KERRIE ANDERSON

My journey with electronic music started out with me going to clubs underage back home in Ireland and buying mixtapes, which then led on to me starting to DJ and the produce music a bit later in life. I also played the violin for about 8 years when I was really young and did music the whole way through school so that has definitely lent itself to me having a natural ear for it as well as coming from a family that are fairly musical too.

I went to my first club when I was 13 with my older cousin which was probably the catalyst, after that I was listening to and buying mixtapes and going to raves every week. My brother is a DJ too and I would mess around on his decks when I was in my teens, it was more of just a hobby back then.

My mum had her own record collection of more rock / blues and Irish singer songwriter style music, my brother is a vinyl DJ and has collected records since he was 13 so we have always been surrounded with vinyl, although I didn’t start collecting records myself til the late 00’s. I was more interested in the clubbing side of things when it came to dance music. When I started to DJ I initially bought a pair of old CDJs just to get me started as I had loads of CDs and tracks downloaded until I built up some sort of a record collection and played on them for a couple of years initially. I used traktor for a stint as well.

Influential producers for me are James Ruskin, Blawan, Sync 24, Surgeon, SEDVS, Barker, Suzanne Ciani and of course some of the early Detroit guys; Robert Hood, Jeff Mills, Mike Banks and Drexciya. 

Influential DJs for me are all of the Freerotation residents especially Leah Floyeurs, Alex Downey and Miles Atmospheric. Mark Turner, my fellow Eastern Bloc residents Means&3rd & Jim Bane. Also Handmade and Gary Sloan are also wicked. 

There are loads more I could add here but these are some of my favourite artists. 

There are certain steps I will take every day before going to the studio to get my head in the right mindset like taking exercise and doing meditation. I will always get any admin out of the way first and then after that switch off the computer unless its a recording / mixing session and leave my phone in another room, so I have no distractions. 

In the studio I will always start an idea on the machines and jam until I come up with something I’m happy with. If I’m not getting anywhere with an idea I either take a break or start something new. This is usually a quickly made decision and its all about trusting my gut. 

So I would say that making sure I’m centred and using my intuition are a huge part of the process throughout and doing this repeatedly always seems to take me in the right direction. 

I started the label during the pandemic. It’s great to have such a huge positive to come out of such a difficult time. 

In the future I will definitely be doing DMF events, inviting other artists to release on DMF, branded merchandise, possibly a mix series too. There are lots of possible opportunities!