Since 2008, Murat Kilic has had a steady schedule of music being released on a variety of labels across the Tech House, Deep House and Techno genres. Starting with a succession of remixes on Tech House imprint BEEF Records in 2008, Murat followed these up with an EP for Oliver Koletzki’s Berlin based Stil Vor Talent which helped establish his reputation as someone to watch. Since then Murat has had a follow up release on Stil Vor Talent and a string of remixes racking up plays from the likes of Joris Voorn, Inland Knights and MANDY. Murat’s remixes are also defined and noteworthy with releases labels like Stil Vor Talent, BEEF records, Stereo Seven, Lost My Dog, Kaato, Subsonic, Long Distance and Tribal Vision. Murat’s most recent remix for Lost My Dog Records went as high #46 on the Beatport Deep House charts.
Murat now spends a lot of his time travelling across countries playing and listening to electronic music in many clubs and festivals around the globe. He also maintains a healthy work schedule in his home city Sydney, where he runs the successful Reckless Republic – touring agency, event promoter and record label.
https://soundcloud.com/auunderground/au-underground-034-murat-kilic
You have been at the forefront of the Sydney Deep House / Underground scene for a number of years now, what changes are you seeing now that house music is making a big comeback in 2015 in the clubs you are playing? how are the crowd changing and the people reacting to the more underground tunes?
I wouldn’t necessarily say house music music is making a comeback, because in a way it never left. The idea that house music went somewhere and came back is not really valid in my opinion, what actually happened is that good house music has been continuously being produced and played across the globe since the birth of house music. Access to truly unique underground music is defined by one’s dedication to digging harder than everyone else, a fact that has never changed. What has changed to some degree though is with online sales sites like Beatport sub categorising music in to genres like nu-disco, house, deep house etc so that now phrases like progressive house and deep house have now got some sort of stigma attached. So even though deep house has been a stable part of my musical diet from when i started 20 years ago, I often steer away from saying i play deep house or tech house but rather just stick to saying house & techno, in a way “deep house” “tech house” and “progressive house” have become dirty words!! In fact though who cares what you call it as long as it’s good right? As Kenny Dixon Jnr says “there’s the good shit and then there’s the other shit” ……. for example other shit like mass produced EDM crap that has NO soul.
The Sydney scene has been healthy for some time with lots of clubs doing very well, our night SPICE is in its 11th year now and has been running weekly since it started, now averaging between 500-800 people every week. The appreciation of styles is quite broad for example we have hosted names like Steve Bug, Alex Niggeman, Eric Volta, Rampa, Kyle Hall, Recloose, Iron Curtis, Late night tuff guy all in the last few months. Even when we started our night all those years ago, playing to 20-30 people, the dedication, the love and the reaction to underground music has always been the same, the knowledge that your are pushing evolution forward and educating people to new interesting sounds and artists rather than feeding them mass produced garbage. The inherent satisfaction of pioneering a community and movement is what makes it all worthwhile for me. Connecting to like minded people from all over the globe with the same ethos and passion to drive things continually forward and discover new artists, new music, new genres, new horizons and new consciousness.
https://soundcloud.com/stilvortalent/oliver-koletzki-fran-i-might-1
Your resident, big boss and innovator at Sydney institution Spice Cellar. We wanna know more about Spice, lots more! Who are some of the DJS that have left their mark internationally there, that have stood right out? Some of the locals who really deliver the goods besides your good self? Some DJS that dont venture out of Sydney who deserve a shout out?
Spice is the real deal. It started inside small inside indian restaurant in King’s Cross as an illegal after hours from 3am – 9am every Sunday morning. We started with 3 or 4 Djs who used to literally pick up turntables and the monitor speakers from the clubs we’d just finished playing at and carry them to this restaurant down the road at 3am. We set it all up from scratch and then played and played and played records, because there were no CDJs back then, there was no Facebook back then so it was all word of mouth. For the 1st few months we were playing to ourselves and a few friends but after 3 months, everyone in the industry heard about it, DJs, bar staff, international visitors, the word got around like wildfire. Before we knew it there were like 200 people in a place that was licensed for 50, dancing on tables, bar staff were on the bar, it was WILD!!!! Since then we have come along way, now as a legitimate club with 600 capacity playing host to acts like Ame, Atish, Nina Kraviz, Kink, Joris Voorn, Kenny Larkin, Moodyman, Marcel Dettman to name a few.
Our residents deserve a shout out Phil Smart Robbie Lowe, Michelle Owen, Mike Witcombe, Ant J Steep, Sam Fransisco. Many of them who rate both great DJs but also have been releasing tunes on some great labels like Rejected, Still Vor Talent, Moodmusic, Future Classic to name a few labels.
When your not DJing in Sydney where do you like to go out ? How is Sydney and how do you see the whole industry currently?
Unfortunately Sydney kinda sucks at the moment. It has these stupid laws at the moment called lockout laws where you cannot enter a venue after 130 am and there is no alcohol service between 3am-5am. Currently the right wing conservative somewhat fascist regime is limiting people’s freedom and heavily affecting our music scene in a bad way. Some of us in the electronic music business have started a protest group called STOP the MUSIC where we turn off the music at 130am in protest of the laws, you can support it here:
https://www.facebook.com/stopthemusicdotorg
So in Sydney when I am not DJing if I can get somewhere before 130am i like to go my other bar Barrio Cellar which has opened recently in Sydney which has over 100 different types of tequila and Mezcal on offer to drown my sorrows about what is happening to Sydney. Usually i like to get the f**k out of Sydney as much possible so I travel alot for DJing spending most of my time in Berlin, Barcelona and Istanbul.
