The digital era changed everything about music—both how it’s consumed and how it’s released. But while a number of artists simply switched from putting out albums on vinyl and CDs to streaming on Spotify and iTunes, producers like Gorgon City went one step further. Reimaging the scope of the conventional album format, the British duo is revising what it means to put out music as a collection with its Kingdom project.

“Sometimes when you’re writing an album it can get frustrating when you’ve worked on a track, finished it, and then have to wait for the label to figure out what to do with it,” Kye Gibbon, half of Gorgon City, tells the Straight on the line from London, England. “Because we’re touring so much, when we have a song done, we want to get it out there. We figured out that it would work to our advantage to release each of them one at a time.

“There are a number of positives,” he continues. “Putting out each track separately gives them their own space as well as their own attention. It lets us write music that takes in a lot of different styles. There’s songs like ‘Blue Parrot’, which is a straight-up dark, techy club track, and there are things that are much more house. They’re all linked together by their heavy bottom end, and a focus on the bass. Together, they form a full album.”

Innovation has been a vital part of the duo’s career since they first hit the Top 10 in their home country with club banger “Ready for Your Love”. Taking U.K. rave music—jungle, drum ’n’ bass, garage, and grime—as reference points, Gibbon and fellow DJ and producer Matt Robson-Scott traded in their solo careers to pursue Gorgon City full-time. It’s proven to be a good decision. Scoring a residency at Ibiza’s premier Amnesia club, touring in over 30 countries, and collaborating with everyone from Jennifer Hudson to Duke Dumont, the pair is filling bigger and bigger dance floors around the world.

Gibbon puts the final number of releases for Kingdom at 16, and hints that a bundle of tracks will be released together early next year. That’s not where the concept ends, though.

“Kingdom has become more than an album—it’s a bit of a brand now,” Gibbon says. “We have parties that are called Kingdom. We’ve done them at festivals around the U.K. like South West Four and Creamfields, in Mexico at BPM, and Florida’s Holy Ship! as well. We also started Kingdom Radio recently. It was an opportunity to create a mix that goes out to a lot of different countries around the world. It was a bit daunting to do a radio show every week, but it means we have to dig more than if we were just doing club sets. It’s a great way to showcase artists’ music that we’re into.”

The Kingdom brand also incorporates the pair’s live performances. Setting themselves apart from other electronic-music duos, Gibbon and Robson-Scott have built a show that allows them to separate their DJ sets from concerts in nonclub venues.

“We love DJing, and I think we’ll always want to be DJing,” Gibbon says. “But when it comes to doing a live set, we want to play music like a band. We have a live drummer and two singers. The drummer plays electronic kits as well as acoustic stuff, so he’s triggering the kick drum, which is the same sound that we use in the production. There are other acoustic drums he can layer over the top. Me and Matt have a couple of synthesizers each, a MIDI keyboard for playing bass lines on, and loads of different sequencers.

“When we do those shows, it adds a different feel to the tracks,” he continues. “Everything is a bit looser. There are certain parts where we’ve deliberately not got a plan. A couple of tracks are literal jams, and we can do whatever we want. Whenever we’re playing our singles or the tracks that everyone knows, sometimes we might do it a little bit differently. If a certain chorus is going down well, we might play that bit for longer, or add in extra fills. It’s very spontaneous, and it keeps everyone on their toes. We’re taking the Kingdom party around the world.”

Gorgon City plays at Celebrities on Friday (October 6).

Follow Kate Wilson on Twitter @KateWilsonSays