8 Tracks – The Kelly Twins

The day music stops inspiring us, is the day we pack it all in. Our taste is and should be something that is continually evolving, expanding and absorbing new things. While its good to appreciate and reference the past, we feel its important to keep an eye on the future. This for us is one example of current music that is really pushing boundaries, the perfect blend of bass and techno, raw but executed with clinical precision. We were lucky enough to see the first ever Livity Sound live show, and we knew then that it was something special and reminded us of why we got involved in this game in the first place. Long may the inspiration continue.

We went through a period a few years ago, where we felt compelled to play only the wonkiest shit. We got quite accustomed to clearing dancefloors (aka The dance floor deep cleanse) and generally confusing people. Despite this we thoroughly enjoyed playing this stuff out and it was a genuine reflection of where were at that time. In many ways, this period was our most uncompromising and indulgent, but it was also very humbling. I feel like we had to play like this in order to fully appreciate the dancefloor again. I like to think we have reached a point now where what we do combines elements of both.This tune is completely twisted, in the best possible way. We are proud to have played this tune out, many times.

We saw Monolake on the last day of bloc about 6 years ago, shortly after watching Mary Poppins (don’t ask)He blew the top of our heads clean off, completely changing our perception of what techno was. Everything he played was broken and bass heavy but also deep and intricate, the complete opposite of a lot of the techno we were hearing at the time. Which to be honest, was quite linear. In fact this set was so good, it actually put us off techno for a short time, purely for the reason that nothing we were hearing in Bristol came close to matching that. Things are different now though of course but we still very rarely hear anything that has the same level of vibe that Monolake had that night. A life changing experience.

Its impossible to remember how many times we have lost our shit to this track. From our viewpoint, this is house music perfection and Carl Craig at his best. A great sample, dramatic horns and agroove that seems to build forever. We will never get bored of listening to this.

A solitary whale migrating through the cosmos, surrounded by a shimmering haze of space dust, solar flares and intergalactic krill. The synths in this record sounds like the whale calling out into the endless nothingness. Every time we listen to the track we join our friend the whale on his journey and to be honest i don’t think we ever came back. This is pure musical escapism, something that is more important and neccessary than ever, particularly in these difficult and turbulent times.

We grew up in the 90’s, so spent a lot of time watching MTV and listening to tracks such as this. Its only now, that we realise how much this music has influenced us. The use of melody and hooks, are things that we appreciate and look for in a lot of the music that we buy. Its nice now to be able to revisit these tracks and even play them out (thanks So Bones!). Now that we are older and wiser, we can fully look beyond the commercial aspects of them and appreciate the music in a different and more genuine way. again, there are loads of tracks that we could have picked, but this one makes the list for the video alone.

Growing up in Plymouth, we used to spend a lot of time in Bigga Records (RIP) Mitch who used to work there was an old friend of our dads, he had an amazing record collection and dance moves to match. He was a huge influence on us growing up and a big supporter of our DJing. In a city where harder sounds such as trance and hardcore are hugely popular, Mitch was one of the first people we met, that didn’t adhere this. He played original electro funk, detroit techno, acid house and everything in-between. This eclectic approach is quite common now, but in Plymouth at that time, this was a brave thing to do. We have always had a huge amount of respect for this and it is an aesthetic that has stayed with us to this day. We would quite regularly watch Mitch DJ and this track always reminds us of him. We find it amazing how a track can be over 25 years old and still sound future.

We could have included any track from ‘Doggystyle’, which in our opinion is one of the best hip hop albums ever made. Our dad used to play it a lot in his car when we were kids, so it has real nostalgic /sentimental value for us. In hindsight, we genuinely believe that this album spawned our love of old boogie and P-funk. These genres are at the foundation of everything that we play and nearly 20 years later we own most of the records that Dre sampled for the album and regularly play them out.