds, into an entirely new kind of musique concrete, the first to be made in this way. They found fame with their unsolicited score for The Forbidden Planet but this is earlier, from 1952, and is the soundtrack to an experimental film they made with Nin- it sounds like a massive toilet flushing with Anais crooning stuff like “…the terror and joy of murders accomplished in silence” over the top in her amazing French accent with a speech impediment to die for.

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?

No-one ever rolled a cigarette on an MP3. Then again- DJ sets. Hernias. About 20% of my floor space is taken up by vinyl. CDs can get in the sea though. Having said that, our newest is available here https://viennaditto.bandcamp.com/

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?

I like Radio 3. I guess we sell stuff through Bandcamp, mainly. I can’t say I listen to so much music on there though; that’s where Spotify comes in but their range is a bit limited. No Bladerunner OST or Taylor Swift.

Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?

Their terrible taste in music and our own lamentable lack of talent.

Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?

https://viennaditto.bandcamp.com/ for treats, https://www.facebook.com/viennaditto/ for babble and gigs.

Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?

We’ve got a secret, probably illegal boat party in South-East London on 18th Nov as an EP launch, drop us a line on Facebook for details.