Currently Sydney is know as a “nanny State” where there is too much over regulation. I wrote a little prose piece about Sydney, an open letter to all the tortured souls destroying our fine city:
Where did u learn to hate? Is the sky black for you, was it always so I wonder, as a child or now as an adult too? But dear friend the sky is colourful and full of hope.
See that traffic jam, don’t get upset, it’s a father going home to his children, a lover going to meet their beloved for dinner, its you and it’s me, its everybody. Don’t hate them, they’re just us going somewhere else.
The world is so full of light and promise, it only takes a curious eye to see beyond the black and blue – absorbing the delicate shades in between, a fresh palette of emotion as it were, breathing in the large doses of sanity, of beauty. Come I have a new path, walk with me, together we can paint a new picture for the future.
My heart bleeds for Sydney, how beautiful she was, her colours being stolen one by one – waiting patiently to be rescued by the army of lovers I know are out there – silently suffering. I look to the horizon and all I see are narrow faces with narrow minds stealing the sunshine, the moonlight and the rainbow.
I ask you again dear friend, where did u learn to hate?
https://soundcloud.com/murat-kilic/pacifique-murat-kilics-big-coconutt-remix
Is this your first time playing in Bali? What have you heard about the parties in Bali ? Hows the vibe on Bali with the Sydney deep house familia? Bali is on the boom right now and the Australian tourists just cant get enough of those tunes so it would be great to hear from someone like yourself what the insider trading information gossip is..
Actually I have played before at Karma Kandara Beach Club in Uluwatu which is a beautiful little beach bar nestled in the bottom of a cliff. The good people there always look after me very well and i very much enjoy exploring the more be achy balaeric side of my music collection when i play there. In fact I play there this Saturday afternoon from 1-4PM so of you’re feeling beachy, then head there for a pre-party before my gig at Jenja later that night where i will turn up the heat this Saturday night!!
Are your playing other international destinations both in the past and further in 2015? Any shows that really come to mind recently overseas that you really enjoyed more than the rest and why? The crowd vibe? The backdrop? The location? Maybe in your homeland Turkey is that correct?
I just completed a short 3 week tour in Europe and played some fantastic gigs, Sysiphos, Kater Blau and Rummelsburg Open air in Berlin were all memorable. Sysiphos in Berlin is a huge open air adult playground
I was recently booked to play at a really cool club in Istanbul on the 30th of May but due to a stupid flight cancellation couldn’t make my gig!! But i have played in Istanbul many times and the best clubs there are definitely Wake Up Call, MiniMuzikhol and Suma beach.
One of regular questions we have really been enjoying asking in our interviews lately follows and its always great to get each artists insight. Tell us your first 5 records you purchased with your own money and your current top 5 you are playing now and how they connect both top 5’s together and how we can hear those first 5 tunes influenced into your sets in 2015?
First 5 records – geez that is going back to 1980s. In the early 80s, when i was 10 years old I used to wag school and go record shopping. I know it sounds weird but I was actually crate digging at the age of 10 in 2nd hand record stores in Sydney. There were a couple of really amazing stores back then that carried some great vinyl like Martins, Ashwoods, Red Eye Records and the Record Plant (sadly all gone now). I remember buying “1982 Out of the Blue” a compilation record, that wa ac tally my first ever vinyl!! most of the initial records i bought were actually U2 45s back then because i was obsessed with their early music and activism, in fact i bought the very 1st vinyl they ever released. However I am not a huge fan of U2 anymore because Bono is a self-righteous douche bag who pretends to care about world poverty but has a $15mill apartment and is a billion dollars. I am these days more in to people like the Knife singer Karin Dreijer Anderson who makes way better music than U2 and recently when I went to her show at Columbiahalle in Berlin, she had a stand raising awareness for “Ending Extreme Wealth”!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpouTVkIxZU
Are you also working on production in your downtime? Tell us some of the collaborations and solo projects you have been working on at your home set up lately and anything we should be keeping a ear out for?
To be honest i don’t have much downtime! Most of the music work I have done lately has been on headphones in a plane or in friend’s studios in Berlin, Barcelona and now Bali.
I am currently working on a remix Mat Joe and a track for the Stil Vor Talent 10 year anniversary compilation as well as some new edits to play out this weekend!!!
What else are you up to behind the scenes in the music industry that you can share with us? Any side projects? record labels? Any new club nights on the boil?
I am looking at doing some open air events in Sydney, a regular event in Melbourne and working on new projects in Ibiza, Istanbul, Bali and Berlin .
We have just started our record label Reckless Republic which is on to its 3rd vinyl release to be release shortly.
Whats next for Murat?
More music, more tequila, more discovery, more music, more freedom, more travel, more love, more babies, more mind expansion, more hugs, more green energy, more vegetables, more music, more beaches, more ceviche, more Zacapa XO, more global consciousness so we can UNFUCK the world………… and did i mention more MUSIC!!!!!