Will Sparks at EMC: “Is everything that's Melbourne Sound sick? No!” - inthemix

Tue 3rd Dec, 2013 by ITM HQ in News 968 views

Melbourne Sound wunderkind Will Sparks revealed his frustration with the genre’s “saturation” at EMC 2013’s passionate ‘Inside the Melbourne Sound’ discussion yesterday.

“If you like a song and you fucking bang your head against a wall, that’s a [Melbourne Bounce] banger,” said Sparks, whose tally of name-drops across the day’s panels was second only to Flume. “Is everything that’s Melbourne Sound sick? No! All that stuff that the young kids are trying to produce to get their name out there…all these kids are loving anything that has a kicking bass.”

Sparks’ manager Luke Udovoric echoed his frustrations, saying, “There’s a saturation now…that’s frustrating,” while fellow panellist Joel Fletcher delved into how the genre has developed, saying, “When I started producing it had more of a minimal techno kind of sound…then when I was about seventeen it started to get more of a Dutch-y kind of influence to it, which is now the Melbourne Sound, the kicking bass.”

For moderator Tommie Sunshine, hearing the banging sound of Melbourne Bounce for the first time was a revelation: “I thought ‘the fuck is that?’” the dance music veteran said. Sunshine compared the still-fledgling genre to scenes like Detroit techno in the 80s. “I feel like this scene is no less legitimate,” Sunshine said. “I really feel it’s that strong, and now we’re sitting on the verge of this getting global…this is the moment where this music is going to soar.”

“I didn’t know what was gonna happen but I knew it was gonna go far,” Sparks added, “and it’s still going on. Let’s support each other because we’re all a family. Let’s just get around it!” Meanwhile, for Reece Lowe, the genre’s been an escape into a new world. The emerging producer said he first got into the scene as a fan, but started producing when he realised “there’s way more fun things to do than concreting.”