October 3rd, 2009

Lightspeed Recordings Part 1

Lightspeed Recordings is a an amazing record label started by Adelaide’s prodigal son – Agent 86. Recently their Late Night Tough Guy Edits EP shot to the top of the Juno disco charts. We chat about the label, edits and the early Adelaide house scene.

Winston: How did Lightspeed records begin?

Agent 86: I was running a few parties last year,  that were new disco orientated and I guess I was kind of moving in that direction as a DJ for a while. My productions were also on that disco tip. After doing a few parties I thought maybe I could expand it by putting out my own music. After talking to a few people it seemed like a good idea to make a label to put out any sort of music that I really dig. It’s on the disco tip at the moment, like everything that I do it’s not limited to one genre. For the time being the disco scene is probably what I’m feeling and that’s the direction that Lightspeed will be taking for the immediate future.

W: How did you get HMC (AKA Late Night Tough Guy) involved?

A: I DJed with him back in Adelaide in the 1990s, we have been friends ever since. It was really just a matter of having a chat to him; he was producing and doing edits and when I told him about my plans for Lightspeed he was really into it.

W: On the subjects of edits is it hard to put them out do you need to clear them?

A: To be honest I haven’t been doing any clearance. After the Late Night tough Guy EP I have decided to hold off on doing more edits and concentrate on original stuff. I think we will still be doing edits but we are better off putting them up for free – getting them mastered properly and giving them away as promo EPs.  If we aren’t selling them we aren’t getting any profit-hopefully the edits will make people trawl through the back catalogue of the artists.

W: You can never have too many edits of Running Up That Hill.

A: No, you can’t. I have heard a couple now, I guess I’m a bit biased but the Late Night Tough Guy edit is my favourite.

W: It’s always the perfect one to end a night with.

A: I have seen people play it at the beginning of the nigh  to get the dance floor happening, it’s just one of those tracks.

W: Is there anything we can expect from Lightspeed records in the near future?

A: The next is EP is from an American by the name of Bodie we have some remixes organized from Faze Action, Agello and Rudy’s Midnight Machine. The release after that will be from the Melbourne duo Fromage and we have a Runaway remix going of that.

W: How did you initially get into electronic music?

Well it goes back to my childhood – I was hearing some of the more obvious electronic music like Moroder and Kraftwerk. I was really heavily influenced by hip hop – the electro of the 80s. It began as a child and hasn’t stopped.

W: You mentioned you were DJing in Adelaide with HMC I was just wondering what the early house scene was like in Adelaide?

A: The house scene was phenomenal in Adelaide. I started going out in ‘89 and it was already well established by then. The house and techno scene was just phenomenal in the late 80s and early 90s. In the mid 90s the clubs began to specialise so you have a disco house club and other clubs doing progressive techno and around the same time drum and bass started taking its hold in Adelaide. It kind of became spread out but in the early 90s not a lot of clubs were playing it. It was a truly underground scene where as now house, techno and electro house is the mainstream music now. Everyone is into it and every club is playing it.

W: Was there more of a community felt to it because there were only a few places playing house?

A: In Adelaide there were 2 competing clubs open at the same time – one was Metro and one was Le Roc. There was a friendly competition and each club pushed the other to do more and more radical things-to play more and more radical music.

W: There’s a lot of great clubs in Adelaide like Sugar and Cuckoo – but I guess it is sort of diluted because more clubs are playing house music?

A: Absolutely – it’s just the way it has gone with club music. It’s ironic that the disco scene emerging over the last couple of years has tended to be more underground because everyone is so concentrated on electronic music. That makes disco sound quite fresh.

W: Like the strings that you don’t hear in electrohouse.

A: Exactly.

W: How did you begin to DJ?

A: It was really quite simple … well maybe it wasn’t.  When I was a kid I used to build little radio transmitters and had my own pirate radio station going.  Then in the late 80s I first started to become aware of acid house – when I was 16 I went out to a club and I just instantly fell in love with it. That very night I knew that DJing was what I wanted to do. It was a craft really something more than an art – something that requires skill. I was really excited by the music. By late’ 89 I was in clubs DJing. I started innocuously because I was 16 and it was difficult to get into clubs. I thought the one way to get into clubs is to work in clubs so I started off as a glassy and started harassing the owner of the club to let me DJ – they let me do a Tuesday night then a Thursday night and then started running my own Thursday night. Around that time I got picked up to play Metro.

Stay tuned for the second part of the interview later this week.

DJ Agent 86 – Magic

Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall (Agent 86 edit)

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