SUITE GROOVES NEW RELEASE #2
Track Listing
Blunted Stylus – Grinnin’ While Ya Spinnin
The Nextmen feat Charli 2na, Tippa Irie & Krafty Kuts – Chicken Of The Sea
Soopasoul – Swing Down
The Allergies – Move On Baby
!!! & Meah Pace – Man On The Moon
KG & LW – Automation
Samba Toure – Tamala
Khalab & M’berra Ensemble – The Western Guys
Tomix & Speed Freeq feat MC Shureshock – The Circle
AkAs, Gregory Phoenix feat 2Shy MC – Oldskool Newskool
Squarpusher – Squarepusher Theme
Southlight – We Had Disco
Southlight – Lovin All The Time
Sampology – Memories In Flight
Sampology – Regrowth
Sampology feat Allysha Joy – Suffer & Swim
Middle Name Dance Band feat Natalie Slade – Love Bite
Enduro Disco – Deep In My Heart (Holger Zilske Remix)
Dale Howard – Clueless
Max Telaer – Edream
Kevin Yost – Whistle Contageous
Miguel Migs – Midnight Memories (Jimpster Extended Remix)
X-Press 2 – AC/DC (Guy J Remix)
Rawdio – Energy
Roti & Schnauzer – Devised By Man
Roti & Schnauzer – Midnight
Roti & Schnauzer – Intro
Roti & Schnauzer – Shadow Land
Flight Facilities feat YourSmith – Heavy
Nightmares On Wax & Haile Supreme & Wolfgang Haffner
Anduze – Helen
Omegaman feat Pat Powell – If You Leave Can I Come Too?
Transcript
Sharif
Hello, and welcome to the second episode of Suite Grooves New Releases. I’m Sharif and this time I’m joined by my partner in crime here at Suite Grooves, DJ Galleon, Mitch Medcalf. Welcome, Mitch.
Galleon
Thank you. It’s great. It’s been a while.
Sharif
I know. Well, I think we need to tell people what Suite Grooves is all about to start with, why we started doing it, and how long we’ve been doing it, on and off for a while. We’ve actually recorded a few podcasts before, but I had to delay the launch of Suite Grooves a couple of times. But we’re here now. So, this feels a bit like deja vu. But I feel like we’re finally doing what we’re meant to be doing.
Galleon
Absolutely. It’s great to be doing it again. And, yeah, we’ve had a bit of a few, you know, all kinds of things going on with Suite Grooves, you know, behind the scenes. And then we finally sort of launched a bit and had some initial podcast couple of years back. So, and they were great to put together.
Sharif
It was fun. I mean, in a way, it’s probably just a pity that we didn’t publish them because you did some awesome mixes on those podcasts. And there was some great music coming out over the last four years.
Galleon
There was and it’s consistently gotten better, like, you know, there’s, it’s so hard to, to pick favourite tracks right now, because just everyone is on their A game. And I’d have to go back. I can’t remember what I put in the mix.
Sharif
That’s alright, I’ve got the playlist somewhere. Yeah, I’ll feed you the information. Cool. Well, um, as I said, we should really tell people what Suite Grooves is all about. Basically, I mean, we see Suite Grooves is an alternative for, not really an alternative, but somewhere you can go when you can’t think of what you want to listen to, or you want to discover some new music. We’ve got the stream running 24 hours. And a third of it is all new music, that Mitch and I sort of collect and pick between us. And a quarter of it is all classics. So, you’ll hear some old stuff as well. And in between is all the stuff that’s been coming out over the last four or five years. So, you’ll hear a lot of music, and hopefully that can point you to some new music, go and listen to the full album, support the artists either download the album, I mean, we try and support the artists as much as we can, because we know the streaming services don’t pay them much at all, to cover the costs of putting an album together. So that’s why the links on Suite Grooves to the, to the artist, is mainly to their Bandcamp site, because Bandcamp gives them a larger percentage of, of what you pay them. And you can directly be in contact with the artist as well.
Galleon
No, Bandcamp, I’ve been like, I get so many good edits and things off Bandcamp you know that there’s stuff on there that you don’t often find on other sites as well, I find.
Sharif
Yeah I know. I think Bandcamp is a great resource. Also, Bandcamp, whatever you buy is there. So, stuff I bought from Bandcamp years ago, is still there. And I can still download it today. And I can still download it as a lossless file or an mp3. And yeah, as you know, we like lossless files because it gives you the full frequency. It’s not compressed. And eventually, you know, I’d love Suite Grooves to be broadcasting in lossless files. All. Yep, yeah. So, at the moment, it’s 320 mp3. But eventually, we’re going to hit up to lossless files. And speaking of lossless files, I have to mention a couple of people who have sort of helped out. I mean, there’s been quite a few people been helping us out the Suite Grooves from the beginning. But Mark Dynamix deserves a special mention, he helped us out at the beginning with a whole range of music he wanted to share with us, and Paul Flex Taylor, he gave me a hard drive of two terabytes worth of music. Of course, it’s all lossless. If you know, DJ Paul Flex Taylor. He’s very particular about his music and the quality of the music. So, yeah, so we’re set in the future. And that really helped because I haven’t gone through my records yet to digitise them so I can play them on Suite Grooves. And what Flexi gave me was a whole heap of those records like some of the old classics that you know, that we need to have on the station because we are celebrating dance music, electronic music, club music, whatever you want to call it. All those genres that make up this, you know, weird and wonderful music, Yeah, so
Galleon
and that they’re legends in their own right, as well. So, it’s great to have them on board.
Sharif
Yeah, yeah. And also, I’m talking about the music itself. So, you know, we want everything from the old classics. Whether it’s in the 50s or 60s, it still holds up against today’s music. Early House, early Techno, there’s so much good music so
Galleon
Even to the roots and reggae. And yeah, blues, any of it really. Anything a with the groove.
Sharif
Exactly. That’s why we called it Suite Grooves, we want to give you the top shelf grooves, or the grooves that you find in the top suite.
Galleon
And if it tastes, if it tastes sweet, it’s on our station.
Sharif
Sweet, sweet. Yeah. Mitch has been ending all my conversations with sweet ever since we started Suite Grooves.
Galleon
I have. Ha, ha.
Sharif
Cool. So, do we need to? Yeah, another thing I’d really like is listener feedback on our own our rotation, because at the moment, because for a while there’s so much good music out. I had a high rotation track will be played once every three days. I’ve cut it down, and now it’s once a day. So once every three days, you’ll hardly hear it. So yeah, if you listen to the station, let us know what you think. Should we to keep it at once a day for high rotation or should it be once every three days. And I think the reason why I went every three days is because you know we’ve got feature albums of the month. They differ month to month, the number of the feature albums differ month to month depending on what’s out. But I’ve still got albums of the month. Like I’ve got one from last year. That’s still on high rotation, which is the Quakers album. It’s, I can’t get enough of it. So, I’ve left it there. All the albums that are on high, that were featured last month are still on high rotation. So, Mr. T, Sampology, and Roti & Schnauzer you’ll still hear them once a day. So, I just think if you’re listening to a track, and you don’t hear it as often as commercial radio do and they bombard you with a track to the point where you just don’t want to hear it anymore.
Galleon
You get so sick of it.
Sharif
But I think once a day, you don’t get sick of it. Actually, when it was three times a day, it was even better because you hardly heard it. But then it’s not really on high rotation, if it’s only once every three days. What do you think Mitch?
Galleon
Yeah, I think once a day is good, you know, you get everything else but you get those new tracks and once a day, you can go, ah, yeah, okay. Well, I’ll tune in tomorrow to hear it again. Oh, without having to go okay, well, I’ll just have to wait three hours, and I’ll hear it again.
Sharif
As I said, it’s it. You know, I know Suite Grooves is there to point you to certain artists and albums and then, you know, go and play it on your favourite streaming service ad nauseam. Even better support the artist and buy it.
Galleon
Go buy it.
Sharif
Yeah, cuz these days albums don’t cost that much. I mean, and singles even less so. Yeah, it’s um, so anyway, that’s, that’s our philosophy. Let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you. Just fill in the contact form on the Suite Grooves website. And yeah.
