In life before COVID, in mid 2019, I had planned to fly to London and immediately head to Houghton, a young festival in the UK which seems to have nailed music, design, and vibe in its early years. Unfortunately, Houghton was cancelled while I was on my way to Sydney Airport. As part of my preparations for the festival I had tried to order three giant 3D foam fingers because of some incredibly obscure old personal joke.
When I arrived to my brother's house in London, I asked him where the box was, as I knew the package had been delivered. He looked at me with a confused expression and asked if I meant the small parcel on the counter. When I opened the parcel, I found three tiny 3D foam fingers… Little did I know that they would become the ultimate party prop and cause of muscular strains to my index finger over the course of the cancelled Houghton weekend, at the following week at Sunwaves, and still to this day.
I think I've naturally explored new genres and styles, which hasn't necessarily been captured in this mix. I'd like to explore playing some faster, spacey and breaky sets and am planning on releasing a mix with that new style soon.
I also spent some of the time at home in COVID learning to mix records which is still a work in progress. To be honest by the end of COVID my mind's focus had definitely drifted from DJing and events. That said, 3 days at the Finer Things festival re-ignited the fire. Having noted played in a club for a year and a half I'm now about to play my third gig in the last 3 weekends. It feels that good to be playing again!!
I'm also now stepping foot in the events space again as well, which is something I haven't done for a few years. Having formed the Schleeds Collective during COVID with Bronx and Lylac, we are organising club nights through Sessions, and we're also looking at finding some new and interesting venues to put on some innovative events that I'm really excited about.. Can't say any more about that at this stage but our next club night is this Saturday at Civic Underground!
Definitely. During the cancelled Houghton weekend, a bunch of new parties started popping up with artists that had been booked to play but had suddenly become available. Our rag-tag group of about 30 settled on a party at The Cause in Tottenham, featuring Call Super, Shanti Celeste, Saoirse, Pearson Sound and others. It turned out to be the best non-festival event I've ever had the privilege of attending.
Having no idea what to expect, and armed with tickets that required an arrival before 3PM, we were greeted on entrance to a small welcoming room with a bar accompanied by some lounge house wax. We acquired the obligatory Michael Bevan and made our way into the next room, a barren warehouse-style space with a caged DJ control room in the middle, which would later become the sweaty nucleus of the event. As we continued further I observed a side room, fitted with an array of lights, lasers, and cross-hatched lines across the walls and ceilings. A small crowd had begun to form in there. We headed outside to join the masses packed into the narrow strip of outdoor space where UK deep house tunes, well known house anthems were getting the people moving. A few hours in the densely populated alleyway built a strong vibe and unity in the crowd.
Once the music stopped outside, I discovered that the cage room and the side room had already filled out and proceedings were well underway. Over the course of the night the music progressed through chuggy, ravey slow burners until Call Super and Shanti Celeste blew the roof off throwing down speed garage thumpers.
All the while, Kyrwald and Farrer were dictating the side room with a four hour set, playing a completely different genre every time I took the time for a suss. A mixture of uplifting house, electro, garage, minimal kept the crowd guessing. I've never seen so many hands in the air. I've probably gone on a bit too much here but it was a night that opened my eyes to new genres and has impacted my sets to this day.
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