1.Growing Up
I grew up in a pretty musical household. My dad has always worked in music, so there was a small studio in our family home and we all grew up trying out a few instruments. Plus there was always loud music playing around the house every morning and afternoon. One super early memory was maybe at the age of four being able to leave kindergarten to go to a recording studio and watch an indigenous artist record. That was pretty amazing.
2.Inspirations
I guess I don’t have one particular favourite all-time musician and tend to like bits and pieces of everything. People who I will always come back to are: Arthur Russell, Lee Perry, Larry Heard, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Klaus Schulze, Francois Kevorkian, Patrick Cowley…the list goes on. It depends on the style as to why I like certain artists – sometimes I go for emotional slow psych-ish stuff like Eddie Hazel, or repetitive synth of Berlin School stuff. It just depends on the track I guess. For me, the dub mentality of using the mixing desk as an instrument feeding into other genres is always nice.
3.Your Crew
Nick [Murray] and I started out DJing together maybe ten-ish years ago. We had known each other for a while and kept bumping into each other at the same shows – then we both started working at the same bar, so we started playing records together at his apartment and then eventually DJing. We were residents with Lewie (Tornado Wallace) every week at the Mercat and a few other clubs for a while and that led to us all playing together a lot and eventually starting Animals Dancing as a party then record label with Andee and Daragh. Me and a couple of guys have recently opened a record store (Skydiver) in Collingwood.
4.The Music You MakeAnd Play
At the moment, like a lot of people, I’m particularly liking music from DJ Sotofett, Suzanne Kraft, Telephones, PLO Man, Hashman Deejay and also really enjoying the reissues and compilations of Music From Memory andsimilarlyminded labels.
5.Music, Right Here,Right Now
I think that the local scene in Melbourne is really healthy right now. The crowds are also super positive and switched on musically, which is great. People like Moopie, Simon TK (and the other Wax’o guys), Sleep D, Dan White, Cale Sexton, Andras, and expats like Fantastic Man, Tornado Wallace, Kris Baha and FIO are all doing amazing things. Ben Fester, Noise In My Head and the Pelvis guys (among many others) are definitely doing special things for Sydney too.
Otologic playBacardi Fuego Revolutions at Club 77 on Saturday August 20.