Galleon
Please do.
Sharif
Yeah. We’re looking forward to hearing from you. Now on tonight’s episode. We’ve got quite a bit of music to go through. On the last episode, I went through some of my favorites from 2021. I’ll complete that again tonight. I’ve still got more tracks to go through. I know Mitch has done a mix for us.
Galleon
I have.
Sharif
Yeah, we’ll go through that later. But we’ve also got three interviews to go through. Roti & Schnauzer, I said was one of our feature albums last month. We both spoke to Jamie and Sam, who are Roti & Schnauzer.
Galleon
It’s a quality album.
Sharif
Very good album, and another quality album is Sampology.
Galleon
Yes.
Sharif
Yeah, I spoke to him as well. Very briefly though. So, Sam has agreed to come back and or delve into the album track by track. Yeah, I really admire his work and all the effort he puts into it. And we also have an interview from Damien Goundrie, who’s one half of Southlight, which should be coming up after our first lot of music.
Galleon
And he’s got a groovy little single as well.
Sharif
Yeah,he’s got a new single that came out I think just last month, called Lovin’ All The Time. I spoke to him about releasing, I thought he’d have a whole album and he said he did. But you’ll hear in the interview why he’s releasing it just one track at a time. But for now, yeah. Well, coming up, as I said, we’ll first go into some tracks that I’ve chosen. There’s few. I mean, they’re mainly from albums, because I wanted to feature the albums that, but there are a few singles here as well. Well, the first track I’ve got is Grinnin While Ya Spinnin and it’s actually not a new track. This tracks 25 years old. Actually, there’s a few tracks on tonight’s episode that are 25 years old. But the reason for that is because they’ve been re-released, remastered and re-released. And I know why, because most of the tracks from 25 years ago, I’ve had to remaster to put on Suite Grooves, sound quality is completely different. Mastering techniques have changed.
Galleon
Oh, yeah.
Sharif
Yeah. So. So yeah. So Blunted Stylus released his album, Hempatitis. So, he’s re-released the, the album as a vinyl. Well, he re-released it on vinyl, and you can also buy it as a digital release. Just go to our feature albums page on Suite Grooves website, and you’ll find the link. And also, I’ll be speaking to him and going through his history because if you don’t know who Blunted Stylus is, he was one of the members of the Resin Dogs, as well. So, he’s been involved in so many things. He used to be on 4ZZZ, doing a radio show.
Galleon
Oh, I didn’t know that.
Sharif
Yeah, he used to be on 4ZZZ. And yeah, that’s where Mitch and I met when I was doing a radio show on 4ZZZ.
Galleon
We did!
Sharif
When I was living in Brisbane, back in 2013.
Galleon
Called Open All Hours.
Sharif
Yeah, it was a show that I did. Well, a few years after I left Triple J. And I wanted to do something a little bit different. So, I thought I’ll just do a house music show. And that’s when you came in. And you did set. And,
Galleon
I did.
Sharif
Yeah, yeah, it was a great set. I said every set you’ve played me so far has been great.
Galleon
Thank you. And then they did a bit of everything in it too. Like it started slow. It was a bit of a mix.
Sharif
You started slow picked it up, even though I was doing a house music thing, but I loved it. So, I played it. And I interviewed you. And actually, I asked you something then because I’m not sure if our listeners know, you live with a disability.
Galleon
I do. I’m totally blind. And I’ve had that all my life. But you know, that’s it’s never got in the way. I’ve always had a big passion. And that’s music. And, you know, I’ve always wanted to from six years old, I wanted to be a DJ. I listened to music being mixed together. And I was like, Yeah, I want to be DJ. And I just followed it. And I got decks when I was 11. And just practiced and I learned the basics from a guy called Michael Monk who was a commercial and party DJ up here. And then when I was about 21 I got my first, it was actually around that time just after we did that, I got my first residency up here. And I’ve had residencies basically every weekend since.
Sharif
Yeah, you still didn’t have a residency. You actually came and met me at one of the gigs I was doing in Brisbane.
Galleon
At Bacchus. That was a cool gig. And I think I was really getting my head around the New York Paradise Garage stuff at the time. And that has always been a big influence. Pretty much since that time and since I started playing there’s always been a big heavy disco influence in what I did.
Sharif
Yeah, I love that. I love the fact that you love disco. I mean, I love disco. So, it just makes it easier when you’ve got someone else who’s got his ear out for you know, good disco tunes coming out. But you’ve also got a range you, I mean, even, you play really commercial stuff as well. I know that you enjoy that.
Galleon
Yes, I like it. I’m all over the place really like I love the stuff most is Big Dance Floor energy that isn’t too cheesy. You know I love a good vocal. I love a good sing along and a big happy drop and a piano and a bass line. That’s my favourite stuff. That is pretty much my sweet spot. I play gay venues. So, it’s kind of expected that you’re going to drop Whitney or Lady Gaga and they tear the roof off when you do and that’s always kind of how it’s been in the gay scene. But, I can do other you know pop stuff and R&B. I’m trying to gradually, just without trying to be too much of a dick about it, I’m just trying to move away from a little bit of the pop and R&B. Because I there’s just becomes a point where you get a bit over it and even the retro stuff, I try and avoid a little bit where I can, and just try and play the stuff I like and find that middle ground between what they’re liking and what I’m liking. But I also have a big underground side as well. And I love deep house and I love Berlin techno and my big goal is to be doing things in Berlin whether it be short term or long term, I’d love to get over there and do some work over there. So, I love that I love Afro Beat, Fela Kuti, I love Afro House, you know even the drum and bass. All of it! I love so many different kinds of stuff.
Sharif
Your last folder, that I got from you had everything. I was really impressed. Drum & Bass, Breakbeat, slow grooves, House, Disco. It was, yeah, quality and all over the place. It was awesome to listen to. But I remember asking you at the time because I just didn’t know how you could DJ when you because for me DJing I rely on my sight, 100%.
Galleon
Yeah.
Sharif
So, but you told me at the time you were DJing using CDs. So, you had a CD wallet, you knew where every CD is, which is quite interesting. But I saw you using a console like a digital console. You had a photo up on your Facebook page.
Galleon
Yeah.
Sharif
So how do you work with digital music these days?
Galleon
Well, to sort of look back on that time, I’m glad I’m not using CDs now, because just the amount of music that comes out every week. I think back in those days, I was still doing the occasional wedding and just making my own discs to mix and, and do that I think I was putting like seven tracks on a disc. And no CD was labeled. And I just kind of just remembered through what was where and muscle memory and of getting them out and playing them just what was on what listening to them. Now if I was to open a CD wallet, I could not tell you what was on what CD, or what was in what wallet or how many CDs were in there, or how many tracks are on the disk. But now I’ve moved to USB and it was around that same time, not long after we did that mix that I actually started using looking at USB. And when I stepped into my first venue about a year later, I was using USB. and I had to come up with a way of categorising my music so I could find things. Someone had said it to me a few years earlier and I freaked out as I’m never gonna be able to do that. I know CDs. And that’s all I know. But I had to find a way of categorising music. And I put it into, the genres fall under alphabetical order, and then the tracks with the artist name fall under those genres. And they’re all kind of labeled with those filing conventions every week when I upload new music to the USBs and take music off is what I do. And then I write a list on my phone and I have it in Dropbox, which gets updated every week as to what new music I take into the venues. I love to turn up with something new every week. So, it takes a couple of gos of playing a track to actually know what it is or you know where it is on the on the system. And then I learn it and sort of have it in my memory. Oh, that’s right. That’s when I got that a few weeks ago. But then I just use the CDJ and cue up the tracks normally and just mix them in.
Sharif
But how do you know? Ah, you listen to it?
Galleon
Listen to it first. Yeah. Oh, but if I if I couldn’t if I hear a track on the stick, and I go hang on, I gotta go backwards to find what I’m looking for. I sort of remember what the intro sound like.
Sharif
Wow. That’s intense.
Galleon
It would seem that way. But to me, it’s just how I do it. You know, it’s the only thing I know I can add. It’s not a worry at all like, I just rock up and do it.
