Keeping Tabs on Newcastle’s Upcoming DJ: Soul Wun
Every once and a while, we get a little head nod from someone in the industry going hey you might want to keep tabs on this one.
Soul Wun is one of these people. A skater and DJ from Newcastle whose music is best described as the kind you’d put on cooking a midweek dinner and somehow end up dancing drunk forgetting you have to get up in the morning for work. With the release of his new record Searching, he’s throwing a release party on April 14th in Newcastle with profits going to First Nation organisation ANTAR because that’s just the kind of guy he is. That’s something we can get around, so we called him up to get to know him a little better.
How long have you been making music for?
Not that long, maybe six years.
How did you start? Did you just teach yourself?
I played the guitar since I was six or seven or something. I have always been obsessed with electronic music. I got a music synth when I was fifteen or so and just played around with it. I got properly into it just before I moved to Newcastle.
Who musically inspires you the most right now?
Oh man, I can’t even think there are so many. Um…
Alright, someone that you’re listening to?
Cousin from Sydney. The Butter sessions crew. Overmono. It’s heading in the direction where it’s more club focused. The club-orientated producers are what’s inspiring me the most at the moment. Yeah.
You got there.
Didn’t really get there though. I felt like a politician answering that haha.
Outside of music what inspires you? You skate too, right?
Yeah yeah, have done my whole life. Skating for sure. Skating is getting worse and worse though, it’s kinda at the worst point it’s ever been but yeah I draw a lot of inspiration from skate culture. Creatively, the core values I take from music and skating ring true for both. I like to do what I do without looking too much at the exterior of what everyone else is doing. I’m inspired by people who do things with all their might.
What do you mean by the skate industry being the worst?
I guess the music industry is sort of similar at the moment too, with social media and all that kind of jazz. I’m a contributor to this issue too, but it’s all just oversaturated with just, shit, for a lack of a better word. I guess I’ve skated for so long that I’ve seen it go from the least coolest thing you could do to currently, probably the coolest thing you could do and it’s kinda hopefully on the way back out. It’s the same for music.
Can you tell me about the Newwy music scene?
It’s on the way up, people are starting to catch on. In saying that though, there’s still no proper scene, the diversity on line ups is pretty much a joke. It’s all still a bit broey. It’s on the way somewhere I just don’t know where too.
So what’s this event you’re running?
I love the kind of events where there’s a reason why it’s happening and it’s just a cool way to support lots of different projects in one go. So that’s what I’ve created to launch my new record Searching. It will be on the 14th of April at Krool Jewels Store.
I’ll be getting a bunch of copies of the vinyl record from my label Slothboogie which will feature across one of the walls. I’ve been working on the record for the better part of two years so it’ll be cool to finally see it. There’s a few accompanying projections, Craig Anderson from Steel City beers coming on board too. Jun Wan and I will be performing back to back sets for a couple hours. I was pretty concerned it was going to be a weird self-absorbed thing so we’re donating all the money to ANTAR. The crux of their charity is about empowering Indigenous people through different actions. It’s just going to be a night of fun.
Where can we get tickets?
