heady drum ‘n’ bass and Jungle for the chilled generation.

Long-standing Sydney DJ and genre chameleon Andrew Wowk crafts an impeccable set of deep, speed-driven broken beat to get lost in.

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Can you tell us a bit about your journey into electronic music and DJing? When did you first discover electronic music? My initial introduction was in primary school in the form of popular house and rave hits like ‘Ride On Time’ by Black Box and ‘I’m Gonna Get You’ by Bizzare Inc. I was too young to really know what kind of music I was listening to, I just knew that I liked it. One day while randomly browsing radio stations on my Walkman I discovered Sydney radio station Wild FM, which really helped me learn what kind of music I was into.

When I was 14, I bought a copy of Ministry of Sound: The Annual (Millennium Edition) because I liked a lot of the tracks on it. At the time I didn't even know that you could mix tracks together into a single continuous set. I thought DJs were just the people on the radio who talked in between songs. I listened to it on my Discman on the way home and absolutely lost my mind. This was the first time I ever heard a DJ transition between two songs.

I spent hours in the following days listening to both discs continuously, learning the transitions by heart so I would know exactly when they were happening and using my crappy dial-up internet to read about DJing culture and how DJs actually mixed songs together.

The first time I saw a DJ perform was at work experience with community radio station, Rhythm FM. I happened to be there during the week of Gatecrasher Summer Sound System in 2001 and they had guests like Luke Slater, LTJ Bukem, Hybrid and Meat Katie come and play sets. This was in addition to their usual roster of amazing Sydney talent like Mark Dynamix, Mark Murphy, Leah, Kate Monroe, Jack McCord, and Damien Goundrie. I would hang out in the studio watching them play all this amazing, obscure music I’d never heard in my life. They were always happy to talk me through what they were doing and how they were doing it.

That pretty much cemented my interest in trying it for myself. A whole bunch of saved pocket money later, I bought my first pair of crappy generic turntables (I couldn’t afford Technics 1200s) and a Pioneer DJM-300 mixer and I haven’t looked back since.

How did you decide to approach your mix? Was there a concept behind it? I always try to have a concept or angle for podcast mixes because I think it’s a different experience to live recordings of gigs for the listener. I like to try to challenge myself when doing these kinds of mixes, so I thought it would be interesting to take drum & bass and jungle - genres usually associated with high intensity, energetic sounds - and highlight the more chilled, deep and heady side of them. I’m a firm believer that the BPM of music is the least important part of its intensity, and there is plenty of high-speed music out there which is otherwise subtle, warm, and easy to get lost in.  

Are there any particularly special tracks or moments in there for you? Photek’s ‘Rings Around Saturn’ is probably my favourite track in the mix. It’s just a really beautiful tune. Few people come close to Photek when it comes to intelligent drum programming, sourcing interesting samples and having an amazing balance of soul and chunkiness in his music.

You like to speak your mind and open up dialogue online when it comes to electronic music culture. What’s the best and worst thing about dance music and DJ culture in 2020? I would say that the best and worst things are two sides of the same coin: technology and the internet. On the one hand, it’s made accessing music and having a go at DJing more accessible than ever, meaning that lots of people who may have previously been unable to do so are getting a chance to experience this wonderful culture. There are so many really talented DJs out there that many of us would never have discovered without platforms like SoundCloud and  MixCloud.

Interacting and sharing ideas with like-minded artists is much easier now too. It’s really cool to see DJs posting tutorial videos showing how they do certain tricks, hosting online masterclasses, doing deep dives through their record collections and so on. I’ve met so many great people (and even scored gigs at places like Circus in Osaka and WNYU in New York) just by joining Facebook groups for electronic music in various cities I would be holidaying in.

Unfortunately, that same accessibility has meant there is a lot of bland, bandwagon jumping, copycat music out there. Because it’s now much easier for new, interesting types of music to gain widespread attention rapidly, it’s also incredibly easy for people to take the easy way out and just play whatever the internet tells them is the flavour of the month without even adding their own twist to it.

It’s also led to some (though not all) promoters and label owners placing an increased focus on things like social media presence as highly important parts of an artist’s overall brand or image. Often this is at the expense of playing interesting or original music, or even mastering the basics of DJing.

There are far more DJs out there than there should be who have huge social media followings of rabid fans, but when you actually go watch them play, are barely better than someone who has been mixing in their bedroom for six months.

Name your go-to album or mix compilation for chilling out.

I love a mix that Om Unit did a few years back called “33” – it’s a collection of early spaced-out dubstep records played at 33 RPM instead of 45 RPM. It takes tracks that were already stripped-down, heady journeys and turns them into these expansive, mind-bending soundscapes. It’s so easy to get lost in this mix.