Expect the unexpected: DJ Q says to look forward to ‘one big party vibe’ at his Circo Festival set

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Expect the unexpected: DJ Q says to look forward to ‘one big party vibe’ at his Circo Festival set

House and garage veteran DJ Q was quick to announce a New Zealand and Australian tour for 2014 following the release of his terrific debut album ‘Ineffable‘ earlier this year on Local Action. The record saw him add classics like his remix of Sinead Harnett’s ‘Notice Me’ as well as brand-new grime rattlers in ‘Lassie’, his game-changing collaboration with Discarda & Jayjayborntosing.

Although he’s been releasing club tunes since the start of the ‘00s, he had his breakthrough moment in 2008 in ‘" target="_blank">U Wot’ with MC Bonez, one of the biggest tracks to come out of the UK’s bassline house / grime / niche explosion. The years since have seen him hold down residencies on BBC Radio 1xtra and Ministry of Sound Radio, while releasing on Butterz, Unknown to the Unknown and Tom Lea from FACT Mag’s Local Action. He’s picked up some impressive admirers along the way too – DJ EZ (read our interview here), Mobb Deep rapper Prodigy and Skrillex have all shown their admiration for Q in recent years.

Last week he uploaded a new bit to his Soundcloud, a free banging funky-esque remix of Tinashe’s recent single ‘2 On‘. A few days after that I had the opportunity to call him at home in the UK and ask a few questions, taking the time to delve into the details of his label Q Recordings, his future release plans and what we should expect from his debut trip down-under.


Firstly, welcome and thanks for talking to me! Your album ‘Ineffable’ has been out for around three months now, what’s the reception and reaction to it been so far?

It’s been overwhelming to be honest. I didn’t expect so many people to connect with it, you know it’s just a piece of music I’ve put together but a lot of people have seemed to have been able to relate to it so it’s been good man, the response has been wicked.

Yeah I enjoyed it as well – you’ve been releasing music for so long though, for about a decade nearly before its release, was there a reason it took so long for you to produce your first album or did it just happen that way?

Just happened that way man, even when I was making the music on the record I didn’t have in mind that they’d become part of an album, it was just me making tracks and then the idea came about putting an album out so we ran with it!

How long was that idea of the album in the works before it was released?

I started some of the tracks about a year-and-a-half before it came out, but, you know, it was never planned to be an album so at the time it was just me producing sounds before it all came together. Glad it did, though!

Just recently you released your remix of Tinashe’s ‘2 On’, Olivia Louise’s ‘Cocaine’ and Raheem Bakare’s ‘Portrait of Love’; have you always enjoyed remixing pop music and RnB?

Yeah yeah definitely, that’s how I started making tracks; just remixing other people’s vocal and they’re always so fun to make.

Are they always well-recevied? As in, do you think the garage scene is strong enough to support the remixes? 

They seem to be, yeah. Well, even the numbers on Soundcloud show that a lot of people are interested, and if more people are supporting it then I think the scene will support it. Trying to push the boundaries of our scene is hard, but I think pop music has always been a root in garage’s foundations, so yeah I’ll continue to make them and hopefully they continue to be played as much as they are now!

Killer. What about your label Q Recordings? You just released ‘Menajatrois’ by Francois feat. Louis Benton & Mr Limey with a banging remix by yourself; how’s everything going at the Q camp?

Yeah, haha thanks man, it’s doing well, you know, ‘Menajatrois’ has been just the fourth release but again the response from all over the world has been nuts. I really like it, it’d been a track I’d be playing for a while but was never released, so I thought, ‘I’m gonna release it,’ and I did! Remixed it too, haha.

Haha, are there many / any releases in the pipeline for it? 

Yeah definitely – we’ve got another one from PVC coming and that should be out next month, and then in August I’m hoping to put a compilation out but that might realistically be September now, but in any case in a couple of months you’re gonna get a Q Recordings compilation with tracks from me and different producers contributing to it. Oh and I’ve also got a video coming with Olivia Louise for her new single!

Fantastic! “Cocaine”?

Yeah, man. Great tune.

Are you going to continue to try and push garage and funky through the label or would you consider branching out into house or techno or whatever?

Well the third release on the label by Arun Verone was actually a housey, like deep house release that got heaps of attention as well – it was a four-track release with a VIP so I’m just interested in putting out good music you know, not really fussed on genre unless it’s like drum & bass or something, haha.

Yeah fair call! Okay well here’s one for you; I spoke to DJ EZ a few months back and I asked him who he thought were the two most promising up-and-coming garage producers. He said Flava D and Tuff Culture – two awesome artists – but do you have a favourite youngster at the moment who we should keep an eye on?

I’d say Flava D as well to be honest; her new release on Bandcamp is absolutely rattling. Oh and Chris Lorenzo – he’s been making music for ages and he’s killing it man, everything he touches is sick and he engineers for a lot of artists as well.

Didn’t know that about Lorenzo actually, thanks mate. With your Australian tour coming up – it’ll be your first time down here – where else have you toured this year?

This year so far I’ve been to Norway, Prague in the Czech Republic, been to Russia and to Milan in Italy, as well as the obvious touring I do all around the UK. It’s been sweet man.

And with your gigs all around Australia, what can we expect from them? At Circo Festival for example, you gonna be throwing down a purely garage set or?

Just one big party vibe! Expect the unexpected! Haha.


DJ Q Tour dates:
Sydney: 27th June @ Civic Underground
Perth: 28th June @ Circo Festival
Melbourne: 28th June @ Revolver
Christchurch: 4th July @ Winnie Bagoes
Auckland: July 5th @ Cassette Nine

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