Sharif
Man, I’m flustered if I don’t know where you know, a song is and I you know, so. Hats off to you, man. That’s I’m impressed. I’m really impressed.
Galleon
Yeah, no, it took a while to do it like a couple of years to really refine it. But I take in, like I’ve got my spares, but I take two USBs. I take their duplicates. And I use both of them because I learned the hard way what happens when you link and you hit an emergency loop and there’s no one to help me. I had to find that out the hard way. Burre, I was doing a giga Solei and Burre, it was, well, first of all, it’s somehow the only time I’ve ever played there. But I had to call Burre who I took over from to come back and fix me up because the thing was just looping and I couldn’t stop it. And that’s, I think the last time I’ve ever loop linked, unless I had someone with me like going back to back because I just don’t risk it. And what I take into the club is all I’ve got, you know, I try and refine it. Everyone’s different, but I try and refine my stuff. So, I’ve got what I think is the best stuff in every genre to take into the club on those 2 32 Gig USBs. And if I don’t have it, well, I’m sorry, I don’t have it. That’s just as how I go. And it’s never really caused me a problem. You know, you’ll get a request that you don’t have. And it’s usually for something really obscure that they have on tick tock or, you know, something like that. And sometimes it can go the other way, like you can get a really good request that you don’t have to go man, I wish I had it. But that’s yeah, that’s how I do it.
Sharif
And I remember part of the reason why I think we stayed in touch is your memory, you were telling me things about my radio show that I played on there and things I said about the tracks or the artist that I totally forgot. Your memory is amazing. I must say.
Galleon
I don’t know why I just I, music stuff I commit to memory. And just as I’ve always listened to dance music and I remember things growing up and yeah, I just I can play some music with certain years and things going on and yeah.
Sharif
I think we’ve spoken quite a bit.
Galleon
We have.
Sharif
Should we just play some music for the people
Galleon
Let’s do it.
Sharif
And then come back we’ll tell you what it is when we come back. But again, you can just see the playlist online I suppose, it’s really a different doing a podcast as opposed to doing a radio show live. So,
Blunted Stylus
Sit back, relax, listen to some hip hop.
Sharif picks some tunes
Blunted Stylus – Grinnin’ While Ya Spinnin
The Nextmen feat Charli 2na, Tippa Irie & Krafty Kuts – Chicken Of The Sea
Soopasoul – Swing Down
The Allergies – Move On Baby
!!! & Meah Pace – Man On The Moon
KG & LW – Automation
Samba Toure – Tamala
Khalab & M’berra Ensemble – The Western Guys
Tomix & Speed Freeq feat MC Shureshock – The Circle
AkAs, Gregory Phoenix feat 2Shy MC – Oldskool Newskool
Squarpusher – Squarepusher Theme
Galleon
You’re listening to Suite Grooves with Galleon and Sharif and right there we had a real mix of stuff. You want to tell us what you selected?
Sharif
Well, there was a real mix of stuff, wasn’t it? Well, the last track was Squarepusher. The Theme from Squarepusher. That’s another track that’s 25 years old. It’s been remastered and re-released celebrating 25 years. And that album was ahead of its time. I mean, I played it after a couple of drum and bass tracks who were just released this year, one of them you chose Mitch.
Galleon
I did.
Sharif
The Old Skool New Skool track. The one before Squarepusher,
Galleon
Yeah, there’s a bit of drum and bass coming around at the moment and a lot of it’s very, very bouncy and very kind of semi aggressive but yeah, I kind of like that.
Sharif
Hmm, that one always has me dancing. I’ve got a you know, try not to play it if I’m busy because it just I don’t I it’s really hard not to move to that one. But Squarepushers’ track The Squarepusher Theme. I don’t know I suppose it’s a bit more like the Aphex Twin stuff. It’s sort of it’s more cerebral.
Galleon
Yeah.
Sharif
But speaking of drum and bass, the track before the Old Skool New Skool track is a track from Brisbane where you live. Tomix and Speed Freeq featuring MC Shureshock tracks called The Circle. There’s a lot of drum and bass coming out of Brisbane and Break Beat by the way.
Galleon
Wow, yeah, and MC Shureshock is great, as you’d know, he’s worked with Kid Kenobi and still does. Kid Kenobi is actually playing up here in a couple of weeks. Ministry Classics.
Sharif
Yeah. Yeah, he’s been busy. He’s been releasing a lot of music. I mean, you did a remix for him.
Galleon
We did. Yeah, as a BoogieKnights. Ant’s (Mitch’s partner in BoogieKnights) actually playing at that event as well. But um, yeah, we did a mix. I don’t think it’s actually out yet, but it’s called Everybody. And, yeah, he did his Halcyon Days mix, but we did a funky mix as well which went to promo last week.
Sharif
I mean, I remember you did another one. Earlier this year for him? I think if you’ve done more than one for Kid Kenobi.
Galleon
Yes, we did one earlier this year. And Ant did his. Actually we did a couple and then we had one for his track a couple of years ago, Killin It. I think it was 2018 or 2019. We did that one, which was a bit different to what we usually do. It was sort of was breaky. But it was Drum and Bass was somewhere in the middle there.
Sharif
That’s, that was the three drum and bass tracks. Well, I don’t think you can call Squarepusher, drum and bass, but I think he was he was very close before the term was even coined. But before those three tracks, I had three tracks that are a bit more, or they use Eastern scales. And one of them is from a band in Melbourne, King Gizzard, and the Lizard Wizard, which, they’re a live funk act. And I’ve always enjoyed their music, they have great energy live on stage. But they released two albums earlier this year. One called K.G, which stands for King Gizzard, and the other ones called L.W, which is Lizard Wizard. And those two albums, they wrote the music using Eastern scales. And as you probably know, Eastern scales have 22 notes as opposed to the 12 notes in Western scales. So, that’s why it’s the music sounds a bit more bent. And because my backgrounds Egyptian I’m so used to Middle Eastern scales. As soon as I heard it, it was like, I don’t know, I’ve always wanted to hear like funk music, or rock, but done with Eastern scales. And the person who came closest to doing that was Robert Plant when he, him and Jimmy Page, and they did a tour was around, actually was around 25 years ago when I first started a Triple J 96? 95?. And yeah, he had a, an Eastern orchestra with him. And I remember talking to Robert Plant about the influence of Middle Eastern music on his music. So yeah, but I’ve always wanted so that but that was a bit more. I mean, that was, you know, it was him and Jimmy together and they had a great band with them. That was like a full on rock band done in a very classy way. This is amazing. This is a bit more raw. And that’s what I love about it. One of their tracks is called East Meets West or West Meets East. The track I chose is called Automation. But yeah, I love the fact that they used Middle Eastern scales to play funk and rock.
Galleon
It’s very cool.
Sharif
And so after that I followed up with a track from Western Africa, Samba Toure. As you probably know, The Blues, they trace its origin back to Western Africa, because that’s where most of the slaves came from. And I really wanted to play the instrumental track on the album, it’s a great album, you really should check it out. But, because the instrumental track, I think really shows you the blues influence or the influence of West African music on Blues, but also the track that I chose, Tamala is a track that has been around for years apparently, it celebrates the empire that was in the area, its capital was Timbuktu in Sub Saharan Africa, Western, Sub Saharan Africa. And so. it’s a track every folk musician over there, and this music for them is folk music, they have to do a cover of. And so that’s the track that I chose.
Galleon
Well, I never knew.
Sharif
Well, the track after it, is a track by this guy called the Khalab, he is Italian, and he went to a refugee camp in, also in Western Africa, and recorded, the camp was called M’berra, and he recorded a whole album with some of the refugees there. So, he called them The M’berra Ensemble. And that track is called the Western Guys by Khalab & The M’berra Ensmble.
Galleon
It’s cool. It’s kind of like, Big Beat with the world influence or something like, to that effect.
Sharif
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Galleon
Like early Chemical Brothers, maybe something along those lines.
