Electric Fields, the Australian musical duo comprising Zaachariaha Fielding and keyboard player and producer Michael Ross, have had an enormous year.
They travelled to Sweden to represent Australian at Eurovision, and capped off the year by releasing a live album made in conjunction with the Melbourne Symphony Orchesta.
Surprisingly, while it’s a live recording, it’s also the band’s debut album. The duo has been putting out music for close to a decade but have never had an album before.
Speaking to OUTinPerth Michael Ross reflected on their unusual journey and agreed that Electric Fields just aren’t like other bands.
“It’s our first album, and it’s a live album, but we still don’t have a studio album yet.” Ross said, noting that people are often surprised to discover the dup have never done a studio album.
‘We’ve been writing for the last none or ten years. We did our EP and then there’s been a bunch of singles, and we’re always saying let’s work on the album.” Ross explained.
The band’s challenge is they keep getting distracted by incredibly interesting projects that come their way.
“A whole bunch of things just kept taking precedence, whether it was a commission to write thirty minutes of music for the lighting of the sails on the Sydney Opera House for Vivid, or working on television series, or some film music, there was always something we needed to do first.”
Ross notes that the duo have also spent much of the last decade on the road playing shows across Australia, so much so that he’s lost track of the number of times he’s travelled around the nation.
A studio album is still on the agenda, it’s something Ross will come in its own time.
“Someone told me once if you have patience, you have everything. It’ll come, in its own mystic time.”
Putting together a collection of their tracks to date with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was something the duo found to be a complete thrill. Adjusting their music for an orchestra was a process that Ross really enjoyed.
“It’s a process, but there’s moments where you think ‘Wow, that sounds so much more beautiful with those textures”. But you also want the orchestra to be able to show the full range of their abilities, so you add more, there’s more counter melodies and you adjust the harmonisation.” Ross said.
For the performance and recording the duo worked with conductor, and former OUTinPerth cover star Vanessa Scammel.
“We love working with her.” Ross said, sharing that together they’d worked with several different symphony orchestras over the years.
A clip of Electric Fields and the orchestra performing Don’t You Worry shows the exuberance and excitement at the live event.
Ross says one thing that band has learned from friends and fans is that people listen to them because they bring joy.
“It dawned on me that some pop-dance outfits, they’re really sexy, or they’re have a different angle, and I just think our natural angle is joy and happiness.”
“For lack of a better word, we’re just about good old fashioned joy, maybe we get that becasue Z and I have a lot of love for each other, and we love to dance.
“We create music that we want to hear, that we want to dance to, and music that makes us feel filled with happiness.”
Asked if a desire to make endless joyful dance music is a “queer thing” Michael Ross breaks out into laughter.
“I think so!” he replies. “We’ve all been through so many uphill battles, so when it’s time to hang out in a safe space with our chosen families we often choose fireworks level of joy because we need to balance out lives up.”
“That’s not to say queer folk aren’t happy, I’m very happy, but it’s not an even playing field out in the world, and our queer folk have to face barrier in the world.”
Reflecting on the band’s sojourn to Eurovision earlier this year, Ross agrees with our characterisation of the Eurovision experience as “crazy land”.
“It was a lot of extremes, when things were exciting and exhilarating it was a 15 out of 20 level of euphoria and joy, but when things were stressful and a bit scary, they were extremely stressful.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t trust ourselves as performers, but there were the protests, the police and the security.” Ross said.
In early 2025 Electric Fields will be making another trip to the west coast to be the opening act for the music program at the Perth Festival.
“We’re really looking forward to performing in Perth, we’re bringing our favorite music from the last nine years, and we’ll be working with lots of different shades and colours.”
Electric Fields x Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Live in concert), and Michael and Zaachariaha will be performing sans orchestra at Perth Festival on 7th February.
