Every week, Fade Up sets you up on a hot date with an emerging Australian producer who Sandro Dallarmi thinks are worth getting to know. You can hear the new Fade Up mixtape before it hits the Flog by tuning into Sandro’s show on FBi, The Mixing Bowl.

————

There’s been a youth-led revival of house and garage in the UK over the last couple of years. The sound has definitely resonated down here (Disclosure’s third tour of Australia in 18 months is fast approaching) but we haven’t seen too many homegrown producers making similar sounds. That’s all about to change with this duo from Sydney, who have dark British hearts and proper production skills.

Meet Platform 19

Sandro :: How did you two meet and decide to make music together?

Platform 19 :: We actually met nearly six years ago now, most likely at a house party somewhere in the Inner West. We both went to high school in the area so rolled in a similar circle of friends pretty regularly. We’ve definitely had what you could call a “colourful” history haha, with everything from living together, to going out with the same girls down in the book, but it was definitely our mutual attendance at countless warehouse parties and raves in our younger years that led us to eventually come to the result of a duo.

We’ve always had a similar taste in music and as we started spending more time in clubs we ended up DJing on a lot of the same lineups as our solo aliases. Eventually we played a bunch of VS sets and released a 90 minute mix together of all the kind of sounds we are putting out now. Those things seemed to get a much bigger response than the stuff we were doing by ourselves so the next step was naturally to get in the studio together and see what came out, and the result was Platform 19.

What sparked your love for house and UK garage?

Without really knowing it, we were both super into the original UK garage boom as it came into pop music in the early 2000’s with guys like Artful Dodger and then when it had a huge resurgance more than 10 years later with acts like Disclosure leading the way, we just reignited our love for the sound.

For both of us though, the real motivation has come from the influence bass music is now playing in the house world. You’ve got guys like Gorgon City, Kry Wolf and the Dirtybird clan taking elements of garage, bass music and house and smashing them all together to create some seriously ruthless records. For us, that’s whats really sparking our motivation to make music.

I don’t know of very many Australian producers pushing this sound, but I’m sure they’re out there. Who else should people be looking out for if they’re frothing on Platform 19?

They are definitely out there and there’s definitely a huge movement of people that are getting behind the sound which is awesome to see. We’ve taken massive inspiration from guys like Pablo Calamari who has been around since the original garage movement and has come back to it now, but with a far more modern spin on his stuff, putting out some proper grimy UK house. In 2014 we highly recommend keeping an eye on our homeslice Acaddamy who’s really stepped up his house game and another young master by the name of Horowitz. He hasn’t released much yet but some of the previews he’s shown us are going to leave people speechless.

Tracklist:

Wordlife :: ‘Celebrate Life (Platform 19 Remix)’

Tokyo Denmark Sweden :: ‘Turning Time (Mike Metro & Benson Remix)’

Kellerkind :: ‘I Know (Leftwing & Kody Remix)’

J.Phlip :: ‘Say My Name’

Catz n Dogz :: ‘Bring Me That Water’

SecondCity :: ‘My House’

Shenoda :: ‘Liquor Shift’

Bontan :: ‘The Beat’

AlunaGeorge :: ‘Best Be Believing (Shadow Child Remix)’

Platform 19 | The Mixing Bowl | Fade Up