Gary O’Reilly and Rob Smyth, better known as Mix & Fairbanks, have rightly gained a reputation for being among the nation’s top house and disco selectors. The pair can be regularly seen spinning tunes across the city’s top dance venues and club nights.
Now the duo are launching something of their own.
The Made & Played gig series will aim to provide a platform on which to showcase Ireland’s best electronic talent.
The first of these gigs is happening on November 17th. A BYOB affair set to take place in a secret and very unique location. The night will feature plenty of stellar mixes, good vibes and personalised visual displays.
Mix & Fairbanks will headline the first show themselves, with support on the night coming from Adult Store and an unannounced special guest.
Tickets for the November 17th gig are on sale now here at €13+. Event details are available here.
Le Boom will play their biggest Dublin headline show at District 8 on November 9th this year.
With the venue due to close at the end of the year, Le Boom (and myself as their manager DOI) were keen to do something special for their show so support on the night is due to come from art-pop act AE Mak and dance stalwarts Mix & Fairbanks. It’ll be a late show.
Tickets go on sale this Friday on Eventbrite at 10am so set your alarms. Further event details can be found here.
Addison Groove’s ‘Changa’ is a track that I’ve been playing out a lot over the past year. The track samples Soul Makossa ‘Manu Dibangu’. We were also working on an edit of this track until we heard this, and it was scrapped. – Rob
2.
Parcels – Overnight
Produced by Daft Punk, Overnight is one of those infectious tunes that I can’t seem to grow tired of. The little keyboard hook at the end of each phrase, the muted guitars in the chorus, the silky vocals, give me a pint by the pool please. -Gary
3.
Cove – Go Go Go
Any of the Orange Tree Edits releases could have made this list but I picked this one for its warmth and its groove, and for that time I played it and the crowd made a low orgasmic “ugh” when the chords came in. Goosebumps. -Gary
4.
Dj Clouds – United Booty
A latecomer to 2017, ‘United Booty’ by Dj Clouds is a Baltimore Club Banger featuring samples of Dj Dove’s ‘Illusions’. If you’re into choppy keys, ghetto breaks and unexpected acid licks don’t swipe left. -Rob
5.
Soul Reductions – Got 2 Be Loved
Soul Reductions ‘Got 2 be Loved’ gained huge support this year including Kornel Kovak’s who featured it in his Boiler Room set in Melbourne. The track was released on Take Away Records and samples Leon Ware’s ‘Got to be Loved’ and is reminiscent of the French House era. Great track, great sample, great label, God bless! – Rob
6.
Cinema – Floating feat. Chris Leech
My song of the year. I’m luckily friends with the two lads, so I heard this track in different stages of it’s growth. I remember the first time, Peter showed me “something he was working on” in our mates kitchen in the early hours. I was kitchen floored. -Gary
7.
KNG EDITS – Damn Girl
This edit of Gwen McCrae’s ‘Damn Right It’s Good’ makes me pull all sorts of shapes. I’ll let you interpret the lyrics yourself, but I think this is one for the girls. -Gary
8.
KH – Question
‘Question’ by KH aka Kieran Hebden, the man formally known as Four Tet is a track where very little happens and it’s still fantastic. I don’t think there’s been a set I haven’t played this in since it’s released. -Rob
9.
King Krule – Czech One
I choose King Krule’s ‘The OOZ’ as my album of the year. I choose Czech One as video of the year. The piano and sax bits in this tune could melt ya. -Gary
10.
Passarani – Wonky Wonky Wonky
Marco Passarani, better known as one half of Tiger & Woods released his first solo EP ‘FingerPrints Vol.1’ on Numbers earlier this year. The lead track ‘Wonky Wonky Wonky’ is only what I can describe as a cosmic journey. This track all the boxes for me and I would go as far as saying it’s my track of the year. – Rob
Wyvern Lingo’s‘I Love You Sadie’ is the Wicklow trio’s best track thus far, a slinky slice of R&B pop that digs into earworm territory and works harmonies into a buoyant song about celebrating the masculine in the feminine and vice versa.
Now Kildare mixmaster extraordinaires Mix & Fairbanks have taken the song’s vocals and given them a muted tropical dub-pop lift.
For this remix, M&F have added space and length to the original creating a space-disco odyssey with an acid dancefloor shade.
Catch both acts at Electric Picnic this weekend. Ships play Body & Soul main stage on Sunday (11pm) and Mix & Fairbanks play Casa Bacardi on Friday (4pm). EP Stage times.
I’ve covered Orange Tree’sfirsttwo releases here earlier this year but the success of the just-released third 12″ in the series from the Dublin label is worth noting because a) it’s currently top of the Juno chart in all genres and b) it has two grade A dancefloor bangers that people are really responding to.
