Written by the B&B Crew
Monday, 19 September 2011 20:19
Interview -
DJ and host of the Floorplay events in Amsterdam Club NL Paul Sparkes talks to revered UK DJ/producer, SOS member and head of the Sexonwax label Omid 16B about all things music...
… and there’s a lot to talk about: Omid just released a brand new EP named Re-arranged and his labels Sexonwax and Alola are set to drop brand new heavy hitting tracks soon. But it’s best to have Omid himself do the talking…
Hi Omid, where are you in the world and what are you doing right now? I am in a hotelroom in Croatia, Papaya Beach where I am playing at an MTV festival with DJmag for 3000 people and working on a remix for Glenn Morison’s track called "Mine And Yours".
You travel all over the globe for gigs and are constantly in demand in the best clubs on offer. What are some highlights of this summer so far? I closed the EXIT club in Kaunas not so long ago as they are moving to the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius. It was an amazing night and I played back to back with Ignas who is the one responsible for the club and also one of the best dj’s in Lithuania. After playing there for 10 years you can imagine the kind of special moments we had.
Another one was Space opening in Ibiza earlier this year along side Jamie Jones, and some old faces popped up I hadn’t seen in ages which made even more of an impact on how we played and what we played. And also the Snowbombing festival in Austria was something else, we played in the Planet E room alongside Carl Craig, Paul Woolworth and Agoria. It was huge fun and the crowd were insane, after having driven there from the UK with a Volvo sponsored and branded DJMag car we certainly had an experience not to forget!
Sexonwax and Alola are your labels – please can you tell use what can we expect from them in the coming months? A few new bits by my self will be coming very soon plus a few new acts like Mark Holmes, an upcoming producer, who has caught my eye a while ago. He asked me if I could remix his track "Coming Home", but we liked the track so much, specially the SOW team, that we had to sign it to Sexonwax. So that's a good one coming up soon (as soon as I have finished the remix which I am working on right now).
Further we have been very busy with uploading the entire vinyl back catalogue for Alola Records. It’s a lot of work to digitalize the tracks, or remaster them as they where all mastered for vinyl... but we are getting there slowly but surely...
"Sounds From Another Room" and "How To Live 100 Years" are now also on the Alola imprint and as with all the other Alola albums available now digitally. And we have just completed the 3rd installment of the compilation series "Sounds Like Alola" mixed by Mr.C . We are now mastering the mix and may have a little surprise to add on the release… but can’t say anything more than that...
The first two “Sounds Like Alola” mix compilations were done by me and Demi and where received very well, so having Mr.C compiling and mixing the next one is a great honor specially with his connection to Alola having done singles and remixes on the label in the past.
Alongside Demi and Desyn Masiello, you are part of Sex on Substance aka SOS. Please tell the readers a bit about your setup technically, and how do you approach these gigs as opposed to simply DJing alone. We all play together at the same time as apposed to collective djs who play separately. We have one main mixer and everything is feed into that so we choose from all that we can hear, what we want the crowd to hear and than we start bringing those faders up. Sometimes we have all the faders up and its a serious musical union of everything somehow merging; 3 tracks at the same time sounding like one which has made our sets quite special to listen too.
Do you feel that you've always had a particular sound or has it changed a lot over the years? I’ve always known what I particularly like but my sound has evolved, sometimes it feels like it goes back wards and some times it feels like the future is embarrassing me, I don’t know? For most people it's based on the essence and the quality of music that’s a priority, mine has always been about knowing what’s real what’s coming from someone’s heart and picking up on that fast... whether its happy, sad, dark or suicidal doesn’t matter to me… If it’s genuine it has a time and a place to be played whilst your creating a journey of tales that give you a glimpse of life in sounds. As a DJ you want to share as much as possible and tell a story in the short space of time we have.
Please tell us a bit about the new single, Re-Arranged, which is out now on Discoteca Music and is being supported by all the major players, right across the board. I did this in a few days but was playing this all over whilst I was retouching its final stages. I gave a copy to Demi who started opening up his sets with it after I decided to add the vocal on the last minute. It's a bit cheeky but being more a club toon for the floor I guess it's ok. And I love what the guys at Discoteca are doing and its great working with them.
Your remix of Dibby Dougherty & David Young's Not Trippin' really is a vocal bomb. Please give the readers an insight into your approach to this awesome track. I spent a substantial amount of time on it, a whole week to first get the baseline in the way that you hear it now. The bass being the main element I focused on so that it rotates and comes at you sporadically, randomly yet there is some order within the symphony that gives you some feeling of organization behind it all.
The track is very epic and I wanted to add my underground vibe to it yet keeping it quite progressive euphoric and sublime. So to get all those moods in one track you have to really focus and listen to things so many times to be sure you wont get bored of it later.
SOS recently played at SW4 mainstage in London (27th August). What is it like to headline such a vast arena, and do you vary it musically compared to a smaller club? Well you only get a little over an hour in festivals and this is no exception except the fact we are opening the main stage so it's always a little more risky and intense. But it could be fun and as much of a surprise at the same time. Musically we are always a little more sensitive to our surroundings and could go anywhere depending on the atmosphere, but like I said you don't have much time to get your message across and trying to find the route naturally is always a challenge.
You recently gigged at Amsterdam's Club NL for a special Floorplay event. What is your experience of playing in Holland? Fortunately every gig I have played in Holland has always been quite good even in places like Rotterdam where I played a bit harder. The crowd has always been very warm and receptive. I like the smaller places a bit more as you can play more underground music, try out new things and keep the vibe unique, plus I absolutely love Holland! So going there is exciting for me full stop!
A lot is made of different technology in DJ booths. Are you on CDs, USBs, SD cards or a laptop? I still use CDJ's (Pioneer CDJ2000’s and if I can and if there is space in the DJ booth I prefer to use 4 of them at the same time!) plus the Pioneer DJM2000's mixer and 2 SD cards using Rekordbox as my software to arrange it all in playlists on the cards which go in the CDJs...I don't have to put CDs in any more but do I still play from CDs and vinyl. The biggest plus in using SD cards is that you have a lot less to carry which makes traveling a lot easier. I have nothing against people who use their computers for DJing but I prefer to have more reliable control and less to worry about.
Finally, do you have any amusing stories of life on the road? We are aware that some funny things occur in the clubs and in transit, so please share something amusing with us today if possible! We got stopped by police coming out of Space. We were driving to Pasha to see Luciano. Only seconds in we get stopped and everyone's getting strip searched and luckily no body had anything on them they shouldn't have.... so we get back in drive on but get pulled over again within 20 seconds by the same car.... This time it was because Demi had left his mobile on the police cars bonnet, so they gave us his phone back ...what lovely chaps.
I have also in the past, and this is many years ago, started playing at the wrong club… I walked in and looked for the booth, asked the DJ who was playing to stop as it was my time to play and started playing.. only to have the club owner come to me with a very surprised face asking me what I was doing? Then I realized I was suppose to play at the club next door...
Interview - 