Sharif
It’s a very interesting album. And that’s what I liked about it. He, yeah, I didn’t know where they’re gonna go, or what they’re gonna do, but they surprised me. But as you said, it has that sort of electronic feel, but it also has the, you know, the West African folk feel as well. Yeah. Yeah. Before those three tracks. I played a track by, it’s a cover of Man On The Moon by R.E.M.
Galleon
Very, very cool.
Sharif
Did you like that one?
Galleon
I did. I loved what they did with it. It was I mean, you know what the original sounds like but this is, this is quite different.
Sharif
Very different. Yeah. And it really surprised (me) and I haven’t heard from these guys (in a while). Now. The name is three exclamation marks. But it’s pronounced. Chk chk.
Galleon
Right.
Sharif
So, they write it, if they have to write it, chk chk chk. So, it’s like, it’s a bit like Skippy. You know? When Sonny used to ask Skippy, you know, ‘What’s happening Skippy?’, and he’d go, chk chk chk. And I think that’s probably where they got it from. Ha ha.
Galleon
They were around years ago. They’ve been around for a while.
Sharif
Yeah, I know. Yeah, they’re not Australian. But Skippy was big overseas wasn’t he?
Galleon
Yeah. I think so. Ha, ha.
Sharif
So, I’m finding hard, I’d rather say exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, and Meah Pace, they did that cover of Man On The Moon. And before Man On The Moon, a track by The Allergies. Now, ha, ha.
Galleon
I love The Allergies. Ha, ha. Not the shellfish allergy that I have. But these Allergies are great.
Sharif
Ha, ha! I like that. Nice one. Well, the problem I have with The Allergies is, and it’s not really a bad problem. It’s a good problem. They release like two albums a year.
Galleon
Yeah.
Sharif
And the problem is, it’s hard trying to find a bad track on every album.
Galleon
They’re all quality. They’re all good.
Sharif
And they’re all over the place. I mean, I really wanted to play one of the Andy Cooper tracks. I love his rapping. But I went with Move On Baby. It will just show you their scope. But yeah, I remember I sent you this. He sent me a message about going. That’s not The Allergies, is it? I was like yeah, it is. Yeah, I’m pretty sure since we started Suite Grooves, they’ve put out three maybe four albums. So yeah, I mean, please keep them coming. I love them, they’re great to listen to. They’re great to play on the radio station and they’re awesome to play out as a DJ.
Galleon
Absolutely.
Sharif
I love playing them out. The Allergies followed on from one of their label mates Soopasoul. This is the other 25 year old track. Again, Soopasoul remastered his album from 25 years ago. To be honest, half the tracks are already on rotation on Suite Grooves as part of the classic tracks because I bought them years ago. And I thought well, I might as well get the album it’s been remastered and I’ll put the rest of the track, that aren’t on rotation, ha, ha. Another really good album to check it out from Jalapeno Records. And before that one of my favourite Hip Hop outfits. Actually, I think all my favourite Hip Hop outfits these days seem to be English. The Allergies, The Nextmen someone else that was on my mind a while ago. Well Quakers is, I suppose half English half Australian. That was yeah, Nextmen are back and yeah, I love just about every track they’ve put out but it’s even better because it’s featuring Charlie 2na.
Galleon
He’s great.
Sharif
Yeah. Tippa Irie and Krafty Kuts, the track’s called Chicken Of The Sea, and right at the top from Brisbane Australia, Blunted Stylus with Grinnin While Ya Spinnin.
Galleon
You’re on Suite Grooves.
Sharif
And now let’s go to our first interview, who should we play first Mitch?
Galleon
Damien.
Sharif
Damien? Cool. Well, Southlight is Damien’s project. And as I said, I’ve known Damien for years. You know, we’ve, he’s worked in radio here in Australia. He’s taught at S.A.E.. He’ll go a bit more into his history when I speak to him. But I actually didn’t know that he had an outfit called Southlight until he released Lovin All The Time, because he put up a post on Facebook. Maybe because I was off Facebook for a few years. I didn’t know. And so yeah, he sent me a copy and I love it. It’s one of those tracks that.
Galleon
Great little track!
Sharif
Yeah, it keeps growing on me. It’s really nice. So, I started off by asking him who are Southland?
Damien
Southlight is a collaboration with my studio partner. His name is Andrew Young. And we met in Sydney, about 10 years ago, I was teaching a course at SAE school audio engineering. And he was one of the students there. And after he’d finished, we decided to do a little bit of production together to finish polishing a few of his tracks. And in a short period of time, we realised that we were really collaborating really well, so we continued to, to keep working together. And we’ve, we’ve managed to keep that going, as I said, the best part of a decade. And that has that partnership has, you know, gone gone through quite a few a few challenges, challenges of distance. Andrew moved to Tasmania, about four years before I moved down. So we had to reevaluate our, our working workflow and how that was going to work with the distance there. And yeah, what we’ve I think one of the things that Southlight has really, really stuck to and and been really special for us is that we’ve we also have created relationships with a bunch of other vocalists and musicians as well. We’ve kept in there so, so the core of it is Andrew myself but the Southlight project has actually evolved with quite a few other people as well.
Sharif
And is there a particular sound or genre that you’re trying to focus on or?
Damien
Yeah, so both Andrew and I are you know strongly influenced by disco and house music and that being said, you know, we find that there’s a lot of scope within that you know, from things that are relatively downtempo right through two tracks that are you know, really aimed at the dance floor you know, there’s nothing wrong with a you know, a really good you know, 3am track that you know is gonna keep people in the club right? As opposed to you know, a track the people are going to nod their head to at the bar so you know, we’ve always felt that if we’re making a variety of music or a lot of music within within a genre broadly speaking that it doesn’t, every track doesn’t have to be a cookie cutter of the of version of the song that came before it. You know so so yeah, so yeah, so disco house music that’s a big influence for us, but that being said, you know, we listen to a lot of you know, 80s electronic stuff and things like that as well so that has to get a nod too.
Track: Southlight – We Had Disco
Sharif
We Had Disco a track from Southlight’s self-titled debut album, I didn’t know that they already released a full length debut album until Damien told me before we started recording the interview. So, I asked him if the latest single Lovin All The Time will be the first single to be taken from their forthcoming second album. But first, I asked him if they released their debut during the pandemic, because I just missed it all together.
Damien
Yes, that’s right. So after, I think seven years of Andrew and I working together, and with how our, when, with working together, we had done a whole bunch of original tracks, we also worked a lot behind the scenes for other people. We’ve done a lot of a lot of production and ghost producing for other DJs and remixes and artists, vocal artists, and what have you along the way. And we thought, well, we just wanted to do an album to say here, here is an album and was like, well, we’ve done all these tracks before we can just cherry pick those. Or we could actually kind of figure out where we’re at. So, the album ended up being released in January 2020. Yeah. And about half the tracks were songs that had been around for a little while. And the other half were brand new. For that, for that album. Yeah. So that was that was how that how that worked. Anyway, the pandemic hit. So yeah, that album got released. But unfortunately, there were no DJ gigs or live shows to go alongside with that. So that album was just kind of sat there, we didn’t do very much promotion for it or what have you. Now, living in Tasmania, we’ve got off easy in regards to the pandemic, so Andrew and I were able to continue work together in the studio, what have you over that period of time? And yeah, we’ve we now have an album’s worth of songs. However, we are still in the pandemic. And we thought instead of kind of dropping everything all at once, like we did with the last album, we’ll actually release the songs on a fairly regular basis over the next 12 months. So, we got a catalog of song songs ready. We’ve worked with some great people. And yes, Lovin All The Time is the first of our, our new selection of songs. So, whether that’s an album, I’m not sure maybe it will be in a year’s time. And we just keep adding to it. But yeah, that’s where that one sits.
Track: Southlight – Lovin All The Time
Galleon
You’re on Suite Grooves with Galleon and Sharif and right there, we just heard Southlight with Lovin All The Time. And Damian was telling us all about Southlight and that track and the range of new tracks that he has coming over the next 12 months.
