Melbourne Deepcast
Melbourne Deepcast is a label, podcast and online music hub that celebrate quality house music from Melbourne and beyond. Two members of the Deepcast team, Andy Hart and Myles Mac, took some time to chat to fluoroDigital about the importance of independence, developing upcoming artists and connections between design and music.
(f) How did Melbourne Deepcast come about?
(MD) A few years ago, the dance industry here in Melbourne was saturated with new DJs and parties popping up everywhere. Anyone and everyone seemed to be running an event or DJing somewhere. A lot of new club nights emerged and although there were plenty of new crews out there, the music being represented wasn’t exactly groundbreaking. It seemed as if people just wanted a piece of the limelight and promoters were willing to cash in on people’s enthusiasm towards DJing and their willingness to bring people to a club.
The first thing we noticed was the competitiveness between DJs. The music you played wasn’t the only thing that got you gigs then. The other side was that most of the music being played in the city was pretty uninspiring. Commercial electro was huge here and it dominated the scene for the most part, but there was so much amazingly intelligent and soulful music out there with as much party appeal as well. It just wasn’t getting a look in. So in an effort to stand out ourselves and to push the music we loved, we started the Deepcast series.
(f) You seem to embrace upcoming, yet fairly well known, artists. Do you see giving these fresh faces a head start key to the Deepcast ideal?
(MD) We don’t aim to include a specific type of artist on the podcast. It always just comes down to how much we like their music and what they are about. It just so happens that a lot of these ‘niche’ house and disco artists, which are considered lesser known here, are usually much more well known overseas, and we get a lot of enjoyment out of exposing their music to people that may have never encountered it otherwise.
It’s also great for our little scene to be acquainted with fresh and exciting new acts instead of just seeing the same old names on flyers year after year. A good example being Iron Curtis from Berlin who ended up coming down and playing for us this year after doing an amazing podcast, and now has a whole bunch of new Aussie fans!
(f) Is your identity, as a label, shaped through your artist roster?
(MD) For sure. We’re really trying to establish ourselves as a Melbourne based label. There are so many talented musicians in the city and over the past few years many of them have been releasing music on labels based overseas. We want to provide a home for their music here as well as trying to keep all the artists together in some way. We’re all mates outside of music anyway.
Having said that, we do have a musical focus as well and at some stage that will involve some like-minded music lovers from overseas.
(f) Where do you see the Melbourne music scene moving?
(MD) I can’t speak for the wider music scene here, but I have a good feeling that the focus on electronic music is going to be finding it’s way back into clubs soon. Festivals are taking over where club nights left off a few years ago and people are starting to lose interest in them, musically speaking anyway. I think people want a change from the mass marketed dance music brands; they want small intimate shows, extended sets in an environment of people who are all there for the same reason. Local parties are starting to get more attention too with more and more people showing up at places like C Grade in Melbourne and Slow Blow up in Sydney.
(f) How important is it to adapt to new trends but keep one eye firmly on history and the past?
(MD) I think if you try and follow trends you’re probably not doing things for the right reasons, and will most likely lose the passion for it sooner rather than later. If you’re involved in the music scene here in Melbourne, or anywhere for that matter, it’s usually pretty clear to see whose doing it out of love. Things are so competitive these days, but the cream usually rises to the top. It’s easy to see who is doing it regardless of what other people have decided is cool. When we started the Deepcast there wasn’t really a great following for the music that we loved here, but thankfully that has grown and continues to grow, which is all we ever really could have asked for.
Having an understanding of where the music originated, and how things began and have evolved to where they are today, is very important, not to mention incredibly interesting! Every new form of music is morphed out of another form of music that preceded it, and we can’t see that stopping anytime soon. At the end of the day a great record is a great record, regardless of who made it, what year it was or what genre it’s been placed in along the way.
(f) How do design and music correlate?
(MD) Great presentation and design are extremely valuable tools in helping to visualise the musical content we put out. When we started the podcast series, we decided that each episode would have its own unique episode cover to give listeners a first insight into the mood of the mix. It’s also nice to look at something and let your imagination decide what it might represent.
We’ve been blessed to have some really creative people help us along the way too, none more so than our extremely hardworking and talented chief designer Aniya Ouu who takes care of all the visual content on the website. She’s been an invaluable part of the team and has allowed us to give the music and the website an exciting visual aspect, which helps the overall cause tremendously. We’ve also called on the talents of an awesome Sydney based photographer named Sean Wood for a lot the episode covers and Melbourne based Artman Design for the design concept of the record label. The fact that such a respected design site such as fluoroDigital takes an interest in the work we do is a massive credit to all the hours of work our designers and photographers have put in along the way.