First up, it’s Kildare duo and Nialler9 favourites Mix & Fairbanks who have turned up the heat to a considerable level with an Afro blasting slice of carnivale rhythms that nearly loses the run of itself in the build until those horns bring us back into focus. Mix & Fairbanks are having some year and every release whether edit, remix or original is a blast.
Meanwhile, OTE mastermind Jimmy Rouge puts in another fine fine effort that shows he’s not one for relying on the outside talent. His ‘Litmus Groove’ has more of an obvious Afro flavour but it’s absorbing and weighted beautifully for dancefloor explorations.
I’ve been playing both of these songs out in recent months whether at Lumo or a Nialler9 DJ set and they both slay. It’s a vinyl only release so pick it up before it’s too late.
Kildare duo Mix & Fairbanks know the value of a good club edit (and a great debut single) and so too, it seems, do Le Boom. The electro-pop pairing of Christy Leech and Aimee Mallon turned heads with their brilliant debut single ‘What We Do’ and now with summer 2017 approaching M&F have given that tune the extended 10-minute remix treatment before more new material arrives later this year. Catch Le Boom at the Nialler9 Music Cork show on Thursday (comment below for a guaranteed entry wristband) and on May 25th at Bello Bar in Dublin for Nialler9 and Hoembeat’s Future Proof with Ailbhe Reddy and Soulé.
Mix & Fairbanks meanwhile play Vinyl Love for Repeal this Sunday as well as BARE in the Woods and Life Festival.
There’s also a radio edit of the remix too:
Catch Le Boom live festivals this summer including: Forbidden Fruit Festival, Body & Soul, Sea Sessions, Townlands Carnival, Truck Festival (UK), Sunflower Fest, Castlepalooza and Indiependence
Now, taking its name from the phone area code, 045 Recordings is a group of the new generation of artists from the town who are presenting music together. The first release is an EP out today and it’s already caught ears with Mix & Fairbanks’ Daft Punk meets Todd Terje ‘Girls’ and Phare’s deep roller ‘Night-Time’. Here’s the EP in full featuring ‘Searching’, a slow cosmic disco track from Cinema, ‘The Levy’, a hypnotic electronic instrumental from Adultrock and ‘Little And Often’, a dancefloor house track from new talent Conor C.
Mix & Fairbanks are two young Kildare producers and DJs Rob Smyth and Gary O’Reilly who in a short time have been nailing electronic disco productions in a live setting, via DJ edits, remixes and mixes.
Well, wait til you hear their first original track…
Along with other Newbridge, Kildare crew, they feature on the 045 Recordings EP to be released on Friday and launched at Lumo with sets from M&F, Phare, Conor C and Cinema, while Adultrock’s Gavin Elsted will be downstairs with the other two Lumo DJs, myself and Simon Roche.
‘Girls’ the Mix & Fairbanks song from the EP is an absolute dancefloor stomper, a synth-rush tune that melds the bouncing pinging synth of ‘Inspector Norse’ with a Daft Punk style vocoder robot vocal. I can’t stop playing it and I’m going to be playing it all summer long. Come hear it live at Lumo this Saturday and check back Friday for the full EP stream.
M&F’s version of ‘Move’ takes the original’s metallic percussive loop and reworks it as a funky dancefloor stomper. Phare’s version of ‘Take It’ ups the hypnotic swerving rhhythm with snatches of the original’s voices
Mix & Fairbanks, alongside Adultrock, Cinema, Phare, and Conor C will be starting a label under the name of ‘045 Recordings’ with a few releases already planned for the year.
The Newbridge, Kildare duo of Rob Smyth and Gary O’Reilly aka Mix & Fairbanks have been playing and making some of the best edits and remixes around of late and their latest free download EP, offers further proof of their abilities.
The town will be formalising its credentials in the form of a new record label, 045 Recordings featuring the newest crop of artists from the area in including Adultrock, Cinema, Phare, and Conor C.
Foals’ Edwin Congreave are coming to Dublin for a DJ set at Opium Rooms on Paddy’s Day, March 17th courtesy of Bedlam and Abstract. The band’s Edwin Congreave will be in town to play a set. Congreave is one half of Deep Shit with Friendly Fires’ Jack Savidge. Check out two mixes – one disco mix from Edwin and a Deep Shit one from BBC6 a few years back.
Also lined up for the event are DJ sets from myself Nialler9 along with Ciara Brady, Marcus O’Laoire and Mix & Fairbanks. It’ll be an all-evening affair from 6pm.
Facebook event. Share the event and comment “Foals DJ set @ Opium” and tag four friends to be in with a chance of winning guestlist + a 50 euro bar tab 👌