Sharif
I’m really looking forward to it. And I’ve asked Damien for a more in-depth interview that we should do in the future. And I’ve also asked him to do an Influential Tracks podcast for us, because I really enjoyed listening to Matt KVon’s Influential Tracks. And I’ve got another one prepared and ready to go done by Jamie Olsen from Roti & Schnauzer, we’ll be speaking to later, which is also really good. So, I told him, you know, I’d like to get as many Australian DJs and producers as possible to tell us about the music that influenced them and got them into dance music and electronic music.
Galleon
I still haven’t started mine. Ha, ha.
Sharif
Oh, take your time. It’s a bit of a challenge. But I was really impressed with both Mat and Jamie. The day I told them the next day they sent me the recording. I was like, wow! I’m impressed. I’m still going through mine. I think I’ve picked five or six so far. It’s really hard. Because these aren’t just your favourite tracks. These are your tracks. These are the tracks that made you go wow. What is this? You know? I gotta have this. I gotta find more music like this. I got to play more music like this. It affected how you play music and how you produce. Yeah. Next, we’ll go to Sampology. Sam is an amazing DJ. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him play live. He’s an amazing DJ to watch. And he used to do a live show with visuals. So, it was an amazing thing to watch. Yeah, but have you ever heard him DJ?
Galleon
I’ve actually heard. Yeah, I saw him play at Electronic Music Conference in Sydney back in 2014. And we actually exchanged a bit music at that time. But he played this awesome set, like it was a bit worldly. You know, there was a bit of different electronic stuff in there but he just put it together so well.
Sharif
And his music as well. He is meticulous with his music and putting it together, and artwork and all that and that’s why the first question I asked him about the album is, are you happy with it?
Sampology
Yeah, I, it’s funny like, firstly, in terms of the final product, I feel like I’ve gotten to the stage with making music or just general making creative projects of whenever I aim for something, it ends up being different every time. But I still think it’s important to aim for things like to plan of this is what I want to be. But there, but I think I’ve learned that at some point in the path, like, you have to like pay attention to things serendipitously popping up and pivoting and bringing stuff in. So, I’m really happy that it, kind of ended up where it has ended up. So, in a way it’s different than I imagined at the start. But it’s also exactly what I wanted to be. Yeah, I feel like it’s exactly what I wanted to be, but I didn’t actually know exactly what that was. But it feels right. And in terms of the response from I’m getting back from people, I feel like I’ve been through a few phases with it, since its release day, like the first week, it was just really weird that other people were listening to it, because it’s this project I’ve worked on for a while and, you know, it’s sat on my computer in different forms, and I’ve listened to it, and you know, broken down what I want to do and how I want it to evolve. And now with other people listening to it is just a really buzzy kind of thing. But I’ve been, I’m like, I’m kind of into it now. It’s now it’s out and people are, you know, giving nice feedback about either listening to it their headphones at home, or like some kind of relax, relaxing session or in a club situation. It’s kind of interesting to see this, you know, hear the feedback of that spectrum of things. Yeah.
Sharif
I mean, the reason I asked you this question is because I know you’re quite meticulous and putting your albums or EPs together, not just musically, but also the artwork. What happened this time?
Sampology
I think I feel like this time with the artwork, it was both meticulous, but I’m kind of referring back to my earlier point of being open to things serendipitously like, popping up it was, it was kind of more in that realm of things like most of the music had been recorded, it was just kind of like putting together the jigsaw puzzle of the album in 2020. And at the same time, I without working on the album, I was also digitising my granddad’s Super Eight footage from the from the 70s. And then some video stuff from the 90s I was kind of doing total like lockdown activity of digitising old tapes, which you know, he never get around to doing in a non kind of, you know, lockdown everything slow down time. And I came across this tape of me flying on a green screen. When I was eight years old, which I’d never actually seen, I had the memory of it being shot like briefly from being eight, which is a bit fuzzy. But last year when I digitised that tape, it was the first time I saw that imagery of me flying. So I kind of just played around with that image, that silhouette of flying for the day or two afterwards, not even thinking about anything to do with my album at all. And then I pulled out some foliage photography that I had actively worked on for the album, and kind of combined them both together. And they worked really well, and then from that point onwards, the flying stamp bow shape, which I’ve kind of you know, it became the term for me flying has kind of become the, the imagery around the whole album and it kind of calls to yeah, like, behind like the deeper meanings I feel in the album as well. Yeah, I feel like it’s really simple kind of image of work as well. So it was both meticulous process but also unplanned, which I really liked it because it kind of came up that way. Yeah.
Track: Sampology – Memories In Flight
Sharif
Memories In Flight. One of the tracks from Sampology’s debut album, Regrowth, and you heard him explaining earlier, about the image on the front cover. Now I asked Sam more questions, but this time about the title of the album. Well, in terms of the name of the album, you called it Regrowth. I know you had one of your EPs Mount Glorious had a, you know about Mount Glorious in Brisbane. So it’s sort of a forest theme. And when I spoke to you about it last time, you were telling me how it’s inspired by it. Is this about also forest regrowth? Or is that your own personal regrowth?
Sampology
Its both really and I think it’s one of those things that it’s in the listeners hands as well, for whatever that means. I think the two obvious components or meanings for regrowth, you’ve kind of pointed out or being like a personal kind of regrowth, or yeah, like an environmental regrowth, and that’s probably the main two narratives of the album, the name kind of came up while I was working on the album, in the tail end of summer, which of 2020 like to start at 2020 when all the bushfires were happening, it was just like, amazing and devastating how many trees were just being lost. It’s just like, how many yeah, how much like, how many trees have we just lost in Australia, and there’s just gonna have to be some kind of, regrowth, tree planting, of, you know, all of that forest area. And, and then also on a personal front is kind of, I’ve done music and creative stuff in different forms for quite a while, and I feel like since 2016, the EPs Natural Selection, Mount Glorious, which you mentioned, and now Regrowth kind of being one creative, musical output, kind of bit that I’ve been on, one part of my life, and I feel like that chunk of creative time, it’s like going into that it was kind of like a regrowth thing for me, personally and with my music. So, yeah, it kind of, once I leaned into that, in finishing the album off, It kind of gave a lot of intention to the work that I wanted to do to bring it all together. Yeah. Which helps a lot.
Sharif
And you’re also donating money to regrow trees
Sampology
Yeah, yeah, just you know, bringing physical objects into the world, like vinyl. You know, vinyl, making vinyl pressing vinyl is a resource, you know. It’s a plastic of some kind. I would argue that it’s definitely not a single use plastic. If you’re making music that’s hopefully of some quality, which you press into vinyl means that you, you know, you want to make it of some quality if you’re going to go through all of that effort and expense. But yeah, to offset the, you know, that process in some sense, there’s there, there’s a label called La Sape down in Melbourne, which I saw they partnered up with Reforest Australia, which is just a yeah, organisation that plants trees. And they allocated a certain amount of trees that were planted for yeah, for every 500. So, I’ve kind of done the same. There’s, I think, 100 trees being planted for every 500 copies of vinyl. Yeah.
Sharif
Great. So, if you buy a piece of vinyl, you’re contributing 20% to a tree?
Sampology
Yeah, for sure. That’s it. And it’s not like something I’m like super advertising but I did put in the description in Bandcamp just so people can you know get amongst that. Um, and yeah, I think it’s cool putting out the reforest like I found out the reforest thing from La Sape putting it on all the information for their physical products, and you know maybe someone else will have a dual physical product and see that organisation as well and plant some trees and yeah.
Track: Sampology – Regrowth
Sharif
That’s Regrowth the title track from Sampology’s debut album, and next asked him about the tracks that are getting more plays in the clubs and online.
Sampology
I would say Running Around, Suffer And Swim featuring Alicia Joy and then Memories In Flight. Those ones. It’s kind of cool to get that feedback from people you know doing Instagram stories or sharing that kind of social media stuff and putting music to some, you know weekend party activity, and they kind of pick one of those three tracks to put in there. But then people kind of sharing that there are other favourites of the album that are more the headphone more soothing kind of tones so yeah those three tracks for that end of the spectrum which is yeah, which is cool.
