From the mouth of the man himself...
I have been involved with AUM from the outset as a DJ, but it wasn’t until 2019 when John Paul approached me about taking over the creative direction of the Kanuka stage that my involvement grew into what it is today.
I was tired of always heading off around the country doing New Year gigs, often with a handful of friends and everyone rushing around getting to and from other events. To truly celebrate I felt we needed to all be in one place creating something special together. Creating a space for everyone to join in celebration with the best music and setup was such a dream.
I saw it as a great opportunity to get my partner in crime Owen Evans (Osey) onboard as we had been putting on some killer events with the Lo-Fi team. We pitched a stage takeover and JP loved it and it soon grew into us doing the decor and setup and execute our vision for the area.
We wanted to build a very special vibe - something Kiwi presented with an international standard.
Safe, welcoming, enchanting, and powerful. Designing the space and flow with a sense of magic and beauty musically to build waves throughout a greater sonic arc over two days.
Each artist complementing each other to create something bigger than the sum of the individual parts. Similar to how great DJs make something sublime from individual tracks. This kind of music curation really intrigues me - it’s a meta-level to a DJ set. Many artists are selfish and only care about their own individual sets, and often miss the chance to create something bigger than themselves. Our curation team pays extra attention to how DJs build upon the previous performances. Our DJ family is getting stronger with every gig and we offer support the more experienced acts. This is an easy way to bring talent up to a world class level.
It is always a pleasure working with JP, Anna and Steve and the rest of the epic crew and they understand our desire to create a place where our loved ones and dancefloor buddies new and old fuse into one big family.
AUM musically to me is about exploring new musical frontiers. Straying from the path of least resistance. The balance of dancefloor dynamics and cerebral celebration with a flare for the epic was the focus when I started music hunting. This years set consisted of forgotten gems, a stack of diamond encased grooves, polyrhythmic counterpoints and a timeless vibe to get lost in the sea of music.
I’m a fan of using modern DJ techniques subtly such as looping, rearranging on the fly, sampling and layering to bring it all together into one sonic flow and add my signature to the tracks without overpowering the original message while providing a unique performance.
Hope you enjoy.