I meet Hugh O’Brien under the staircase of a pumping Darlinghurst terrace house party a couple of years back. My friend and party co-host, Wax Motif introduced me to Hugh as… brother of Charlie Chux and a really cool producer. Hugh was chuffed at the complement but told us he’d taken a sabbatical from music production and was focusing on his photography. I wasn’t familiar with his production but looking at Hugh’s photography today it feels like a clever decision.
Hugh is a talented, passionate and inspiring dude and im grateful having met him that Friday night in Darlo. As Blotter expands into the creative yonder, we’ve hand creative control over for Hugh to present a collection of his work for our forthcoming single releases. We’re stoked about his first contribution which went live on Beatport today Leg-No & Fex Fellini – Music Store Syndrome. If you’d like to know a little more about Hugh, reach out and give him a what’s up. He’s a dude.
Firstly a huge thank you to our good friend Claude Von Stroke who was our special guest at the Blotter party. What an epic epic night. Our little terrace room was heaving from start to finish with babes and beers in notable proportions.
Frames and Zare where the perfect starters for our evening and the Pow! Pow! live show took things into orbit before CVS stepped in with a stack of new dirtybird jams.
A great closer to the year of Blotter. Thanks to all the cats for being a part of a great year.
1. Notorious B.I.G. & Frank Sinatra feat. Ashanti – Unfoolish 2. LL Cool J – Loungin’ 3. Kanye West feat. Rick Ross – Devil In A New Dress 4. Rick Ross – In The Morning (Green Lantern Remix) 5. Big K.R.I.T. FEAT. Chamillionaire – Time Machine 6. Frank Ocean – Thinking About You 7. Theophilus London feat. Devont Hynes & Solange Knowles – Flying Overseas 8. Big Boi feat. Jamie Foxx – Hustle Blood 9. Soul Clap feat. Charles Levine – Lonely C 9. Kelly Rolland feat. Lil Wayne – Motivation 10. Theophilus London feat. Hudson Mohawke – Oops 11. The-Dream – Body Work / Fuck My Brains Out 12. Ghostpoet – Survive It 13. The Weeknd – The Morning 14. Frank Ocean – Novacane
Attention all slo-jam, chi-town, 808 lovers. This is your invitation to treat. It’s our offer to an offer. The opportunity is to treat and treat you shall do.
This quarter we’ll be introducing some exciting new producers to the Blotter family along with one or two super super special guests.
FBi presenter and pondering chat-a-holic Frames will be spinning his choice party cuts from his crate of slo-jams and booties. Gaining attention from his work on Kylie Minogue and Modular’s Architecture In Helsinki we’re stoked to have Frames playing some party favs for us
Zare returns to Oz after a stint of touring through Europe including a set at the notorious Paris Social Club. chi-town or bust for the rad cat. He’s a real talent and we’re stoked t have him unleash.
nothing is sicker than these cats up to their eyeballs in gear. making great house and techno grooves is their skill so to see them do it live with a few drinks is even better.
providing the framework for a fun-loving evening on the tiles and/or bar, Sir Jonathan will be hosting and toasting the night away. expect a bagful of situational one-liners when he rocks the mic
SURPRISE INTERNATIONAL GUESTS
We couldnt be more excited about our special guests but you’ll need to be at the party to know. Subscribe to the Blotter page feed for updates. I promise, no disappointments.
Things totally just got a little hotter in here…right?
Thanks to all the lovers who came down for the Blotter Winter Jam @ WHAM to party with the family last Saturday. Special thanks to Pow! Pow! who had the room heaving with 118BPM throbbers. Amen brother.
The new purveyors of house have created already quite a legacy with releases for Get Physical, Snatch!, and VIVa Music. Not to be outdone by drops on these future legendary labels, Jet Project along with Chris Duckenfield are creating a legacy of their very own with the sounds of Extended Play. We are very thankful to have Jet Project contribute an impressive remix for the Watego EP. We chatted it out with them last week to dig a little deeper on the JP Experience.
Where are you in the world and what is the big headline in the news today?