Track: Sampology feat Allysha Joy – Suffer & Swim
Sharif
Suffer And Swim featuring Allysha Joy from Sampology’s debut album, Regrowth. The album is released on his own record label Middle Name Records. Sam is also part of a band that is also on his label and carries the same name. ‘Well, you’ve also been busy with your Middle Name Dance Band, you just put out an EP and added vocals to one of the EPS. Is there more Middle Name Dance Band music coming?
Sampology
Yeah 2022 is going to be Middle Name Dance Band project, yeah, yeah. I can’t, like there’s all of that details are like yet to come out but um yeah because the other two members of the band live down in Melbourne now I’m up in Brisbane. And, yeah we’ve kind of we haven’t had heaps of time to, or we hadn’t had his time, but we have more recently to like work on new stuff and the momentum is definitely like there for new material, which we’ve kind of started making plans for the release for that but um yeah and there’s some festivals coming up for performances of our fun trio so I’m really looking forward to that yeah.
Track: Middle Name Dance Band feat Natalie Slade – Love Bite
Galleon
You’re on Suite Grooves. And that is a side project of Sampology, The Middle Name Dance Band named after his record label Middle Name Records. And there’s more content from that artists coming out very soon.
Sharif
That track was originally released just as an instrumental and then he got some vocalists to sing on top. Natalie Slade was on that one. And Wallace is on the other one. Yeah, really looking forward to Sam’s Middle Name Dance Band album and looking forward to catching up with him as well, and go through his history. Yeah, he’s been doing a lot of stuff for quite a while now. Very impressive young DJ. Now it’s time to go into your mix.
Galleon
It is. Yep. And we’ll go through the tracks after the mix. But um, I’ve gone down an underground path. Slightly, quite a deep bit of a journey here. I do a weekly mix, which some of you may know. It’s very dance floor oriented and very vocal heavy. But this is this is more of my underground side. And I hope you like it. We’ll come back and we’ll talk about it after.
DJ Galleon mini mix
Enduro Disco – Deep In My Heart (Holger Zilske Remix)
Dale Howard – Clueless
Max Telaer – Edream
Kevin Yost – Whistle Contageous
Miguel Migs -Midnight Memories (Jimpster Extended Remix)
X-Press 2 – AC/DC (Guy J Remix)
Rawdio – Energy
Galleon
You’re on Suite Grooves with Galleon and Sharif and you just heard me going quite deep into the underground or as deep as I felt like going at the time that 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning when I recording that. So, we’ll go through what I played. Enduro Disco, which is Holger Zilske from Berlin. His track called Deep In My Heart, which came out a couple of months ago, he’s done his own remix under the name Holger Zilske, just his real name. That’s a cool little tune I’ve been getting into. Then we move into Dale Howard from the UK with a track called Clueless, which is sort of slightly deeper again, that deep techy kind of sound that’s pretty big at the moment, which I’m really getting into. Then we’ve got Max Talaer or Telia or Teller or something from I think he’s from Berlin because he’s on a Berlin label whose name I just can’t remember right now. The track called Edream. Then we’ve got this, this track. Ha, ha. Kevin Yost, Whistle Contagious. You can’t deal with this track. Are we gonna go down that path?
Sharif
Ha, ha! Well, look, as I told everyone, I think I’ve mentioned here on this podcast that I’ve loved every mix that you’ve done, from the moment I met you, from 4ZZZ, all the mixes we did for the podcast that we didn’t publish. But when he sent me this, I don’t know. I just didn’t dig it. And this track stuck out. Yeah, it was that piano chord, I just feel like it didn’t change. It was just once a bar. And it just, it annoyed me. I mean, it’s, I don’t know. It’s a, as I said, it was the first mix I got from you. And I went, I’m not enjoying it as much as the others. But you picked it, you went, was it the whistle track? I went, yeah, that one really annoyed me halfway through it all like, and I think that affected me listening to the rest of the mix that you made, but you figured it out straight away. And I told you what you did was a rookie mistake. Ha, ha.
Galleon
Yes, you did! Ha, ha!! It was like, boom! Mr. Triple J just told me how it was.
Sharif
Well, tell them what you told me.
Galleon
I, I bought it, and I didn’t listen to the whole thing before I recorded the mix. And I bought the track. I was going through Beatport, and I heard it. This is percussive this is really cool. And I actually I like the piano thing, and I didn’t actually find the piano thing annoying on a second listen. But I just kind of things are crazy at the moment. Everything’s happening. There’s stuff happening everywhere. It’s coming to the end of the year. And I knew I had to record this mix. I said, Okay, what have I got? This is cool. This is cool. This is cool. Okay, we’ll go down the percussive route goes into the next track that I’m about to talk about. And I was recording it going that whistle things a bit whatever. Okay, here, just keep going. Whatever. I thought it went okay. And then you were like, I didn’t dig it! Yeah, probably that track?
Sharif
Well,I mean, I like the fact that you figured it out. But as I said, it’s a rookie mistake. And as I said to you should never play a track until you’ve heard it at least three times from beginning to end. Because then you’ll know how good or how bad it is, if you can’t hear it three times, from beginning to end, whether in a row or over, you know, few times. You shouldn’t play it. And I yeah, but I think I know what you were thinking, and as I said, it’s a rookie mistake, because I’ve done it. You know, when I was your age, and a lot younger. You see someone like Kevin Yost, I love all his music. This must be good. I’ll grab it. I’ll mix it. And yeah, I’ve done it live on air and it’s not good. It’s so I’ve been burnt. And as I said, I hope you learn from it and please don’t do it again. Ha, ha.
Galleon
Ha, ha. Yeah, so from there, what I did like is how it transitioned into this next track, Midnight Memories. Miguel Migs, another one with a big, amazing reputation. And the remixer, Jimpster who I’m loving everything he’s making at the moment with a vocal I don’t know what it is, but it’s like a Blues musician talking about their time playing Blues. I thought it was a great track. From the moment I heard it the original is good. This one I think took it to the next level. Then we’ve got X-press 2. This come out. Oh about 20 years ago, AC DC, but it’s the Guy J Remix, very deep and with a bit of a groove behind it keeping a lot of the original sort of elements intact here. And then we’ve got Rawdio who I don’t know that much about to finish mix for something a little bit more melodic. A track called Energy. So, I don’t know that much about Rawdio, but I liked it when I heard it. So yeah, that’s the mix.
Sharif
Hopefully, every month you’ll be giving us your, your favourites from that month.
Galleon
Yeah, yeah. And there’s a few, you know, paths I want to go down, you know, that I don’t always get to. There’s some really cool Progressive House that I’m finding at the moment. And some things along those lines, so. Yeah, stay tuned.
Sharif
Cool. So, you’re gonna experiment here on Suite Grooves?
Galleon
Yes. I mean, I’ll always give you what you sort of know me for, but there’s a lot of things that I want to want to cover. Not just the big gambit of House stuff that’s coming out.
Sharif
Now I’m looking forward to it. I love it. Well, up next is our interview with Roti & Schnauzer. They’re a new duo. I’ve known Jamie Olsen for years. First, he was in a band called Kaleidavibe. Is it Kaleidavibe? Yeah, like Kaleidoscope and vibe. I think it’s Kaleidavibe. And they played at er, I ran a thing called the Groove Sessions when I was doing the Groove Train on Triple J, because I couldn’t get them to come in and record in the studio so, I set up a night where I get the band’s, I had hip hop outfits, like Sleek The Elite, I had Infusion, Pocket. Who else? Pnau played once. Yeah. So, I used to record and Kaleidavibe was one of those young band from Byron Bay. And after the band ended, Jamie then started producing electronic music. He was playing the trumpet, I think or the sax in the band, but he started producing electronic music as Rephrase. He also was dB Chills on the Offworld Sounds label in Perth, that was run by Steve Mallinder. And also, Beds. I think that was more of a Hip Hop, sort of outfit. So very talented producer, and he teamed up with Sam Gregg has also been producing music for a while but I hadn’t met him or heard any of his music before catching up with him with Jamie. And yeah, the two of us caught up because Mitch loved the album.
Galleon
I did.
Sharif
You were raving about it!
