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Brisbane DJ/producer Nick T is so old-school he DJing before he even knew he was a DJ, scoring instant cred points from his classmates by playing CDs to an admiring dancefloor at school discos while still at primary school. From the age of 13 he started frequenting local record stores Central Station and Rocking Horse, slowly amassing a vinyl collection and wealth of music knowledge which sees him poised to mount an assault on his home town’s club scene less than a decade later.
Although his DJ mentor Danielson schooled him on mixing and scratching hip hop, jazz and funk, his first forays into clubland in 2005 saw him spinning house and electro ala Cirez D, John Dahlback and co – in short, electro house before it became the lowest common denominator fodder it is today. His DJing ambitions took something of a back seat while he was working as Production Manager at the Empire Hotel from mid-2006, but from here he scored his first residency at the nearby Noi Bar and had his first encounter with the world of minimal. It was love at first sight, and Nick T’s sound finally began to take shape from - although with ancient records from modern minimal-tech maestros like Oxia in his vinyl collection, it seems this sound was subconsciously flowing through his veins years earlier.
All the while Nick had been pursuing his first love of production, a love which was born when he started work in a recording studio at the age of 16. His studio work has flourished even at times when his DJ career has stalled, with his long term goals revolving more around his production (inspired by everyone from Apparat to Timbaland) than his time in the DJ Booth.
“The feeling of sitting down and writing a tune is something that can't be replicated elsewhere,†Nick T says, and he is certainly proving to be prolific as 2008 unfolds – his relationship with the Dektek Records label has borne fruit with the release of ‘Dead End’ in 2007, with the glitch tech tracks ‘Rigid’ and ‘Strangers’ set to drop before 2008 is out. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, with a full-length electronica album also starting to germinate.
Ironically, it was the reaction these original tracks got when he dropped them as part of his birthday celebrations at Birdee Num Num in October 2007 that kick-started Nick’s DJ career and lead to the birth of his Samsara Music promotion team. Already in 2008 Nick (in conjunction with fellow minimal-tech fiend Brad Smede and prog-bomber Chappo) has given birth to the Saturday Sessions and Fidget Fridays monthly events, which have brought his favoured deep minimal and bouncy tech house sounds to Birdee Num Num and Monastery respectively – venues which are usually more familiar with the afore-mentioned LCD electro house fodder.
With these residencies and his occasional sideline as a Toilet DJ in the Ladies’ Room of the Empire Hotel for the infamous Lick It parties, Nick T is slowly but surely marking his name as one to watch for the Brisbane clubbing massive. His self-confessed DJing mission of inspiring, entertaining and impressing everybody in the room is finally coming to fruition.
