Bass Kleph  

Beatport dropped a bombshell in July 2010. Not only had producer / DJ Bass Kleph had his first Beatport #1 earlier that year with his remix of Joan Reyes's Shakedown, but Beatport announced it was also the site's biggest-selling track so far that year, giving the 'Kleph the highest-selling remix on the world's largest dance download site. And that wasn't the only first for the unassuming Australian. Three weeks at #1 on the ARIA club chart with a remix of Hook and Sling. Number 10 in the inthemix Australian DJ top 50. Numerous Beatport top 10s and 20s, from the main to to the genre charts. A club and radio smash with $pend My Money - its pop genius bang on the pulse of a particular type of girl who knows exactly what she wants. And headline slots at festivals like Good Vibrations and LA's enormous Love Festival, following years of headlining clubs in party towns round the world from London to Miami to Shanghai - plus tours of China, Spain, Russia and Canada and the US.

But the success didn't come from nowhere. To understand Stu Tyson, as he's known offstage, you've got to know a little about his history. When most kids were still at school at age 15, Bass Kleph was touring Australia and New Zealand as the drummer of a hugely successful three-piece rock act, Loki - a rough, live crash course in crowd dynamics that few dance DJs have, and the secret of his hugely entertaining performances and tracks. And it's the hundreds and hundreds of gigs since, from tiny clubs to huge festival stages, that taught him the craft of DJing, developing a style that now can push the most beard-stroking underground crowd into a hand-waving frenzy, or lock a mainstream crowd into a dark, heads-down and wordless groove.



Now there's no-one like Bass Kleph to prove the cliche that the best DJs get the girls on the dancefloor. But it's not just about DJing for Tyson, who in 2007 founded Vacation Records, followed in 2009 by that labels's more stripped-back cousin Exit Row. Releasing and collaborating with international talent like Wolfgang Gartner, Micky Slim, Mowgli, and big locals like Hook n Sling, Stupid Fresh, Twocker, Tommy Trash, fRew, Dopamine, Bass Kleph's labels and his music have helped popularise a particularly Australian view of the world. From the label's lazy-days artwork to track titles like Keyboard Cat, Bump Uglies, and But Enough About Me, it's irreverent, but it's also humble and self-depreciating - so today the label's fans stretch from the stadium players like John Aquaviva, Crookers, Rene Amesz, Mark Knight, and Kissy Sell Out to the brightest lights of the techno underground like Alex Kenji, Popof, and Fergie.



Not bad for a man whose teenage self "just wanted to get on stage and bang some drums". As Bass Kleph says, "I love it. I love the journey, because there's always something new coming in music, in DJing, with songwriting. If I won ten millions dollars in the lotto tomorrow, I'd still keep DJing and writing music - what else is this much fun?"