A fresh Goose record is set to grace our ears this Friday, December 6th. Fergus Eglesfield, a.k.a Goose, is an Ōtautahi-based DJ, producer, and stage and vibe curator for Twominds festival. First gaining momentum as a DJ - then becoming involved with the TwoMinds collective - they later expanded into his own music production. His first release in 2021, Things I Notice When I’m High, explored a funk house sound. In 2023, the arrival of Goose’s release on Twominds Records, the EP Oasis In Space, veered away from this, Goose traversed a more organic and tribal house direction across Oasis. This brings us to his latest sonic project - Aide Memoire. Comprising four tracks, his Aide Memoire EP explores new realms from the producer. Gremlins’ Ella Gibson sat down with Goose to find out more about the upcoming release, their wider involvement in the scene, and their personal sonic journey.
Upon the release, a myriad of feelings emerged for the producer. “It’s been a long time coming. It is definitely always exciting and a little bit strange to have music being released because it is kind of like these little songs that you’ve hung onto for so long, you finally let go of them and let them be into the world. I think that is quite a hard thing for a lot of producers to do, but it is also really exciting that other people get to listen to them and see it on Bandcamp” Goose shared.
An ‘aide-mémoire’ is a French phrase defined as an “aid to the memory.” The Aide Memoire EP title references a concept from the sci-fi short story “Zima Blue”, written by Alastair Reynolds. “In the story, the characters have been alive for thousands of years and store all their memories with these little robot memory machines so that they can have every memory in perfect clarity. It discusses how this and in turn, these machines dictating decisions in some ways, is the beginning of humans losing free will. I liked this theme of the story and kept it in mind when choosing and making the songs for the EP. I feel like this is a bunch of songs I made very much for myself and one’s that appealed to me” Ferg shared.
“Another element I kept in mind is the main guy Zima, who in his search for meaning in his art, discovers he was in fact a little pool cleaning robot to start with. He became sentient and then human and then returns back to being a machine at the end. This half-human half-machine thing felt cool and I think that the two sides of the EP tie in with this in some way. The A-side featuring “Lionturtle” and “Perpetual Indulgence” feel more natural to me. Influences of psy and dub which to me are genres that feel quite natural and organic - I used some animal sound sampling and voices as well as kicks sliding on and off the grid that play into this. The B-side is pretty different. It draws on inspiration from the darker industrial downtempo stuff that I’ve been listening to a lot. Both “Static Steeze” and “Storm Coming” feel way more mechanical in my head. They have some almost radio-like sound, literal static, quite zappy electro noise, and just the beats in general feel less natural in my mind” Goose explained.
Goose continued saying that, “maybe that is all nonsense, but it has been nice to have this story in my head while putting them together and finding different parts of the songs and story that I think match together. Other people have different takes on the story. One view I liked was that Zima starting and eventually returning to his original adolescent state of being a pool-cleaning robot was a comment on the simplicity of childhood. I gave a bit of a nod to this with my track naming; both the first and last track names are references to TV and films that were memorable in my childhood. The name and meaning of songs have emerged alongside each other, rather than me setting out from the get-go with a solid, “oh, I’m going to make a song about this and it’s all going to fit with this theme.” This is pretty consistent with the way I make music though, so it feels authentic.”
Ferg began DJing about six years ago, during a summer break between university terms. In these first introductory moments, DJing was merely a preferred means to share songs with friends, “rather than everybody queueing tunes on a UE Boom. It was interactive, social, and creative” Ferg shared. “Learning how to DJ for me almost happened in a day. My flatmates had started DJing a little bit and we had some decks, it seemed like it was going to be a fun time. One day I was like, “sweet, I’m going to learn how to mix.” I spent six hours mixing, doing it completely wrong to be fair, but thought I had it cracked. Corban [co-director of Twominds and their Twominds Festival] came back to the flat and explained what the basics were. I did that and then that was it. I don’t really like being bad at stuff, so I spent way too much time learning how to mix straight away so that I wasn’t bad at it and I could mix with my friends. That was definitely the inspiration; wanting to be able to play music with my homies who were already mixing. It wasn’t to play gigs or anything like that, it was to share music, like before going out to a gig, or to a party, or when you’re chilling at home” Goose shared.
