Max HeyraudMinimal house is progressively growing into one of electronic music’s most sought after styles of music. Pulling elements from both house and techno, the raw minimal groove seems to be infectious and it’s capturing ravers ears from all across Europe. Local DJs from Omni Dublin, are on a mission to spread the groove across Ireland.
In a country that is currently dominated by techno it can be difficult to break the mould and showcase a divergent sound. Stripped back grooves and big basslines encompass the minimal swing. In a world of big room and in your face dance music, minimal house is a more laid back and funky groove. Venues such as Pygmalion & Izakaya have been keeping the torch lit for this kind of sound in the capital as of late, but it’s always remained a little further asque from the forefront of dance music in Ireland.
Local Dubin collective, Omni Events are on a journey to spread the word of the minimal sound. Residents and founders of Omni, Jake Dodd and Jake Fitz both have impressive track-records of festival appearances and high profile club show’s. The Omni bosses are the perfect men to introduce you to their sound & if you’re already familiar with it, they’ll buckle you up for a smooth ride.
We chatted with the Omni boss men to hear about their new Shop Local residency in Pygmalion and to catch up with how they’ve been.
This Friday you launch your ‘Shop Local’ residency at Pygmalion. Can you tell me a bit about your initiative to start a residency solely focused on local talent?
Jake D: Covid 19 has been the worst thing that’s happened to our generation but to stay positive, we must find the good in the bad. We’ve seen so many upcoming producers and DJ’s put the time and effort into their productions because they had the time to do so. Just look at Lukey Music, producing an EP throughout the pandemic that is now being released on Jamie Jones’ Hot Creations. You’ve also got so many other amazing DJ’s & producers like Viracc, Laughing Man, L. Ivory, Dublime, Tunney, Easypeelers, Dolan, etc, There’s so much talent on hand in Ireland who deserve to be on a bigger platform, and we want to make sure that they get the chance to perform and share their music to an ever growing scene. Big ups Elmnts, Soundmate31, Foundations and Resound all doing their thing too, some great parties that deserve eyes on them!
How important do you feel championing local talent is for our electronic music scene as a whole?
Jake Fitz: I think it is extremely important to support local talent in today’s times, with so many internationals coming over to Ireland, it’s hard for an up and comer to get any sort of light that they deserve, this is why we have decided to build a platform for local talent who need that bit of a push. There won’t just be a focus on Dublin, but across the entire country that you’ll see at a future Shop Local party.
Do you believe the constant influx of international headline show’s puts a constraint on local talent to strive?
Jake D: Obviously internationals will never go away, but we should be taking advantage of the time we’ve been away from clubbing to focus on championing the local talents across the country. People have never been this deprived of night life, meaning there’s a huge demand to go out more than usual. Use this opportunity to focus on your residents and on headline shows for the local DJ’s and give them a platform to play to a massive crowd, because clubs across the country have been rammed since we’ve been back open. It even means promoters can pay better fees to local acts on the line up rather than paying an extortionate amount of money on flying an act over from abroad, booking the hotel and all that. That’s just how I feel about it anyway.
You guys have been pushing the minimal sound in Dublin for quite some time, do you feel a real push towards this sound in 2021?
Jake Fitz: The sound has grown immensely over lockdown, however it still has a long way to go in our eyes, our aim is to one day have it as big in Ireland as it is over in the Uk and across Europe. We take a lot of inspiration from the No Art and PIV parties in Amsterdam, the You&Me guys in Manchester, the Animal Crossing crew in London. We want to get to their level one day over here with out of the box ideas and concepts, which will be a challenge but I can really see the sound growing over the next couple of years with the help of all the similar collectives to ourselves in the country.
Dublin has generally been a very techno orientated city, do you find this poses difficulties when trying to push a different sound?
Jake D: Back in the old Hangar days, there was such a perfect balance of House / Tech-House and Techno. Every Friday with Techno & Cans was rammed from doors, and every Saturday for Strictly Deep was rammed from doors, obviously both different crowds, but there was still a perfect balance of the two. Now it’s quite Techno frequent, I sound like such an oul fella saying this, but the new generation seem to love fast pace, in your face thumping techno more so then the heads down hands up groove driven bass-lines that house music comes with. This isn’t saying that there’s a huge dominance between the two, but I think it’s clear that Techno is OP at the moment. It doesn’t make things difficult as we’ve a great following behind us, and the ones who come to see us perform or to our parties know what to expect with the music on the night, it’s always a nice thought to convert a few of the techno heads if possible though!
Can you recommend some minimal artists to people who may be unfamiliar with the sound?
Jake Fitz: The most consistent artists out there that we play on a regular basis would be Niko Maxen, Janeret, Traumer, Silat Beksi, Diego Krause, Varhat and Micheal James to name a few. On the more groovier bass-line driven side, there’s Djoko, Chris Stussy, Gene on Earth and Oden & Fatzo who we’re actually supporting in Dublin on December 10th! There are so many Irish artists that have already been mentioned in the first question who we love also!
What can we expect from you over the next few months?
Jake D: We’ve one more show to run ourselves before the end of 2021 which is in December and then we want to go all guns blazing for 2022, we’ve some big festivals locked in, we’ve acts that we’ve never dreamed of getting the opportunity to even speak to in the works for some of our shows, continuing to grow as DJ’s and promoters ourselves as well as giving locals a platform with Shop Local, and we’ve a three part project we’re very excited to get out there, which is something a lot more different than a club show which will hopefully turn a few heads! It’s really exciting to be back and seeing everyone doing what they love to do! Here’s to 2022!
Keep up to the date with Omni here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omnidublin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Omnieventsdublin
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jake-fitzgerald-939745607/tracks