DJ Tom Piper states that he has just spent $200 dollars on CDs. If that didn’t raise an eyebrow, how about the follow up statement: “That’s alright, I’ve got enough music to last me the whole day.” For most, $200 worth of CDs would keep them musically occupied for at least a month but for Piper this listening time frame would make the music “old. At least it’s now fresh for a whole day.”
In light of the extraordinarily short “freshness” of his music, it’s rather fitting that Piper not only makes his own fresh music but runs three music labels. It’s a life dedicated to making fresh tracks and fresh sounds, the latest of which can be found coming out of his most  fresh label – Bakehaus.
“Bakehaus is a new label we’ve started up, myself and Daniel Farley over in NZ. I already run two other labels so this is sort of a third edition to the family, and this label is a different style of music to the other labels which is the reason it happened. It’s a bit hard to explain the sound; it’s like tech but not tech and it’s like house but not house. It’s not on a big club level, like main room club sounds, more like back room sounds. A bit more song based than your typical big room club track.”
It wouldn’t make sense for Farley and Piper, particularly Piper, to have released the upcoming Bakehaus tracks on the already existing labels. Fresh sounds require a fresh label.
“Even though some of the artists cross over it’s still a completely different sound. When you follow a label you sort of follow a label for the sound unless you’re following one of the majors like obviously Sony have a million different artists and sub labels, but you wouldn’t have Modular releasing a Britney Spears record.”
Bakehaus already has a smorgasboard of releases laid out from artists across the seas as well as Australia and New Zealand. “We got tunes in the line up from Tim Corin, Daniel Farley, Chaos InTheCBD, who are all from NZ; from Australia there’s stuff coming from myself, Blaze Tripp, Playmode, R!M!E and overseas we got remixes coming from Riva Starr, Sharkslayer, Mom N Dad, Yankee Zulu, Joey Suki and more.”
Piper’s own Bakehaus release has already earned him accolades with some of the biggest DJs from around the world spinning his tracks at their own shows. Having the like of Kissy Sell Out, DJ Craze, Lee Mortimer, Foamo, Nick Catchdubs, Bloody Beetroots, Audiojack, Edu K, Steve Aoki and others on side does make Piper feel somewhat validated but you almost have to squeeze this out of him – he’s not into “bigging myself up.”
He is into bigging up the label and he promises it’s going to be “um, great.” After years of DJing and producing Piper’s hard work has finally paid off and he no longer has to work a day job unrelated to his career in order to pursue it. Some might refer to this as living the dream but again, Piper shies away from this.
“I don’t know about the ‘the’ dream. Maybe someone’s dream. Saying that I’m living the dream sounds like I’m Vince from Entourage.” He thinks about this for a moment before deciding that “that would be pretty cool if I was.”

WHO:    TOM PIPER
WHAT:    AIRBAG EP THROUGH BAKEHAUS RECORDS / PLAYS FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL AT ROYAL RANDWICK RACECOURSE / FRESHNESS AT SOHO
WHEN:    OUT NOW / SATURDAY 6 MARCH / FRIDAY 12

James Zabiela retains a reputation as a trailblazer and his forthcoming Renaissance: The Masters Series release is set to further cement it. Although the easy route would be to simply knock together his mix in an “inventive new digital process”, Zabiela and Renaissance have instead focused on revolutionising the distribution and packaging of the release to make it more environmentally friendly and accessible. Not only is it presented in a shrink-wrapped, full colour wallet on a flexi-DVD that’s both eco-friendly (50% less carbon emissions) and lightweight (again, 50% less than standard CD/DVDs) it’s being given away at each gig of his coming tour - which hits Chinese Laundry on Friday 21 May!

Dag Nabbit, Orifice Vulgatron, Metropolis, DJ NoNames and Beat Boxer Shlom have been wowing UK crowds for plenty long enough and thanks to Falcona they’ll be bringing their Foreign Beggars show to Q Bar + 34B Stereo on Saturday 10 April. Two albums down and high profile collaborations aside, the Foreign Beggars are a distinctly off the beaten track hip hop crew with a grime edge who’ve managed to keep their finger firmly on the pulse of inventiveness. If they appealed to Bjork and Damon Albarn chances are you’ll like them too – first release tickets are now available from moshtix.com.au for $20 + b/f.