It is that central notion at the core of DJing - of connecting with friends - that has kept Ferg intrigued by the creative pursuit. “I didn’t have any intention of playing any gigs when I learned to mix, it was just for that purpose. Some of my favourite moments DJing have not been out at a gig, they’ve been when you’ve come home from a gig and you’re just like playing tunes at whatever time in the morning with your mates on your laptop through a UE Boom, or DJing in the car on a road trip. If you’re lucky enough to get paid to do that to a crowd of people, that’s awesome. But I think maybe once the crowd gets too big, you lose that connection with the audience and you start moving away from that shared experience. If you can’t see the crowd and you’re 20 metres away on a massive stage, suddenly that has lost the appeal in some ways” said Goose.
Moreover, first connecting with electronic music was an extension of this collaborative sentiment. “I feel like some people have that, “oh, I used to listen to this Avicii song when I was 14 and it was the best song ever!” I don’t really feel like I have that. To be honest, I didn’t dive into electronic music until I was in my third year of university. My friend group at the time, we were all starting to get into mainly DnB, because it seemed to be the rage at UC at the time. Honestly it wasn’t really like a, “wow, I heard this song and thought that electronic music is the shit!” It was a pretty slow burn and I wasn’t really convinced for quite a while whether I liked it or not. My entry to it was through house parties, my flatmates, and the people that I was around - just hearing from them gradually absorbed me into the little DnB cult” Ferg shared.
After sussing how to mix, Ferg and his friend group at the time began live streaming themselves mixing at home to the other side of their friend group in Tāmaki. “We would duct tape someone’s phone to the window and record a bunch of us mixing in Corban’s bedroom on a Friday night. Our homies in Auckland would tune in while they were having pre-drinks and then the next week, it would be the other way round” Ferg said. This idea birthed Sounds of the Local; an online platform for sharing electronic music with friends. “Helping Corban run these livestream setups, which slowly got more and more elaborate, was definitely my first exposure to creating and organizing something music related” Ferg shared.
While Ferg’s entrance into the electronic music scene was through DnB, they quickly found himself branching outside the DnB genre. “My root through electronic music was first DnB, and then I quickly moved into house and found myself liking the slower 4x4 buzz after I got sick of dancefloor DnB. I still have a lot of love for the darker and stranger end of drum & bass but I got put off by the vibe of the scene. Also every track has a similar tempo that made it feel a little same same for me” Ferg disclosed.
From there, Goose’s sonic evolution developed. “I was on a disco and funk thing for a while which coincided with my first release of music which fits into that. Then I went through a more minimal house, electro house, and jackin house stage. From there, I got more into electro and started listening to darker electronic music which was also a response to who I was hanging out with at the time and the gigs that I was going to. As well as that, I got into the more tribal organic end of house music, at the same time as getting more into the psy end of things which was around last year when I put out Oasis In Space. Now at the moment, the latest release is like 130 bpm on one side and then like a downtempo 100 bpm B-side which is super reflective of what i’ve been getting into, listening to and playing at the moment which is very much techno, downtempo, EBM, and a few other things” said Goose. “My music production has always followed what I am listening to or playing at the time and vice versa. In some ways, what I am listening to is affected by what I am hearing both in the clubs, at gigs, on the radio, at home, and my own listening on the depths of Bandcamp” Ferg shared.
Goose’s production process takes on many shapes and forms. “It is kind of different every time. Especially on this EP, I did a range of different things. I will often start a song without a real intention of what I want the song to be when I start it. I just kinda start making something and it figures out what it wants to be as it goes. It is not uncommon for me to start a song at 130 bpm and then slow it down to 105 bpm after two sessions of working on it. This EP is quite a range of stuff; some self-recorded samples and instruments in my room, vinyl sampling, a couple of synths at MAINZ, some drum synthesis, some sound design, lots of more samples, some bits played on keyboard, some stuff done on the Push, and some of it was almost a live jam where I had an idea and live recorded it in with an automation and rolled with that as the arrangement. Often I will end up making a song and deciding that I don’t like the first two minutes of it, deleting that, and starting the track two and a half minutes into the song. So I don’t really have a concrete process, it really changes a lot as it goes” Ferg revealed.
