Can you tell us a bit about the mix we are about to hear?

This set is made up of completely new music from the first BASS WATER FREAK OUT (BWFO) compilation released in September 2021. BWFO is a new Eora based record label for deep sea genres spanning GTek, Acid, Electro, Juke, Breaks, and Bass hybrids. Artists from 13 nations across the world contributed these tracks as a fundraiser for the Australian Marine Conservation Society. It's a bouncy high energy mix which only covers half of the actual songs in the compilation. Head to our Bandcamp or Soundcloud to check the rest :)

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What are your predictions for the future of dance music and the industry? Any changes you would like to see?

I'd love to see DJs including more live performance aspects, be it singing live, playing some instruments live or including dancers. Even if it's not a whole electronic live set, including some live aspect can be really fun and feel human, it may not be perfect but more pouring out of self expression accompanied by the mixing would be fun. I'd also like to see more genres which involve hiphop remixes or vocal sampling. Hip Hop and Techno are my two favourite genres and there are many subgenres of dance music which merge the two but I don't find them to be often played in Sydney. Id like to use Bass Water Freak Out to change that as I find these genres very energising, fun, playful and great to dance on. They also create space for DJ sets to include vocalists.

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What's the last really fun thing you did?

Starting this label!!! Apart from that I saw a Big Shark go for someone recently, it was really fun! I was surfing at sunset and there were just two of us out. I heard the other guy scream and turned around to see him off his board and a huge shark tail thrashing around. I paddled straight over but he swam to shore before me. When I got to him he was amazingly fine. It had missed or was just saying hello or something. It was really fun and exciting to see a big wild animal like that up close. Especially because it was trying to eat the other guy, not me. It was totally a Bass Water Freak Out ^_^

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You've been producing music for quite a few years now, how did you get into it?

I’ve always played piano, and that is now how I earn my living, teaching piano and music. With the piano the main thing I liked doing was improvising and making up songs. They were kinda jazzy alt RnB things. At first for my releases I made the keys and vocals and friends of mine helped to produce the other aspects of the tracks. My first ep in 2013 ‘Ghost In the Intro’  was partly produced by Jackson Fester whom you may know as Cousin from Moonshoe Records. The Rest of the EP was co-produced with Pat Gillin from Sydney and in Harlem, New York with some friends who I made on the street chatting about music, SirKwesiTheFirst & BalliBoiBlack. My second EP ‘XO’ was partly produced by Brendan Zacharias (Assembler Code). I learnt a lot watching these high quality producers work to the point where I could produce all aspects of the music myself.

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How has your sound developed over the years and what has inspired you in the development of your sound

At first I was making Alt RnB with heavy electronic influence (Azealia Banks first mixtape Fantasea was a favourite reference at the time). Then like many people, I moved to Berlin lol. I had never quite understood techno before then. I didn't feel it here, like I felt it there. I realised the repetition was a meditation. I then started making longer hypnotic songs and moved from BPMs around 100 to BPMs around 120. I used to think that was fast, Now I don't start below 140BPM aha (but at that point you also get into the lovely halftime range i.e. 70bpm is 140bpm). Then I discovered DJ RASHAD. His music amazed me, particularly the album Double Cup. It had everything I loved about hiphop and techno too. It was fast but had the halftime drops and was very rave dance floor appropriate. And it SWUNG it swung like anything and I love swing in the kick and snare patterns. The core elements of my sound have stayed the same in the Trippy RnBish vocals, mostly my own sometimes sampled, and the synth work which I play, but the production around those elements has increased in speed and intensity. Also at first I would play synths like I played the piano, chords, melodies etc but now Im interested in the nob bashing, to jam with the analog synth and just see what might happen. It’s very exciting because no one may ever hit that combination of buttons and make that sound again. You can record that moment and send it off into space. Thats good.

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For people looking to enter the world of music production, do you have any tips for getting started?

GO FOR IT! Its so cool that now for a few thousand dollars (or even less if you hack the software and get free sample packs) you can have a release quality studio in your home or just on your computer. That has changed in our lifetime and its an awesome change which has exploded creativity.

If you're thinking to get into production Id start listening to music as layers. Analyse what layers it is, in that genre or song, that you really like. Common layers include, a kick pattern, a snare pattern, a high hat pattern, melodic pattern (single note runs), chord pattern (harmonic or multiple notes played at once), vocal patterns, bass lines. At a basic level most songs have those things, start distinguishing them in the music you listen to, realising that its 4x4 kicks you like or maybe fast triple time high hats etc. If you can analyse music like that in your head, it will help you to think about the layers you need in a production.

For software I recommend Ableton. I've used many other DAWs and this is my favourite and most widely used, so collaboration is easy. Watching friends, sitting in on sessions and watching youtube is how I learnt the software. I’ve had lots of friends who really recommend Ableton Live school too. Learn how to mix your own tracks from the very beginning. Mixing well is crucial to release quality music. I don't recommend mastering yourself but I definitely recommend mixing yourself, you will save a lot of time and money.

REMEMBER there is no one way to make a song, you can do it anyway, experiment. And remember you will make a lot of shit songs in the process lol and thats fine. You can always learn something from a finished song that you end up not liking or not releasing. HAVE FUN WITH IT and make what you LOVE. You do have to be your own biggest fan and make Music for the love of music. Hopefully yours will find its audience and they will feel that Love <3

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Any projects you're working on?:

I have two eps coming out soon. ‘Gotta Save Venus’ is coming out on Planetaria Soundsystem from Madrid Spain. This is a concept piece; it is the film score to a movie that doesn't exist. The film and title track are called GOTTA SAVE VENUS. It is up to the audience to create the story in their own mind using the 5 songs, the cover artwork and the track titles (in brackets is a scene description from the section of the film the song is written for). On this EP I sing on every track, it is dark and floaty. What is the story which comes to your mind as you listen?

NAUGHTIES NOS - coming out on NERANG RECORDINGS from the Sunshine state QLD. Naughties Nos stands for 2000s Nostalgia but turbo charged like Nos. This is a remix ep of some of my favourite 2000s rnb songs including Cassie, Nelly, Brandy, Tpain and Usher, but plus Nos.

Bass Water Freak Out also has two new compilations coming out soon: SUBMARINE SLIPSTREAM is a hard G-TEK compilation and MERMAID LEMONADE is a more blue trippy experiment where every track must feature a female vocalist to bring out the Mermaid feels. But it's deadly too, don't listen too much or you'll end up on the rocks!

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