If you think of Sydney, the Sydney Opera or Bondi Beach come in mind. But the capital of New South Wales has also a growing scene of electronic dance music. A lot of regular club events and festivals in and around Sydney were held the last few years and brought many djs from overseas such as Luke Hess, Kollektiv Turmstraße, Peter Van Hoesen, Efdemin, Aril Brikka or even Insect O. to the city.

Sydney´s Dave Stuart not only played with a most of them, furthermore as part of shrug events and booker for the One22 club he invited them to play in down under for the first time. In his Etui Podcast he shows his love for deep house & techno and gives a view into australian`s techno and house music.

How you would describe Australian`s techno and house music scene in general?

Over the years the scene ebbs & flows, much like the tides of the oceans I guess. At present there are some very talented artist's coming through the ranks. The more commercial music is always very popular in Australia due to the high % of young people who just listen to whatever is played on the radio. The summer music festivals tend to dominate the scene, there are about 6 to 8 festivals of over 50,000 people that happen in Sydney each year which pull all the big name acts. This unfortunately prices most of the underground acts that you'd commonly see play in Germany to be unaffordable to do club shows.

So all the work i´ve put in over the years to book international artist is very very tough, and i´ve never made much money from it...its all just for the love of music. And you have to do it as there are usually 5 parties on every Saturday night and at least 2 will have a bit international act that you have to compete against.

One of the good things though is we have a very strong local scene and many of our local dj's can perform just as well as the big names.

Is there something special about the scene in Sydney?

If I was to pick one thing it would be how close everyone is, in our underground scene in Sydney we are like one big family. Nearly everyone gets along really well and we all try to help each other out, most of the promoters dont look at each other as competitors, but as friends. I think we'd all rather see each other busy than see anyone suffer, especially with the high costs of running parties there.

We've got a few really great little parties around Sydney that always have a fun & friendly vibe happening. Plus there's something for everyone if you know where to go, lots of different music to choose from, and young to older crowds.

Probably the one thing that sets Sydney apart from anywhere else in the world is the boat parties that we have. Sydney has one of the most beautiful harbour in the world and all the way from Spring to Autumn there are loads of boat parties. Anything from small yachts for 50 of your closest friends, to a big 3 level boat that holds around 800 people.....

Also there are some really cool young acts coming through, the Hunter Gather label is a prime highlight of this, they are all in their early 20's really lovely people and make some fantastic techno!

With pinksilver music you have a kind of network with producers and djs from other cities such as Echo Inspectors from Melbourne. How important is networking?

In this day & age networking is essential in some capacity, and not only in the hope to achieve something / get somewhere. I think it is just as important to share knowledge and information to as many people you may be interested about artists that I truly believe in.

The Pinksilver label represents this well, whilst I´m not officially a part of the label my wife, Trinity, looks after the A&R for Sydney. So I guess im part of the “family” so to speak. Whenever I come across artists that fit the label I always put them forward, the music the label releases (net, digital and some vinyl) is all deeper styles of techno & house, so very much what I love.

One of the artists i´ve met over the last couple of years...