Galleon
Yeah. And it’s so diverse. And they’ll talk about that. But it’s eclectic and it’s funky. And there’s a bit of everything in there.
Jamie Olsen
It’s a real mixture of different stuff. Yeah, because I think when we were putting, like starting to put it together and stuff like that with Sam and I were questioning whether or not we should make it that sort of diverse but um, but what are your thoughts Sam?
Sam Gregg
I think, I think it was just whatever worked. So, we both we wanted it to be a sort of retrospective of all the things we liked and to, to maybe to be a reference to all the years we’ve known each other.
Jamie Olsen
Yeah, yeah,
Sam Gregg
We didn’t plan it specifically. But it just ended up being, I think the best stuff ended up having, you know, a different feel for each track.
Jamie Olsen
We sort of made our best of album for our first album, I think, because we’ve known each other for so long. We’ve been talking about doing this for 20 years, so
Galleon
Yeah. Wow.
Jamie Olsen
it’s our best of, ha ha
Sharif
So, is it gonna be a difficult second album, then?
Sam Gregg
Oh Gosh.
Jamie Olsen
It’ll probably just be Whale noises or something, I don’t know?
Sam Gregg
Yeah, we’ll find a genre we haven’t covered. Classical.
Sharif
Classical?. Hmm. Now you’ve just about covered every genre. But before we get back to your album. You say you’ve known each other for 20 years.
Jamie Olsen
Yeah, I met you when I was living above Salt restaurant when you were working with the Smith brothers. Yeah. So, would have been probably yeah. 2000. 2000 I reckon? Yeah,
Sam Gregg
I think so. I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
Sharif
What projects were you both working on at the time?
Jamie Olsen
Well, we’re both like, I think we’re both sort of, I was just starting out on like this sort of the tinkering and stuff like that because it wasn’t too far off where I sort of just got into music production and bought a bit of kit and stuff like that. I always played instruments but um, and that’s how Sam and I got to know each other because we got talking one night at the restaurant downstairs when I come down from my apartment. And he says, yeah, I make beats at home and I went over to his place and he showed me all these tunes he made on a Sonic sampler, one of his old school keyboard samplers and that’s, that’s I think that’s how we sort of hit off our friendship in terms of music and that.
Sam Gregg
I remember you busting out your MiniDisc player, and like, sharing headphones.
Jamie Olsen
Oh, yeah! Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Gregg
Like, you know, like a couple you were like listening to our tunes. Hey man check this one out, it’s awesome. What did you make that on? Oh yeah, it was just nerding out on all that stuff.
Jamie Olsen
Because I had those really cool headphones. It’s um, they’re pretty retro now but like, there were like, like bass headphones with like, that vibrates your ears, the subs. Yeah, it’s pretty funny.
Sharif
Yeah, they had extra bass, didn’t they?.
Jamie Olsen
Yeah. Yeah. They actually moved on your ears. Ha ha.
Sam Gregg
Yeah. Well, he had the Walkman X bass. You know, that was that was huge. You try and buy one of those now for under 1000 bucks.
Sharif
Oh, really?
Sam Gregg
The Walkman, the original X bass walkman. So expensive.
Galleon
Collector’s item
Sharif
Well, Sam behind you, I can see all these, a modular synth. Did you use it in the production?
Sam Gregg
For bits and pieces, I use it sort of bleeps and bloops. And, and just sort of, you know, for a bit a bit of inspiration, but I guess it was just everything we were trying, I was trying to use every bit of gear I had, I think Jamie was doing the same to you just load it with, with as many sounds and as many feels as we could possibly jam in there. So, the module is good fun. It’s actually quite time consuming, though. So I probably don’t use it as much as I’d want to. Because you’ve really got to spend a long time programming it but yeah, you combine, I think that’s what I like about the album, there’s a sort of digital quote, and there’s a real quote and so there’s you can hear even in the electronics that there’s a mix of, you know, like Ableton and real synths. So that’s, that’s what we wanted. We wanted that. And that organics in, in analog gear, you know, I think it really, it just, you know, you’ve maybe you don’t
Galleon
Like a real musical sort of, yeah.
Sam Gregg
If you don’t know it’s there, it doesn’t matter. You just there’s something organic in there even though it’s electronic music so,
Jamie Olsen
Yeah, it’s usually the malfunctioning stuff that sounds, gives it that quirk in that character because I’ve got like a Juno 106. And you know, it’s got a bit of a hum to it and stuff like that, but I use that quite a bit on the album but it’s like it’s one of those things it’s that intangible thing that you once you put it all in the same mix melting pot and put it all together. You’ve got the digital stuff from the computer plus you got the stuff outside and Sam’s doing his vocoder voice on a track you know later, it all adds up to make something I suppose.
Sharif
You’re both living in different cities at the moment. Jamie, you moved to the Gold Coast. I know you said, you met here in Sydney. How did you work together?
Galleon
Were you like doing Dropbox kind of thing?
Jamie Olsen
Yeah, that’s literally all we’re doing was just getting on the phone. And this is probably the first time we’ve seen Sam’s face in about five years. Like, yeah, but yeah, just Dropbox say like, so we like, so the premise of the album, because like, we’ve been talking about trying to make an album for years, we never pull their finger out and really got around to doing it. But because of the pandemic, we had more time to do so. And, and, yeah, we made a decision like at the end of last year, Sam was just gonna start sending me like demo loops and stuff like that. It’s like little eight bar loops. He sent me a whole heap of those. And then I’d sort of add to those things via Dropbox. And I bounced it and handballed it back to him. And he’d say, oh, that’s cool. I didn’t see that coming, then he’d send something, find some other stuff and put it on top or arrange it differently and send it back and it kept going back and forth until we get to a point where the track was sounding good, then we oh, well, that’s cool. Let’s work on the next one. And it sort of snowballed until we got I think Devised By Man was the first track that we were really happy with and we went all the rest of the ones have to be at that sort of quality.
Track: Roti & Schnauzer – Devised By Man
Sharif
That’s Devised By Man, the first track that Jamie Olsen & Sam Gregg finished for their debut album as Roti & Schnauzer. Sam continues to tell us more about the creative process they employed to write the album.
Sam Gregg
It’s like building Lego like we sort of built a bit and it seemed to be working. You know, and I think you were saying because obviously there were still, you know, pressures on our lives and stuff. It still had to just by itself. And I think it just each step was mostly in a positive direction. So, you know, each track was okay. And we then we found more more music that would meet that standard. So yeah, it’s very organic.
Galleon
Did you ever sort of get to a point on a track where you’re like, you sort of ended up in circles and you needed to just let that one rest for a while to just then come back to it at another point and go, oh, yeah. Okay, now I can see where we need to go with it.
Jamie Olsen
Yeah, man. Yeah, there was, there was a couple of things, a couple of stinkers on there that kept like, like, there were, some of the tracks just wrote themselves and were really easy, but like Sam and I really struggled with the Want Me track and I think Midnight was a really hard track to finish.
Galleon
Midnight is actually my favourite.
Jamie Olsen
Oh, nice.
Galleon
I like them all but I love that track.
Sam Gregg
Midnight is actually the oldest track. It’s the only track that’s carried through from our original writing. When we first were Roti & Schnauzer we wrote a few demos. That’s an evolution of a track that started, that one means a lot because it’s gone through so many changes, and we hung on and hung on and you know, Jamie managed to get you know, some amazing vocals happening you know, for it with Voli K and just yeah, it just, it’s lovely to be there because it’s probably the backbone of the album in a way.
Galleon
And Voli K did that track with Friendless recently. Is that right? Have I got that, right?
Jamie Olsen
Yeah. He would have. Voli’s, because he’s got a studio set up down at Studio 301. I think Friendless works out of there as well. So, I believe yeah, he does a lot of vocal sessions with a lot of crew, I think. And he does his own stuff. I think he’s putting an album out early next year as well which should be pretty cool.
Galleon
Oh, wow.
Jamie Olsen
Yeah because I know he’s working on a lot of stuff. Yeah, because I’ve mixed a couple of his tracks and helped him out a few tracks which sound pretty cool but he hasn’t put them out yet but I think he’s got he must have an album worth of stuff now I’d say.
