If form is a guide, RÜFÜS DU SOL is winning the game of electronic music.
With Inhale / Exhale (via Rose Avenue/Reprise Records), which dropped last Friday, October 11th, the electronic group are five albums deep in a career that has seen them achieve the remarkable.
The trio of Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George and James Hunt is coming off the perfect wave.
Surrender from 2021 saw RÜFÜS DU SOL ride to #1 on the ARIA Chart, their third leader (2018’s Solace is the only album to miss the chart summit, peaking at #2); score their first Grammy Award (for Dance/Electronic Recording in 2022 with “Alive”); and become stadium-fillers in the US and their homeland.
Go on, name another electronic music act from Australia with those credentials.
“Winning a Grammy, I feel like has relieved a lot of pressure. Not that we ever thought it was necessarily possible,” frontman Tyrone Lindqvist tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ during an interview at Warner Music Australia’s headquarters in Sydney. “It was kind of unattainable. It wasn’t even in our brains.”
With Grammy attention for Solace, a seed was planted. The lads manifested. Magic happened. To actually win an award “for anything,” Lindqvist remarks, “is just such a miracle.”
They can add to their collection of miracles at the ARIA Awards on November 20th in Sydney, where the group has four nominations. They already own five of those dangerous-looking trophies.
If RÜFÜS DU SOL felt the crushing effects of pressure, they kept it well hidden. They’ve climbed the Everest of popular music – electronic music, specifically – all the while resisting any temptation to fix what ain’t broke. Inhale / Exhale isn’t stuffed with collaborations, phoned in by a high-profile international guest. No crossover co-signs, no guest raps. No acoustic numbers. No cheese.
It’s a fully-formed album, and at 15 tracks, longer than its predecessors. After four albums with singular titles (Atlas, Bloom, Solace, Surrender), RDS doubled up, and delivered a concept album. “That was fresh for us,” says Hunt. “It feels like there’s two arcs musically with this album, as opposed to one big journey which we’ve done on the previous records.” There’s a “midpoint,” he adds, “kind of a palate cleanser and then kind of ramps back up.”
Inhale / Exhale took shape at points around the globe – Los Angeles, Austin, Ibiza, Miami – and took its first leap forward during a two-week US writing block in early 2023.
As a unit, Lindqvist handles the bulk of lyric writing, while George and Hunt dive into the production of music. Ideas bounce, some stick. With their production ears firmly tuned in, RÜFÜS DU SOL entered the world, captured the sounds of life on their phones, fed it into the music. The result plays out on Inhale / Exhale, at times a lush, sonic tapestry that will appeal to both gear-hounds, rave veterans, and young party animals.
One of the standouts is the mid-album track “In the Moment,” a recording that unleashes a Roland TB-303 synth, an enigmatic, ahead-of-its-time instrument which became the backbone of ‘90s trance music.
“For me, instantly, I felt so in love with the feeling of it and the kind of sonic exploration that we went down the road of while we were creating it,” enthuses George. “The gospel vocal” and the “apex of the song” makes it a downright instant classic.
“Right now, every time I listen to that, I feel so excited for that for us to play it live next year.”
For the few thousand who were lucky to catch the group at Fleet Steps on Darling Harbour, for a special sunset performance on the eve of release, they got an early taste of the album. There will be more opportunities in the months to come.
During the night’s encore, “Music Is Better,” Lindqvist told the audience: “We’ll be seeing you next year.” Expect RÜFÜS DU SOL to play enormous spaces. Expect tickets to sell fast.
Stream Inhale / Exhale below.
