I contribute to online electronic music magazine affiliated with independent record label. https://www.musiquededanse.co.uk/
March 13th 2020: INTERVIEW: Meet Tony Gurney, the DJ mastermind behind London's first accessible rave.
MDD spoke to Tony Gurney - aka Groover The Barbarian - who, in November 2019, launched ‘Daylight’: London’s first accessible rave aimed at people with disabilities.
What inspired the Daylight event?
Necessity is the mother of all invention, I was looking for a J/DnB event tailored to people with extra support needs and there wasn’t one, so I thought it would be fun to have a party…
What are some of the key steps taken to make the event more accessible?
The primary thing with making the event accessible is the venue. I know I probably sound like a salesman, but they’ve made the venue (OMEARA) so it is as step free as they can manage. This means people can come in off the street and can go round the whole venue without needing to use a step. They also have three disabled toilets. So if you compare that to my own experience of going to a club with one disabled toilet that had stacks of chairs in front of it, and they refused to move them, I think it’s pretty self-explanatory why the venue is so important.
Jack, the venue manager, and I had a meeting with Tricia from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and some of their members at OMEARA so they could assess how accessible/useful the venue and event will be for their members. We got a thumbs up. I felt it would be important to have CarersUK there on the day in case a carer needed someone to chat to, and CarersUK came along, and I also invited Hart Club to host a table. Hart Club is a community based Arts Programme so it opened up other potential opportunities for our guests. I also reached out to Scope, Headway East London, Leonard Cheshire Homes, Coin Street and Abs from Disability Advice Lambeth. Abs helped people with disabilities that she is in contact with to attend, as did the RNIB. It was a real team effort.
SEE FULL INTERVIEW HERE: https://www.musiquededanse.co.uk/post/tonygurney
January 3rd 2020: MDD:// Albums of 2019
[...]
‘Ecstatic Beat’ could be the name of every song on Resonant Body. Right from the offset ‘Imminent Spirit Arrival’ creates a feeling that you’ve been thrown into the middle of a high-energy set, capturing the purgative power of dance floors that allows you to let go entirely.
One of my personal favourites is ‘Spin Girl Let’s Activate!’ a slightly manic and extremely energising, uplifting track that really lives up to its title. Despite the change in style, Resonant Body retains the emotional power of Octo Octa’s previous work, with a reflective pause presented by the dreamy ‘My Body is Powerful’.
‘Power to the People’ captures the unifying experience of dance floors, inciting both a feeling of rebellion and a sense of comfort in being part of a like-minded crowd. The voice of an unintelligible mass reverberates throughout the song; what they are protesting does not seem to be the most important thing - it is simply a celebration of unity. In one moment of clarity, there is a short sample from a 1980s rally by ACT UP, an LGBT+ activist response to the AIDS pandemic, who used their rage to force action from the government and scientific communities.
The underground queer club community provided a place of acceptance for transgender woman Maya Bouldry-Morrison (Octo Octa) and she gives back by creating a safe space through her music. Bouldry-Morrison is also giving back in the literal sense by donating 50% of profits from this album to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, “which works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression […] without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence.”
After listening to the album innumerable times, I am left with the mantra “I know exactly how you feel”. This repeated sample from ‘Can You See Me?’ creates the feeling of the album as a shared experience, one which I am thrilled to be a part of.
SEE FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://www.musiquededanse.co.uk/post/albums-of-2019
