wAFF Interview: The sound is unreal and so organic because you’re in a desert

Hot Creations are EVERYWHERE at present. The label has achieved their complete state of omnipresence with a slew of instantly recognisable hits and a trademark of sunshine addled house music that falls all the way down to the grassroots. Producer and DJ wAFF is a case in point, the labels’s lieutenant of groove that has quickly become one of the main players amongst the stable.

Tonight he touches down at Underdog in Manchester for FRANK, where his groove drenched template takes centre stage alongside Kieran Sharples, Sian Bennett & Stevie Mulgrave and Higgy. We has a bit of pre-gig patter with the man to see how much he was looking forward to tonight, alongside his recent Burning Man experiences and his dreams of being able to revisit DC10 circa 2004.

Are you looking forward to playing at FRANK @ Underdog? And is this your first time in Manchester, if not what is your relationship with Manchester like?

Of course, I always look forward to playing especially now I’ve been living in Ibiza. It’s great to come back to the UK and see some familiar faces! I’ve played Manchester quite a lot, and I always have a wicked time. Got some good friends that live there and have met a lot more over the last couple of years. Had some fun nights around Manchester too!

Where else have you enjoyed playing recently?

Recently I have just got from Burning Man where I played the sunrise set on the Monday for Robot Heart! WOW!!! In case you don’t know what robot heart is, first of all you need to go search for it on Youtube or something so you can understand what I’m talking about… but wow, such an amazing experience and place.

(We did just that – check the video below)

Robot Heart is a double decker bus with half a million or a million watt (can’t remember which one) sound right attached to the side of it. The sound is unreal and so organic because you’re in a desert, it’s all open air so there’s no walls or anything to effect the sound. It’s a beast. Robot Heart takes place in Black Rock City (Nevada Desert) for the Burning man festival, so at night everyone will gather round the bus then it will drive off into the middle of the desert till the next day. Amazing. So yeah I’d say this is my most favourite place I’ve played for quite some time if not ever!!

After your first couple of EP’s went down so well, how are you planning on following them up? When can we expect to hear your newest stuff?

Well I have so much music already in the pipeline, many of them are huge tracks like Jo Johnson / Ibiza etc so I’m confident with the future. I have so many other projects going on and will be releasing some different stuff than the norm at some point also.

It’s been a good platform for me to release big room club tracks for the start of wAFF so I’m very happy and proud of that so that will always continue but I also have a lot of other styles I produce that I will release in the near future. Its only gonna get better.

You’re originally from Hull, and have promoted Koala in the city. How have you found putting on house music in a place that perhaps isn’t always associated with it?

Koala was great in Hull, we had so much fun with it but Hull is a difficult place to introduce minimal and house etc. Hull already had a big scene for house but at the time it was more funky house. So it was a challenge but it worked out great, we formed a nice following and it became very popular over the years.

But your very limited in Hull with Venue’s, licenses etc. It was difficult for Koala to find the right venue with a good enough sound system and it started to become more hassle than what it was worth. We wasn’t planning on anything big or a massive night to develop, we just wanted a good party to go to in Hull for ourselves and the people that enjoyed the underground scene. Because of this we just decided to end Koala and focus on the productions.

You’ve also developed strong relations with Leeds, is there something special about the city that breeds such a consistently quality house music scene?

Yeah I love Leeds so much, the people, the city, the nightlife… everything about it love! I don’t have enough knowledge as to why Leeds breeds a lot of good music heads, but theirs a very big scene for all music there and people are very committed to it and dedicated to music there, especially house music.

There’s a lot of DJ’s and producers, it’s quite an inspiring place to be. It’s great, the atmosphere is sick in Leeds. It also feels like Leeds is run by young people, you never really see old people, well I don’t anyways!

How has your Ibiza season been?

Ibiza has been amazing as always. It’s been very different this year though for me than the past years. Of course a lot has changed in my life now I can’t just go wild and not worry about anything. Now I have responsibilities and commitments I’ve had to do the season very different. But it’s been a lot of fun.

I’ve been so busy this year so sometimes id only get two days a week in Ibiza, even only one, so there’s been times when I’m never here. Only problem is I don’t drive yet so with me living in a villa in the mountains it’s been a nightmare for me to get from place to place. I’d say this is the only downfall but next year I WILL HAVE A CAR, I’ll buy five just to make sure I can get somewhere!

What else can you look forward to in the future?

I have a release coming out on Dennis Ferrer’s Label Objektivity which is going to be wicked. I am doing some music with Green Velvet and have some other really exciting collaborations with some wicked Producers / Dj’s, so I’m excited to get these on the way.

Of course the Paradise events are always really exciting and fun. I have been told some really exciting news where I could be playing next year in Ibiza but I can’t say much more on this yet. And of course…….. BURNING MAN 2014.

And finally, dream situation time... you can go back to any period in clubland history, and play at any club. Who would you have playing alongside you and what tune would you drop that would define the evening?

For me I would love to go back to 2004-2006 when DC-10 was at its best in my opinion, when Luciano was resident alongside Loco Dice and Tania Vulcano. DC-10 is one of my favourite clubs and I would have loved to have experienced it back then when there was no roof, it wasn’t stupidly busy and the music was weirder, techno focused and minimalistic. I love all music now and I personally think at this point in house music, it is the best it has ever been, but minimal techno was what sucked me into the underground scene, I loved it and I still do.

So if I could go back to DC-10 around that time I would have loved to play alongside Luciano, he was sick back then, he still is now but his music style when he played at DC-10 was ace. And so with that I would have to play either Argy’s ‘Love Dose’ (obviously the Luciano Remix) or Marc Houle ‘Bay of Figs’.

Ahhh but then I’d love to play Audion ‘Mouth to Mouth’. Wow! What a track, I remember this making me go wild and confused, and afraid, ha. I remember first hearing it and I had no Idea what was going on, it was like nothing I’d ever heard before but I was fully involved with it. I thought I was going to blow up it just didn’t stop building up. So yeah, definitely ‘Mouth to Mouth’!

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