Interview: Hyperflora

Melbourne-based indie-electronic duo HyperFlora have just unveiled their stunning debut track ‘Greta Oto’ ft. Rahel. We had a brief chat with the duo to find out more of what they are about.

Tommy Faith from triple j said you guys live up to your name in every possible way. What exactly inspired the name HyperFlora?

‘HyperFlora’ embodies a meeting between natural and man-made, ‘Hyper’ feels energetic, euphoric, clean, directly contrasted with ‘Flora’ which has more, soft, natural and delicate connotations. We thought the meeting/contrast of these two words suited our sound perfectly. Our music came to embody a  meeting of man made, metallic, syncopation with delicate textures, sparse environments, and comforting, warm meaning.

Your social media aesthetic is very mysterious, which ties in well with your music. Do you believe that appropriate visuals can really enhance the experience of listening to a particular song?

[Josh]

Undoubtedly, I think that having a strong sense of aesthetic around yourself as an artist greatly affects the way people visualize the music in their heads when they listen. in our music, we are really aiming to capture the beauty of everyday life and the universe, and I think this beauty is reflected perfectly through the way light refracts in nature, the rainbow reflections you see when you stare into a sunrise, a translucent butterfly wing catching a glimmer of sun, sun rays being refracted through a crystal on the windowsill. Hence, this is why we have incorporated the entire colour spectrum into our aesthetic, to try and reflect the true beauty of the world around us.

How long did you two know each other before you decided to join forces, and was there a catalyst moment to why HyperFlora came together?

Actually have no idea how long it’s been or when we actually met. I think we started talking over facebook in 2016 and mutually liked each others music. We’d send over unreleased beats and music to each other which sparked an excitement in what we could do. We’ve made so many songs and little projects together that we just scratched and never put out because our sound just evolved so much. It wasn’t until late last year where we decided to run with HyperFlora as a project.

What does it mean to ‘exist loudly’?

‘exist loudly’ holds a variety of meanings, for us it’s a reminder to stay true to yourself and to be honest, open and bold about what you believe in. But it goes a bit deeper than that, it’s more a reminder of not being afraid of the world and unapologetically being the truest version of yourself, weather that’s expressed through art, fashion, determination, activism etc. just not getting caught up on what other people might think of you, from dressing ‘weirdly’, to writing ‘weird’ music, to wanting to quit your job and travel the world for the rest of your life, do what makes you happiest!

Can you tell us the story/meaning behind ‘Greta Oto’?

A ‘Greta Oto’ is a butterfly with transparent wings found in Costa Rica. Writing this track we had this idea of using both the transparency and the butterfly itself as a metaphor. The track is a message to ourselves reminding us to stay transparent with the true essence of who we are. “Let your light shine”. If we remove the bad parts of our ego we transform into the best version of ourselves just like a butterfly’s metamorphosis.

Being as the track itself is what sparked the album and ‘HyperFlora’ as a whole, so we thought it would be a fitting first single. The track went through 4 completely different iterations, each one evolving and building upon the last. Which is kinda weird because the song is about evolution of yourself and the song itself, for us, is almost a documented process of said evolution and developing creatively.

What does the rest of the year hold for you two?

Hopefully playing a bunch of cool shows and writing our next project, which we both are super excited about!