The Guest List: Flight Facilities reveal 10 tracks that inspired their new album, Forever

Having been working closely together for over a decade, Australian live-electronic duo Flight Facilities have always been deeply influenced by the history and generational change witnessed in the art of musicianship.

Today, they unleash their second studio album Forever and as always, the usually modern disco-centric duo impress to the maximus with a far wider range of sounds that touch on nuances from Chicago house, Detroit techno and indie electronica.

Check out Flight Facilities Forever here.

Having a knack for taking inspiration from both grand and minuscule details of their favourite productions, we spoke to Flight Facilities to break down that same philosophy and how they applied it to their new album. The refined selection below really gave us insight into the depth of ideation the pair dive into. From Loose Joints to Madonna to Daft Punk, Flight Facilities take over The Guest List to share their influences behind their new and second full length album, Forever.

Mike Dunn’s ‘Phreaky MF’ was partly an influence for our single featuring Channel Tres. We’ve always loved that chuggy disco style, and we were excited to work with a vocalist like Channel who could lean into that mood.

The percussion on the Mike Dunn track is a really common disco loop that, as far as we know, comes from the Larry Levan edit of ‘Is It All Over My Face’. This Loose Joints song is a personal favourite of ours, and it captures that same slinky mood we were after.

If you combine these previous two tracks with Tiga’s Bugatti, you basically have our first album single ‘Lights Up’. We loved Tiga’s insanely simple drum machine sequence, and it seemed to hit so hard.

‘The Ghost’ is quite obviously Daft Punk inspired with its vocoder, although the vocoder was never intended to be on the final product when it was first made. It was a melodic vocal reference because we didn’t have a singer. Then it just seemed to stick after a while. We still use Daft Punk, and ‘Around The World’ as a reference for so much of our music. Also the music video is perfect.

Also a special mention to the Para One remix of ‘Prime Time of Your Life’. The break in this remix inspired the synth timing for the break in ‘The Ghost’.

While making ‘Forever’ in the studio, our friend and collaborator Jono Ma used his synths and especially drum machines to help us achieve some 90s feel to some of the tracks. We used the 909 on the title track ‘Forever feat. Broods’ which, along with the euphoric chords, gave the song some real Underworld characteristics. For that reason, we have to mention this absolute classic, ‘Born Slippy’, as a big reference.

‘Pain' featuring Jordy Felix is a western inspired song. There was a phase of getting into modern country type songs. It’s a genre founded in beautiful melodies, but modern country doesn’t have the same magic as it once did. However some musicians manage to capture that energy beautifully, and we think First Aid Kit are phenomenal at it.

When we created ‘Move feat. Drama’, the primary reference was Show Me Love by Robin S. The 90s drum machine was the major reference to get that groove, as well as a bit of Korg organ.

The second reference for ‘Move’ was born from the love of piano house. It’s made a fun resurgence recently, so we thought we’d add a little of it to make the track feel somewhat contemporary, while also maintaining a classic feeling. The piano break at 2:34 feels so good on the dance floor that we wanted to create a similar moment.

Lastly, we didn’t totally realise it at the time, but as we kept creating ‘Move’, we realised its similarities to ‘Vogue’ by Madonna. Most people think this was the most intentional reference, but it was more coincidental than anything.