Smelly Feet Records Is A Music Platform Which Showcases Both Established And Up & Coming Artists.
No Specific Genre, Just Real Underground Music.
Smelly Feet Records Is A Music Platform Which Showcases Both Established And Up & Coming Artists.
No Specific Genre, Just Real Underground Music.
Exclusive Mix & Interview
June 15th, 2019
Mark Blair
City: Belfast
Country: Northern Ireland
Genre: House
Label: Genesis
Mark. Introduce yourself to our audience. Anything special you would like them to know?
I’m a 24 year old currently living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I’ve been DJ’ing for about 6 years and been producing for about 3 of those years.
Your song selection as a DJ, we find incredible. What influences the types of grooves and arrangements you select in your sets.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t really think too deep into it when selecting tracks for my sets. I play out songs that I really like, and these can be banging techno tracks, or some light house tracks.
I would consider myself quite selfish when DJ’ing haha. A lot of the time I don’t really care what the crowd wants to hear. I just play what I want to hear, which can have a variety of results both positive and negative on the crowd.
"A lot of the time I don’t really care what the crowd wants to hear. I just play what I want to hear, which can have a variety of results..."
Talk to us about the Electronic music scene in Ireland. Any specific city that stands out?
The electronic music scene in Ireland is POPPING OFF right now. There are so many young talented producers coming through the ranks at the moment with people like Kettama, Mark Laird, George Feely, Quinton Campbell and lots more, all smashing it. It also definitely helps that we are all a part of "The Building Society" agency which kinda condenses all the DJ’s into one group.
As you’ve probably already heard/seen, Ireland has some of the best parties & crowds in the world. It’s definitely been a massive advantage for me growing up here and being able to play my music to such a rowdy crowd. People in Ireland are very good at supporting the local artists.
As an active producer Mark, how are you pushing your sounds to express yourself in ways that you have never done before?
I recently moved studios about 3/4 months ago to a rented space in the City Centre. I was using this space for work and other stuff then trying to produce music during the evenings. It ended up being a creative disaster and I struggled to finish one track throughout the 4 months. So i’ve moved my studio back into my home in a spare room a few weeks ago and it’s been a massive help already. I never really believed the environment you are in affected your productions but I do now. I’ve been adding some hardware synths to my set up but I still find myself returning to VST’s on the computer as I feel I’m getting better sounds from it. Maybe I’m just not good enough to be using hardware synths yet.
We would like to know more about the future of electronic music production. Are you noticing any changes within software and hardware?
As VST’s improve and get ever closer to emulating hardware synths, I do think more and more producers will be opting for 100% laptop/computer production. But who knows?
"Ireland has some of the best parties & crowds in the world. It’s definitely been a massive advantage for me growing up here..."
Tell us about Genesis. How and why did it start and what would you like to achieve?
Genesis started as a small party for me and my friends. We rented out the back room of a shite wee bar in a small town and brought down a bulky sound system. Me and about 30 mates squished into this tiny room and just went buck daft for a few hours. It was great so we threw more parties and illegal raves and each party got bigger and bigger.
We then reached a point where we started to bring over guests so I brought over some of my favourite artists such as Demuja, DJ Boring and Loods. This then led into the Genesis SoundCloud where I’ve been uploading some of my favourite tracks. It’s grew quite organically but I don’t really put much effort into it, as it’s quite time consuming! Same with the parties, but we have some cool plans for the future for Genesis.
Future production plans/upcoming projects you wish to speak about?
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been slow on the production side of things the past few months but now that I’m comfortable in my new studio, I hope to have a few EP’s released by the end of the year.
Mark, in a few sentences. Tell us about this mix you made for us. Where did you get your inspiration. Is there anything special you want the audience to know?
It’s quite a random mix, not much flow to it. But it’s a selection of my favourite tracks at the moment so I hope you all enjoy it!