Whilst living with some of the Twominds crew, Ferg started playing and helping with the setup of the gigs that they were running.
Twominds, which started with putting on house parties, then organising gigs at venues like Flux, and now entering into the third edition of their own boutique Twominds Festival, the collective has evolved immensely since their conception. “Collectives of young people throwing gigs and supporting music that they want to see is what breathes life into the scene. It is literally what it’s built on, so I definitely think it had a huge impact on my journey into the Ōtautahi scene” Goose said. They continued saying that, “I think being part of any collective is something that can be hugely beneficial, especially in the early days of your journey as a DJ/promoter. Getting in the scene with people you’re close with can really start you off super well and give you some community in what is a fairly solo pursuit compared to say, being in a band. I definitely wouldn’t have gotten into running gigs and being a part of a festival like Twominds if it hadn’t been for that crew and having other people to offer you opportunities and share the pressure of doing these things” Ferg disclosed.
“I also think it’s important to maintain a wide circle and therefore a wider range of influences. I definitely found when I was living with a lot of the Twominds crew the music consumption in the house wasn’t super varied, so it maybe ended up in a bit of a feedback loop there. Nowadays, I pride myself on going to a super wide range of gigs and try to consume a pretty diverse range of electronic music” Ferg shared.
The second edition of Twominds Festival this year saw the introduction of the Forest stage, run by Goose’s very own Ferg’s Emporium and TyanHAUS. Hidden amongst the trees, the Forest offered a cosy and weird ambience to the festival goer, brimming with eclectic art with a focus on inspiring creativity, community, and curiosity. Ferg spoke to the process of curating a physical space; “I think at an outdoor festival, which is my preferred place to be playing music, brings new opportunities. The Forest was me booking the music that I wanted to hear in the place that I wanted to hear it. Not every set is going to fit in every stage area. It is important to curate the two to match each other - which you have to do simultaneously - because you need to curate the space to fit who you’ve booked, but you also need to book the people who are also going to fit the space you’re planning to make. Some of that is up to the DJs to play the right stuff. But I think the Forest in particular was definitely designed for people to be able to dive into more of the left field and back catalogue of their USB to showcase some of the music that might not always get highlighted on the other stages. It was definitely designed to be a home for the more strange, spooky, and trippy. Having said that, there is also room for other stuff, it doesn’t mean someone playing a disco set in there is going to be a bad thing. There was plenty of music in there that would’ve fit elsewhere, also being awesome in the Forest. But it was definitely made to be a home for some of the stranger stuff” Goose disclosed.
Whether it is studying audio engineering and production at MAINZ - the Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand, producing music, or playing at gigs, music is at the forefront of Goose’s daily life. Balancing these relationships with music from different angles creates an intriguing intersection. “It is an interesting one to balance. Even studying an artistic thing alone is quite strange because you’re pushed to be creative on demand. I don’t know many people that can flick a switch and create something to a schedule in that way. Overall, I think it’s pretty awesome. You definitely find yourself making songs and you’re constantly improving on them at the same time. Not only from the songs you make, but also from what you’re studying. So it’s nice being able to go to school for a week and immediately apply something that you’ve learned to some song you’re making for your own projects outside of school” said Ferg.
“There is an interesting intersection between being involved in running festivals and putting your artist hat on and trying to think of things from both angles. But I think that is also where the sweet spot is because going back to the Forest thing, it’s maybe harder to create a stage that is designed for playing those weird things if you are not also doing those things yourself. If you’re not involved in the artistic side of you playing the music and being on the stage, I feel like it is kind of hard for you to get a sense of what the stage should be like. Having that knowledge of knowing what it is like being that person on the stage, as well as the person in the crowd, helps when you’re designing a space for you to have been in both of those camps. One of things from having work, study, and hobbies all music is that you get quite tired ears. Ear fatigue is actually a real thing, as well as audio hallucinations. If you spend too long listening to music in a day, it has been proven that you start hearing stuff that is not actually there. So it can be a bit of a hard balance spending your whole day at school doing audio-related stuff and then trying to come home to work on your own tracks.