Beloved of the youth market and derided by music snobs the world over, Kissy Sell Out probably cares little one way or the other. He’s been a busy remixer, having retouched works from The Human League, Mark Ronson, Sugababes, Gwen Stefani, Groove Armada, The Loose Cannons, Calvin Harris, Dragonette, Operator Please and The Black Ghosts, but he’s just as handy behind the decks and on Saturday 3 April you’ll have a chance to catch him getting comfortable in the booth at Home, thanks to Music People and 3D World. If you simply can’t wait there’s a chance you’ll appreciate his electrotastic new album Youth.

Transmission may be no more yet the very same folks responsible for it have been keeping busy planning Magic City. If a line-up which includes Zany, Donkey Rollers, pictured, vs Noisecontrollers, Alex Kidd vs Kidd Kaos, The Pitcher, Jowan vs Dr Willis and DV8, is unable to convince you then perhaps a quick visit to magiccity.net.au will. Do yourself a favour and sit through the intro; it’s truly a “so bad it’s good kind” of moment. If you’re keen to meet the headliners, limited VIP tickets are available for $215 whilst general access will set you back $115. Magic City is held at Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre on Saturday 29 May.

Sydney singer-songwriter and composer Sui Zhen, known at home as Becky Freeman, described the application process for the Red Bull Music Academy as “really intense, almost like a personality test.” The application form consisted roughly of 30 pages worth of enquiries and not all of them pertaining to music, but “about anything that will get you to express something of your personality.”
Every year since 1998 the RBMA receives thousands of applications from over 80 countries and someone, somewhere trawls through each 30 page application in order to select a mix of talented musicians from a variety of genres – whether they are well know or not. This year, Freeman was a successful applicant.
“There are lectures and workshops then studio time where you collaborate with the participants, they put on different gigs over that period as well that all the participants will perform at and at the end of the two weeks they aim to produce 50 new songs and then they release the CD. So it’s a really intensive learning, collaborating, performing exercise.”
Every year the academy is held in a different city and previous host cities include Berlin, Dublin, Sao Paulo, Cape Town, Melbourne and Barcelona. Lecturers have included the likes of A-Trak, Matthew Herbert, Invisibl Skratch Piklz and MIA.
As Freeman points out, “the whole point of it is to bring people together from different cultures and just share and collaborate and give people lots of different experiences.” Different experiences are sure to be guaranteed given the international nature of the participants and lecturers and Freeman is understandably excited by the prospect.
“I’m hoping there’s going to be a lot of crazy instruments there,” she says. “I think there’s going to be a lot of multi talented people like producers as well as engineers as well as keyboard players and that kind of stuff too. I’m really excited about it, but I’m not sure what to expect.”
Freeman herself is a bit of an entrepreneur. Aside from writing her own music as Sui Zhen she’s been known to compose for film and is a frequent session musician who sings jingles for the advertising industry. Although she loves to write music, it is the singing that really floats her boat.
“One of my favourite things especially with the session music and all the jingles and stuff, is just to sing for other people in whatever way I can. I really love doing that. I used to be quite afraid of changing my style to suit someone else’s style, but now I’m just up for singing in as many different styles as I can. I love exploring all the different ways my voice can go.”
No doubt at the Academy she will find ample opportunity to explore various styles of singing when her and fellow Australian representatives Andy Wilson (Andras Fox) and Ross McHenry set off for London this week. As for the grueling 30 page application process, Freeman has no idea what made hers successful.
“They said you could write it by hand and from that point on it was like once I’d started writing I wasn’t going to start it over again so I was crossing stuff out and having to draw pictures and stuff. I was just myself and I’m not quite sure why they chose me.”

WHO:    SUI ZHEN
WHAT:    RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY, LONDON
WHEN:    SUNDAY 7 FEBRUARY – FRIDAY 12 MARCH

Spice has spent a month revelling in its new sun-soaked venue at Home Terrace, the perfect place to prolong your weekend’s partying by kicking on there from 5am every Sunday morning. Sunday 21 February sees the rather special Steve Lawler after-party whipping the punters into shape, with half price entry to those Lawler side-show attendees who flash their wristbands winningly at the door. And if you’re looking ahead, Sunday 28 March has Spice hosting an exclusive performance from the mighty Tigerstripes. Those who think Sundays should be a day of rest clearly just aren’t having enough fun.