Davin AFK –Davin Greenwell- has got involved in electronic music scene through the years. He doesn’t care with trendy styles, just spreads his progressive and progressive-break music. The father and owner of Pacific Front Records presented us with an interview and a mix.

In Hungary we couldn’t hear too much about you, would you tell us a few words about who is Davin AFK?

I’ve been Djing for about 9 years, producing for 6 of those years.  I’ve had various residencies at clubs around Victoria, played a lot in Vancouver at all night parties and after-hours.  I spend a lot of my spare time doing original productions and running my music label, Pacific Front Recordings with Justin Humber (AKA Formulate), who I am more recently doing DJ and live sets with at clubs and all night events.  My tracks have been played by Sasha and John Digweed, Armin Van Buueren, Luke Chable, Shiloh, etc.  I’ve been remixed by Matt Rowan and Jaytech, Blake Jarrell, Influenza, Jeff Devas, Formulate, Fractal, Desert Dwellers etc.  I did about 5 years of radio so I am pretty well versed in that area – from community to commercial.  I’ve thrown quite a few events as well, from club nights to full moon parties with DJ Brian from the Moontribe of Los Angeles. 

As far as what my music sounds like – it varies.  Usually fairly brooding and melodic – it’s always percussive in part of its focus, and it’s meant to take any given set to a different level.  There’s no going back.  Life moves us all irreversibly forward and I believe music ought to do the same.

You started to deal with music longer time ago. Tell us, how could you get to the electronic music?

I had no choice really.  My oldest brother (who I collaborate with under the alias Tiebreaker) started making electronic music over 20 years ago and I was hooked at that time.  I am only now realizing some of the ideas that I had started to think of back then.  In the time between then and now there has been a lot of inspiration, so there is still a lot of work left to do for me.  As far as DJing goes, I’ve always loved sharing the music with others and that’s what continues to drive me.  I have no idea who is listening most of the time, which is difficult – part of the gratification of sharing is seeing those who you are reaching.  That’s part of the challenge and benefit of internet radio – you don’t know who you’re going to reach, and also: you don’t know who you’re going to reach.

Who are the producers whose works make big influence on you?

Hybrid, Starecase, Oliver Lieb (LSG), Max Graham, JunkieXL, Porcupine Tree, Depeche Mode, Matthew Dekay, William Orbit, Ulrich Schnauss, Air

Whit who have you already worked together? Which one of your works are you proud of?

Here are some of my collaborating aliases:

• Tiebreaker – myself and Anand Greenwell
• Royal Assassin – myself and Thor Kell (aka Fractal)
• Forgotten Robots – myself and Richard Hoar (aka Switchgear)
• Emerald Green – myself and Jaime Murdoch

Would you tell us something about Pacific Front Records? When was it established and for what reason? What are your tasks there?

Pacific Front Recordings was established in 2004 by myself and Justin Humber in order to publish and distribute music from ourselves and some other artists such as c79 and Tiebreaker who we thought would do well, and we were right.  My responsibilities at the label include Marketing and A&R.

How did you get in contact with Proton Radio?

Proton Radio actually got in contact with me, so I was a bit lucky that way.  They have some very forward-thinking staff there in Sam and Jason and I was fortunate enough to have my name passed on to them by Ben Malcolm, who is the voiceover-guy for Pacific Front Sessions now.  It all worked out very well!

Nowadays quite many gimpy and undemanding records are coming out, what do you predict for this genre?

I’m not too sure what you mean by gimpy or undemanding but I figure you mean that most of the music these days sucks, or is electro-house, or is both.  I would say the average attention span of the DJ has gone down in recent years, but I am not sure if this is a bad thing.  There were a few years after the turn of the millenium where you’d have about 100 records coming out a week that had a few bongos, an open hi hat on the off-beat and some swooshy noises and they’d call that class back then.  I thought that was a joke then, and I think most of what is popular right now is also a joke.  But that’s just my tastes personally.  Back to the question at hand – I believe that a lot of DJ’s have had their patience tested through monotonous and pretentious music that they were told was thoughtful music, when in actuality, it could have been, but it could have just as easily been the case that not much thought at all was put into that music at all.  See what I mean about the whole thing being a joke?

I’m still not sure what genre you are talking about, but if it’s the newest thing that I think you’re talking about, it’ll pass just like everything else did before it – minimal tribal house, speed garage, big-beat, etc.  Fad music.  I try to stay away from it, and try to keep the label away from Fad-sounds so that our music can have a certain longevity to it.  We’re not interested in sacrificing our sound to get a few sales now.  We’d rather respect our own music in a couple years.

What do you think, where does the electronic music trend towards? I’m thinking about the breaking away of minimal and electro genres. What do you think about them?

I’ve had all sorts of thoughts on where electronic music could go with popularity, but none of it has anything to do with minimal or electro breaking away from the pack.  It wont happen.  Everything really repeates itself more or less so you have all these micro-trends going up and down.  I try not to get too involved with the trend itself.  9 years ago I was playing progressive breakbeat and I still am.  Somewhere in the middle it got really popular, and then you have all these idiots proclaiming it’s dead.  It lived before them, it will live after.  For DJ’s, genres are more important, because it makes it easier for them to mix tracks together.  Producers do not have such limits, plus producers are much more interested in challenging themselves and moving beyond genre.  Since I am both a DJ and a producer, I find myself doing things that most DJ’s wouldn’t, such as playing 3 or 4 genres in a single set.  This is where the fun is to me – and doing it all in such a way that the listener doesn’t know what is coming up, and making it all happen in a very smooth and present way.

Do you know hungarian producers? If yes, whose works do you like, and who are you in contact with?

FeralCode is Hungarian, I believe. I could be wrong.  In any case, all the FeralCode stuff is really good.

What records can we wait for from you? What are you working on nowadays?

I just finished off an Orbital remix, myself and Dustin H have a new track that we’re planning on doing a second part to for an EP release on Pacific Front, myself and Formulate are doing a remix of Dustin H, myself and Fractal have done a new Royal Assassin track which is coming out soon on Pacific Front Recordings, and the Tiebreaker remix of c79’s Dope Ride that I did with Anand just came out.

What should we know about the mix you sent us?

A lot of the music on the mix is my own work, which is available on beatport.com – search for AFK.  Enjoy!

web: www.pacificrecords

MySpace: www.myspace.com/davinafk

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