Sometimes you’re super inspired and sometimes you’re pretty worn out. Sometimes you just have to be in tune with that and have a good schedule” shared Goose.
Ferg has called Ōtautahi home for most of his life now. “Aotearoa, in particular Ōtautahi, has a definitive stronghold of bass music, soundsystem culture, and underground club orientated music. In particular, I think that has influenced me a lot more than Aotearoa music as a whole. Although, I definitely have got some influences from a lot of Kiwi music that I have seen at festivals around the place - especially from the band scene earlier on and just from the general festival and music culture of NZ. But I think more locally, I have been influenced by the quality of electronic music in Ōtautahi which is of a pretty high standard. I feel like the level that Christchurch DJs and producers are at at a baseline is incredibly high compared to a lot of the rest of the country. That might be biassed, but I reckon it is probably true. People don’t really fuck with so much of the mainstream edits or bootlegs as much here. The music is pretty hard hitting, forward-thinking, and innovative coming out of Ōtautahi. So that has definitely influenced me a lot. I think that you can see that a lot in the last EP; the bass and the techno scene creeping its fingers into the productions for sure. How much of that is from living here and how much of that is from my taste changing? I don’t know and I guess you can’t really tell. But Ōtautahi has definitely influenced me a lot” Ferg shared.
Beyond the whenua of the long white cloud, Fergus’ ears have also tuned into the frequencies of global sounds. Goose shared that, “in the case of travelling to say Turkey and Egypt, I feel like I went there because of the music and the culture that came with, rather than going there and then I started listening to the music from those places. I felt like because I was listening to a lot of organic house vibe and arabic electronic stuff, I was keen to check those places out. But then to be honest, when you get there, a lot of the people that I talked to were not into that sort of music. You don’t go to Turkey and everyone listens to organic house with all the time. They were jealous of the fact that we have big time electro, breaks, and DnB producers coming over to NZ because they don’t get that at all. I think a lot of the music that I was listening to was produced by the people from those countries, which was them taking a lot of instruments local to their countries and using them in tracks, but I don’t think that is always representative of what the scene is actually like there at all.”
DJing has seen Goose delivering sets all across the motu at numerous editions of Tora Bombora, Twisted Frequency, Twominds Festival, Electric Avenue, and Nestfest. 2023 marked Ferg’s international festival debut at Mahagoni Festival in Germany, attesting to Goose’s selections in an outdoor setting. Looking back on where his DJing and production has taken Goose, what have been some of his favourite performances and moments? “The two that automatically spring to mind is first, probably playing at Tora Bombora in 2022 with my leg in a moonboot while I was on crutches. I had broken my leg three to four weeks earlier, and I really didn’t think that I would be seeing any of summer, especially not a festival. But they managed to be all good for me to go up there and play, which was quite special and emotional. The other favourite set that I have played would be Twisted Frequency 2022-2023. It was my first time at the festival and I had a nice mid-afternoon set on the last day after having such an awesome four days. It felt like the crowd was super receptive and the environment was one that I felt was inspiring and it held space for me to play a really authentic set. I didn’t feel like I had to change my set to fit the venue, rather I could play what I wanted to play” Goose disclosed.
Looking ahead for Goose, there is exciting uncharted sonic territory to roam. “There are always new things to be learned, always new things being brought out, and always old things to rediscover. There’s an unlimited amount of techniques to learn and probably sometimes too many. Sometimes it is actually nice to work within limitations so you don’t get overwhelmed by the choice that you have. But as always, I am excited to learn new stuff. I am excited to start work on a new set of tunes. What direction do I think they’ll be going in? I don’t really know. I’ll probably make some more downtempo, I’ll probably make some more techno, and I’ll probably make some more everything in between. As well, I am trying to mix more vinyl and currently working on a live set with Patella. So that is a new direction for sure” Ferg shared.
If you want to stay up to date with all things Goose and support his kaupapa, he told us where you can do that; “Bandcamp always. Fuck Spotify. If you want to support a musician, go give them $2 on Bandcamp, it is more money that they will get from 5,000 plays on Spotify. Bandcamp for the music, Instagram @goose_egl on where to stay up to date, or Soundcloud for mixes. But I will usually post it all on Instagram and update the Linktree that is in the bio there anyway.”
