Kasey Taylor is one of the most influential
people in Australian dance music. He is certainly one of the
most accomplished and now one of the most recognised on the
global dance stage. Indeed, you might expect a few results
if you started Djing at the age of 13 as Kasey Taylor did,
but the truth is that experience and practice will only get
you so far and that at some stage it takes raw talent to turn
the heads of the dance world.
As a DJ, there is very little that Kasey Taylor has not done.
In the years gone past he has played almost every big gig
in Melbourne and held residencies at every club of note. In
particular, Kasey played an integral role in creating the
magic that was the Mansion. A club that has gone down in the
annals of dance history as one of the best to ever sit on
the planet with just about every international DJ you could
name at the time, playing guesting roles there. He has also
played at all the major festivals in Australia like the Two
Tribes festivals, Summadayze festivals, Renaissance and Global
Underground festivals just to name a few, and supported the
biggest DJs in the world on a regular basis. Kasey these days,
now resides in Portugal and can be found playing all across
the globe, from Europe to Australia, South America to Asia,
there is not many places where Kasey Taylor hasnt been. In
fact, Kasey Taylor can be said to be one of Australias best
dance exports.
For years now, Kasey has the luxury of releasing his records
on one of the worlds most respected labels, his own Vapour
Recordings which he founded in 1997, and now has around 60
releases under its belt. His time spent overseeing the label
and production work has done more to establish the credibility
of Australia in the international dance arena than pretty
much any other independent Australian record label. Kaseys
tunes, along with ones he has signed for Vapour, have consistently
been in the boxes of the worlds leading DJs and featured on
major CDs around the globe.
As Vapour Recordings has its fan base, Kasey decided to launch
a second label titled VapouRise, formed in January 2005, which
is the sister label of Vapour Recordings. This is more directed
to a anything goes sound ranging between, house, Deep house,
electro etc. D Nox and Beckers, Can Costa, Hernan Cerbello,
LeRon, Yves Eaux, Luke Star and C-Jay are some of the main
attractions to VapouRise. And if you dont think thats not
enough, be sure to check out Kaseys slot on Proton Radio titled,
Vaporized which is on the 1st Tuesday of every month and features
guest mixes from top DJs around the world.
It may well be that Vapour Recordings illustrates the greatest
of Kaseys attributes. He has collaborated with people like
Luke Chable, Greed, Andy Jarrod (Head of 3 beat Label Management),
Barry Jamieson (Currently working with Sasha) & Jon Sutton
(with both being the former owners of the classic Fluid Recordings
label), with His most recent collaborations being with Chris
Meehan. With Kasey now residing overseas, and having a year
and a half off from all studio work, he has recently started
producing solo again and you will start seeing some new productions
soon. He has just completed a remix on the well known classic
'Promises' track by Greed, which has been kindly licensed
to Vapour from SOGrecords for a late 2006 release, along with
some new originals that are also just near completion. So
keep your eyes out for a few new Taylor tunes popping up soon.
So what is it about Kaseys music that has won him the respect
of the dance community If you really want to know, plant
your feet on the dance floor for the full duration of a Taylor
set. You can talk about programming as Kasey effortlessly
and subtlety changes gears from all genres of music, sucking
you into his sound scape to a point where you look up all
of a sudden and realise youve been lost in music for hours
- You can talk about his astounding mixing which is so precise
that you probably wont even know whether a track is coming
or going -You can talk about the fact that Kasey will be playing
records weeks before anyone, You can talk about the fact that
Kasey doesnt compromise his sound and still remains accessible.
You can talk about a lot of things but at the end of the
night it all comes down to one thing: Kasey Taylor has a scary
understanding of dance music. He writes it, he plays it, he
studies it and he lives it, so if you ever get the chance
to go and hear a Kasey Taylor set, go and enjoy it!