Track: Roti & Schnauzer – Midnight
Galleon
You’re on Suite Grooves and that’s Midnight from Roti & Schnauzer’s debut album with Voli K on vocals. That also brought up the conversation about samples, and the fact that the samples seem to be in a number of different languages.
Sam Gregg
But yeah, exactly that’s sort of like the modern age version of a sample where, you know, you can get a royalty free, you know, vocals from different singers on different platforms. So, you know, we didn’t have the access to, to hire as many singers as we’d like. So, you know, that’s what’s one of the wonderful things with the modern era.
Galleon
And that can go the other way too, because we’ve been burnt a number of times. You know, we’ve got this track and we’re working on it and then you go on Traxsource and there’s a track and the same vocals on there.
Sam Gregg
Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Galleon
Damn it! Ha ha.
Sam Gregg
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jamie Olsen
I can guarantee it’s gonna happen with ours as well, but like it comes down to, I suppose your interpretation or where you place that vocal and you know, like I suppose it comes down to musicality. We tried to pick the vocal like it’s not like an afterthought it’s part of the song so it feels like it was actually written for the song so that’s, that’s the hardest thing is finding source material like that, is actually going to work and write around that as opposed to just plunking it on top or whatever, you know?
Sharif
Well, the vocal on the first track. I mean, on the first track. Well, the first track’s the intro! And, um.
Sam Gregg
Yeah.
Jamie Olsen
Well, there’s a story there’s a story behind that because we got the guy, because obviously Roti & Schnauzer is not a couple of words even find a sample of, vocal wise. So, we got, you heard of Ted Williams? Golden voice Williams? He was like a, sort of rags to riches sort of story about this. If you look it up on the internet, he’s a fellow that was down and he’s lucky. He had a drug problem. But this guy discovered him like, like, filmed in one day driving to get like, a like a, like bus stop or something like that. And he came out for change. And he was doing a voiceover in a radio voice. I don’t know. Basically, this guy went viral, and did all the talk shows and stuff like that. But we basically just hired him to do a Roti & Schnauzer sort of spiel for us and we cut it up and put an intro so which was pretty cool I thought.
Galleon
Like, wow.
Sharif
So, you came up with the name Roti & Schnauzer?
Galleon
I was about to ask, how did you get the name Roti & Schnauzer?
Sam Gregg & Jamie Olsen
Ha, ha. Ha, ha!!
Sam Gregg
Look it’s from the
Jamie Olsen
It’s definitely you Sam, because I didn’t come up with it.
Sam Gregg
Well, it’s come from the era when we first started there was all the Germans like, Kruder and Dorfmeister and you’ve got Rae & Christian, all that two-name crew. And we were sort of we were ourselves. We weren’t taking ourselves too seriously. So, we thought what would we be? We’d be what? What could we be? I don’t know. Like, we just picked it out of thin air. Roti & Schnauzer now that’s good. That sounds German. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, of course. Now, unfortunately, we didn’t pick the spelling of Roti is like roti, so we’re getting a bit of roti and schnauzer, but it’s all part of the fun. It wasn’t to be too serious, it was like you know, cuz that was in, you know back in the day, so.
Jamie Olsen
Yeah, there was a lot of crew like dZihan & Kamien and like you know all those. Yeah, that’s where it’s from.
Sam Gregg
Yeah, so. It is.
Track: Roti & Schnauzer – Intro
Sharif
Yes, it’s quite a musical journey, you’ll hear quite a few genres on there, and both Sam and Jamie play live instruments.
Jamie Olsen
I’m playing a lot of bass guitar on all the tracks, most of them and you know, like, so it’s a blend of finding source sounds and our playing with it and in marrying it together I suppose.
Sam Gregg
Also, sometimes we will. Sorry, I was gonna say, sometimes we find, we might start with a sample or start with an idea and then replay it all, not all of it, but replay sections of it with real instruments so you know you get a groove happening you find sources and influence and then then replay it in, you know, and do get it out live feel and you know develop it.
Jamie Olsen
Well, based on copyright that’s one of the things that happen with Sam, was he’d send me something and I’d reply it or whatever or vice versa he would reply is that is this a good idea? Yeah, no worries you need to probably play that differently and the song would change anyway because of our playing you know, like it’s like a perfect example of that would be the ‘Shadow Land track. I’m playing bass on that, but Sam sent me the bass line from, was it Ring Ring Ring by De La Soul?
Sam Gregg
Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie Olsen
So, if you listen if you listen to the bass on that?
Sam Gregg
I have no morals. I’ll take I’ll take anything from anywhere. I don’t care. Like just to get, to get the idea happening. I’m just gonna because MPCs where I come from, so it’s just like it just chop the shit in there.
Jamie Olsen
Yeah, so based on our, my publishing deal, so we replayed a lot of stuff just to all like, you know, like if you listen to that track, for instance, the baseline isn’t the same as route is when you go and listen to it you can hear it now you know, it’s not the same baseline but it’s influenced by stuff like that. Like it’s funny how it all works, but and that’s how we ended up with our tracks I suppose.
Track: Roti & Schnauzer – Shadow Land
Galleon
Shadow Land from Roti & Schnauzer finishing off that interview about their debut album. You can hear all the different influences and just the, the great taste they have in and eclectic styles of music.
Sharif
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to these guys making more and more music because, yeah, it’s quality, thoroughly enjoyable album.
Galleon
Yeah, I love it. I can’t wait myself.
Sharif
I like the fact that they came up with the name out of thin air.
Galleon
Yeah. Like Kruder and Dorfmeister, or something like that. Yeah, I thought it was cool.
Sharif
Well, it’s, we’re almost done. I hope you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a message and let us know what you think. And yeah, we’re looking forward to hearing from you.
Galleon
It will be sweet. And we’ve got a final little bracket of music to take you out of this podcast. And we’re going to start with Flight Facilities’ brand new track, off the album released a couple of weeks ago. I’ve always like Flight Facilities. And this is a track called Heavy featuring YourSmith.
Sharif
And the next one is a track from Nightmares On Wax. He’s released a new album, which is called Shout Out To Freedom. This one is with Haile Supreme and Wolfgang Haffner, it’s called Creator SOS. And then we go into an album by a guy called Anduze now I first came across Anduze about three years ago. He was singing vocals on a track called Bad Side by LTJ Xperience who is a producer and a DJ from Italy. That’s still one of my favourite tracks. It’s still in high rotation for me three years later. So actually,
Galleon
And LTJ Xperience is not LTJ Bukem.
Sharif
No! Ha, ha. Yeah, and experience is written X first then perience, there’s no E. So yeah, so if you’re looking for him, because I was I was actually doing search for him the other day and he just wasn’t coming up. So, I just went to one of his, I’ve got his music and I had a look how he spells, and I realised there’s no E and that made all the difference apparently. So yeah, don’t add the E when you when you’re looking for LTJ Xperience.
Galleon
You haven’t you’ve put an end you’ll go down all kinds of kind of different happy path.
Sharif
Yep, but Anduze. I mean, I for some reason I thought I’ll just check because I’ve been playing this track on and on. And I was playing it out quite a bit as well. And I just thought I want to see what else he has. And he just released an album in September, so it was only two months ago or three months ago. And it’s, yes, awesome. I loved it. It’s a bit of everything but the track I chose here is a bit more of a sort of reggae track, because I wanted to lead into the next one which is a Omegaman, featuring Pat Powell. They did a cover of If You Leave Me Can I Come Too by Mental As Anything. Omegaman and, well, Pat Powell, if you if you listen to the stream on Suite Grooves, the male vocal that does all the IDs and jingles is Pat and the producer, and the person who produced all the jingles is Omegaman. And I love his music regardless and I thought this is a perfect track to end the show with. If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?
Sharif picks a few more tracks
Flight Facilities feat YourSmith – Heavy
Nightmares On Wax & Haile Supreme & Wolfgang Haffner – Creator SOS
Anduze – Helen
Omegaman feat Pat Powell – If You Leave Can I Come Too?
Sweet Sweet Suite Grooves