Malaysia Clubbing, Nightlife Photos, Party Guide, Club DJs, House Music

 

WITH experience as a deejay in the local club scene dating back to the mid-90s, Nicky Choong aka Nicky C may have taken some time to delve into the music production arena. Nicky C is the renaissance man of the dance scene. Nevertheless the last three years have been something of a prolific time for the 31-year-old veteran deejay with his third album release in as many years – Telekinetic – hitting the shelves late last month, following in the footsteps of 2005’s Dreams and 2006’s In the Nick of Time.

So one can understand how good he feels with himself this far into his career.

“The last two albums were great,” said the genial Nicky C in a recent interview. “Dreams did very well, winning best local album of 2005 by Juice magazine and some of the tracks on it got licensed out to other local compilations. In the Nick of Time was a darker album, and it featured my remix of Isthmus’ track A New World.”

A New World, a track that dates back to the early 2000s still gets licensed today. It was most recently featured on local dance imprint Adlib Records latest local dance compilation Technology.

The work on Telekinetic, a six-track extended mix EP, took Nicky C nearly six months to complete.

On this effort, he heads into somewhat – as he puts it – “simpler sounding” territory.

Nevertheless, it’s still edgy and has that distinctive Nicky C vibe, where the listener is brought from point A to point B, with chill-out, house, electro and progressive breaks featured in the journey.

The tracklisting includes Freedom, Seasons, A Tweak in Time, Filthy Feel, Electronick (sic) and Telekinetic. Filthy Feel is a collaboration with fellow DJ/producer and good friend Jungle Jerry under the production moniker of Duo.

Nicky drew inspiration for Telekinetic from very diverse backgrounds.

“Opening track Freedom was written last year, and is a very chilled out song. I got inspiration for that track from the nights I played at Luna Bar (KL) listening to Chicane, Zero 7, Stephane Pompagnoux, Ursula 1000 and the likes.

“Some of the tracks on the album are house-influenced by the likes of Andy Cato (Groove Armada) as well as Hed Kandi stuff. The electro track Electronick just came about when I was messing with synthesizers and loops. The idea came from wanting to make a ‘big room’ sounding track. Hence the low frequencies and loud bleeps.”

Born a Pisces, the Kuala Lumpur-raised deejay does reflect the imaginative persona of his star sign. At home, Nicky C chills out with his art and graphic designing work and lists Paolo Coelho as one of his favourite authors.

Tennis is also a past-time for this bloke but sports has become a rare treat these days. He has a Tuesday/Saturday club residency at Republic in Sunway Pyramid in Selangor and is about to start a stint at Solaris in Mont Kiara, KL next month.

With this album, the future is looking quite bright for Nicky C. Although he sees the current local scene as still developing, there are signs of better things for local acts and deejays in the production front.

“There are many nights and many deejays and many live acts. Most of them are really good. I like B4C and Transient Vortex for the live stuff. I think in 10 years from now, the house music scene will become really big with a mesh of new and old faces.

“There are a lot of good music producers right now and my favourites are DJ Love, Jungle Jerry, Transient Vortex, B4C, Victor G and Gabriel. Most of them already have singles released internationally in Australia, United States and Britain.

“Two of my tracks, Seasons and Telekinetic will be remixed by Nick Riley and Andy Durrant (from the Gatecrasher UK stable) and will be available in May 2008 on ITunes and Beatport.”

According to Nicky C, things are busying up on the local front as well, with local imprints such as Adlib Records and Gillazia Recordings putting CD compilations out into the market.

Not wanting to rest on his laurels, he is already preparing his fourth album.

“It will be a collection of singles I’ve written and produced, strung together into a 10 or 11 track album. It will retain an edgy electro feel, a style of music I’m very into right now. I’m listening to a lot of rock music at the moment and I’m working with Jit Woei (from Nightlife Camera) on a few tracks.”

“It’s going to be released in May (2008). You can expect lots of new melodies, piano riffs, break-beats and lots of driving electro.”

Nicky C is the renaissance man of the dance scene – moving from behind the decks to the recording (and remixing) scene.

“I want to feature more local talents like Jit and Reza Salleh. I’m also working on some remixes for They Will Kill Us All and Seven-Collar T-Shirt, so those may be out as singles in the middle of this year. ”