Kylie Minogue sings on debut album for dance duo Flight Facilities

SYDNEY dance duo Flight Facilities have tried to make an album that’s all killer no filler, with a little help from Kylie Minogue.

Sydney dance duo Flight Facilities

HUGO Gruzman of Sydney dance duo Flight Facilities is used to using Skype to line-up guest vocalists for their debut album Down to Earth.

Through mutual friends he’d been given the number of the artist they wanted to re-record Flight Facilities’ first single, 2010s Crave You.

In the throes of connecting his computer with Kylie Minogue’s Gruzman realised how surreal his life had become.

“I’m about to Skype with Kylie Minogue,” Gruzman says, who points out it was only three years ago he was delivering pizzas.

“Luckily she instantly made me feel like I was talking to one of my oldest friends. A lot of people get to a certain point in their career where people maybe don’t want to work with them because they think they’re not credible but Kylie’s maintained that cool factor. She’s just great.”

MYSTERY VOICE: Kylie Minogue’s cameo for Flight Facilities

DEBUT ALBUM: Flight Facilities’ Down to Earth reviewed

Minogue spent the day in Sydney’s Studios 301 earlier this year recording her version of Crave You — she already knew the lyrics because she’d thrashed the song in her car for years.

“When Kylie left the studio we had to have a group reality check about what had just happened — Kylie Minogue singing our song, and she already knew it,” Gruzman says.

“We put on some Hall and Oates and just partied.”

“We put on some Hall and Oates and just partied” ... Flight Facilities’ James Lyell and Hugo Gruzman with Kylie Minogue.

In the end, Flight Facilities kept the original (with vocals by Giselle) for their album and included Minogue’s a cappella reprise of the song.

“We didn’t want to overwrite something we’d done just for the sake of having a name on it. Kylie knew exactly what we wanted, we gave her the most vague directions and she just got it and did it. I hope it’s the beginning of a journey with us and Kylie. We really really want to do some songs with her. We’re such fans of Slow and Chocolate and Confide In Me. Slow and Chocolate, people never gave them the true respect they deserved at the time.”

Minogue may be the biggest name on Down To Earth, but typifies their selection of the right vocalist for the right song. Most importantly, they wanted to make a quality dance album like their heroes before them.

Three years in the making ... Flight Facilities’ debut album Down to Earth.

“Records like Metronomy’s The English Riviera, Mylo’s Destroy Rock and Roll, Daft Punk’s Homework and Discovery — there’s little bits from those records that have made their way into our lives as DJs and producers,” Gruzman says.

“We didn’t want to release an album that felt like four singles with a bunch of fillers. We wanted that classic feeling of an album that makes sense from start to finish and isn’t a product marketed to sell just because it’s got a bunch of hits on it. There’s such a huge difference in the listening experience between an artist’s greatest hits and their studio album. One is good to have on at a party, but the other should really give you a sense of what that artist is about. That’s the key to us in making this album.”

They’re keeping that same attention to detail for the tour to launch the album. While Gruzman and James Lyell originally hid their identities, they’re now out in public, but most usually found wearing pilot gear and getting in first with every possible pun their band name screams out for.

“We’ve made first class care kits for this tour, like you’d get on a plane with Flight Facilities socks, pillow, toothbrush and everything, we really want to make it feel like you went to a special party, not like some musician cash grab,” Gruzman says.

“We want to wow people and make them feel like they’re part of something unique.”

Owl Eyes, who sings on album highlight Heart Attack, will join their Australian tour to voice all the female parts on the album, Kurt Kristen handles the male vocals.

“There’s live vocalists, but at the heart of it we’re DJing,” Gruzman says. “We make no excuses for that, we want to exert ourselves as DJs. DJing is very common these days but we’re trying to do it in an interesting way that makes people more engaged than just watching one dude on stage playing a whole bunch of EDM bangers, drinking Grey Goose and putting their hand in the air.

``We want to pay respect to the tradition of the DJ, even if we are using USB sticks. We want to create a global community of people who can get on stage with us and sing wherever we are in the world. Our ideal scenario is to get Kylie on stage with us, it’s a huge ask but if it ever happened we would never forget it.”

MELBOURNE

Down To Earth (Future Classic) out now. Flight Facilities, The Forum, November 12, 13,14. $48.98, Ticketmaster

SYDNEY

Down To Earth (Future Classic) out now. Flight Facilities, Enmore Nov. 20,21. $45.67, Ticketek

BRISBANE

Down To Earth (Future Classic) out now. Flight Facilties, Tivoli, November 15. $45.59, Ticketmaster

KYLIE MINOGUE: CHANGING FACE

Originally published as Kylie Minogue sings on debut album for dance duo Flight Facilities