We are in sunny Belfast (actually not taking the piss for once). The local headlines are pretty dull today it’s all about the election votes being counted and the imminent results as voting took place yesterday.
What’s the club scene like in your city?
For a place with such a small population we have always had a really really healthy club scene, although the licensing laws are diabolical meaning most clubs can’t stay open later than 3am and none can serve alcohol after 1am. That aside people really know how to let their hair down here and the few hours at the peak of the night can be as good as it gets anywhere in the world. What era of music is inspiring your production at the moment?
We get inspired by all sorts of music tbh but a sound that we always loved and always will is the Solid Groove and Induceve stuff that Dave Taylor and Jesse Rose put out years ago. Proper house music that’s not too deep or too noisy, I think that also sums our sound up pretty well too. Name a few producers you feel are pushing things forward…
Julio Bashmore is def bringing it, as is Subb-ann, KiNK, Catz N Dogz, Davide Squillace, FCL, Arto Mwambe, Lee Curtiss, Riva Starr, Carl Craig, Outart, Gavin Herlihy & Bubba, house music is actually in a very healthy state right now. What other styles of music excite you at the moment, can you name some artists?
Some dubstep stuff is pretty cool, Martyn, Scuba, Joy Orbison & George Fitzgerald, actually most of the Hot Flush stuff, although it’s prob more like house step as it’s not heavy like most dubstep stuff that you hear. We kind of listen to as much old stuff as new music and a bit of Alex Reese or LTJ Bukem is also pretty hard to beat, specially the Earth box sets. The Secret Love compilations compiled by Jazzanova are perfect for unwinding to. We are not really big fans of guitar music as such as we are both really electronic heads at heart but a bit of decent disco, more the late 80’s proto house stuff and also Metro Area/Morgan Geist/Environ can often be found on heavy rotation round our gaffs. The Trax releases have really stood the test of time well and people who are genearlly injecting that rawness back into house music again are exciting us the most at the minute as it did all get a bit loopy and dull in dance music for a good bit.
What’s your favourite restaurant and meal to eat in your home city?
Aldens in Ballyhackamore in East Belfast is an amazing restaraunt when you want to have a special treat, their duck or steak is always great, on the other hand Giuseppe’s Italian restaurant in Newtownards make fresh hand made Pizzas from scratch and are prob as good as you’d get in Italy. What do you find inspires you creatively?
Absolutely everything and anything, other peoples music, nights out with friends, our own gigs, djs we play alongside, mixes & podcasts, our families, artwork, fashion and even movies & decent documentaries can cause inspiration for creating music. Besides songwriting, do you enjoy any other creative activities?
Yes I am into graphic design and John loves drawing. What’s next for Jet Project and your individual aliases?
Our album for Riva Starr’s Snatch label, some solo stuff on our Extended Play label and some other secret projects. What is your revival classic for 2011?
True Faith & The Pin Up Girls – Take Me Away. An old rave classic that’s twenty years old and that Jeff Mills was actually involved in. It’s just a great track with a proper old school flavour, we dropped it as a lights on, one more tune at our residency in Yello recently and after 3 hrs of proper house and techno it just took people by surprise and the place completely erupted again. True Faith & The Pin Up Girls – Take Me Away
ARTIST: POW! POW! TITLE: WATEGO EP CAT#: BL003 RELEASE: 12TH MAY 2011
Watego Bay is an unassuming paradise just outside Byron Bay, New South Wales. The gorgeous strip of untainted coastline is a popular hangout for the Pow! Pow! crew who often head to the bay to gather inspiration and a two tallie buzz. During the sun-drenched afternoons it’s all about cruising the good times on the golden in-between the screw pines and the blue mirror Pacific just soaking in the magic. This is Watego.
On some occasions (usually during summer), the good times at Watego can be marred by the intrusion of the bluebottle jellyfish to its shores. The electric blue terrors will bobble into the bay on the north-east wind and likely spoil your greatest day in paradise. The musical representation of this attack of blue is Azul. Never cross Azul.
We’re happy to be releasing this record into the world along with the secrets of Watego Bay…So come with us to Watego’s right away.
