RS: That's a great thing to say, I hope all the aspiring DJs out there make note of that. Playing with Digweed, did you ever have an experience on this tour where you played a record and he asked what it was because he wanted it?
Desyn: Yes, he keeps quiet but he definitely did a few times. For the trainspotters out there, I will tell you what a few were. I know the trainspotters are reading and really love to find out about the records we play. There's a track by Technasia called "Fused" that I played in New York that John asked me about. There's another track, I forget the title but it's on the record label called Shicas Disco. It's the fifth release on the label and I don't have the record at hand to tell you the title, but Shicas Disco number five he really liked and asked me about.
RS: I'll have to look those up. Well I read the quote in your bio that you describe your music as orgasmic, and I just love the way you set that up. I would love for you to elaborate on that a little bit.
Desyn: I think I was quite drunk at the time I wrote that actually, in fact I know I definitely was. The reason I wrote that is because when you read all these bios, they're so serious. I like to have a laugh and I like to try and make people laugh as well. I was really just having a laugh when I wrote that, but there was obviously an element of truth in that. The whole point of going out is you want to have your mind blown apart and feel that 'oh my God' moment and be excited. That's why I used that description because that's what I always try to do as a DJ. I don't want to play two hours of the latest records I've bought, I want to play the best music I've found over the past fifteen years that I've spent loads of effort into reediting and making them better so the people on the dance floor can hear that and just go wow. Obviously it's no good to just go in and just play your best records in the first half an hour. I think the most important thing I learned about DJing is the longer you make people wait, the better it is in the end when you actually do drop all the best records.
Sometimes you go into a club and you're quite nervous or anxious because you obviously want the gig to be a success, so you're quite tempted to play your big records first. But the most important thing I learnt was to tease people and you might even get some stick for that because you can go in and play for literally sometimes in a three-hour set old tunes for two hours or won't play any big records or literally hold back to play really kind of laid-back music, but slowly building up over two hours. Some people by the end of two hours literally want to punch me and go do it and bang it. The longer you make them wait and then suddenly in the last kind of quarter or the last third of your set, you then really pick it up and bang it. You get so much more reaction from the crowd rather than just going in and just playing kind of one level the whole night. So you hold back and then really give it at the end, it's a way of making people explode which is why I use the orgasmic thing. I guess that's just the way I try to play.
RS: That's brilliant. You mentioned about editing, what inspires you to reedit a track that you'll play out?
Desyn: Well basically it's just going back to what I've just said, you're trying to create the best experience for the people on the floor. Producers in general, obviously know their shit and they're making incredible music but they sometimes they forget what actually makes people dance on the dance floor. They make beautiful music but a lot of the time it can be just music for the head, that you want to sit back and listen to at home but when you try and play certain tracks on the dance floor they don't have their desired effect. Maybe they just don't have enough drops, things come in too quickly or the beats aren't good enough. A lot of tracks don't have the right beat, they need a bit more oompf, a little bit more bottom end to really get people's arses shaking with big basslines and things like that. Sometimes you just need to rearrange tracks and add extra things. You can create a huge tension in a breakdown by just like adding a whoosh or wind sound. Sometimes it's just a matter of just extending a breakdown and adding some crazy spacey effects in there, and that creates a really good atmosphere. It can be tiny things like those or just massively changing the track by taking some kind of downtempo ambient thing and putting some really good house or techno beats on it and turning it into like a dance hall monster.
