{"id":20372,"date":"2015-06-30T05:14:04","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T03:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/?p=20372"},"modified":"2015-06-30T05:16:49","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T03:16:49","slug":"label-focus-interview-tomoki-tamura-holic-trax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/label-focus-interview-tomoki-tamura-holic-trax\/","title":{"rendered":"Label Focus + Interview: Tomoki Tamura (Holic Trax)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomoki Tamura is the man behind Holic Trax, a label that gained a strong following on the underground thanks to the consistent quality of the music he puts out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Mr G<\/strong> to Tuccillo<\/strong>, Rick Wade<\/strong> and more, Holic is a go-to label for many DJs within the scene. Tomoki moved here from his hometown, Osaka, and has built his mini empire over the last 11 years. We began by asking him about his label\u2026<\/p>\n

“I moved to London for music, really.”<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

How did you start Holic Trax, was it here in London?
\n<\/strong>Yeah, I started it around three years ago. First of all, I was putting on a party and, after three or four years, I started Holic. I moved to London in 2004 and, in the beginning, it wasn\u2019t so easy for me being Japanese and not really speaking much English at all [laughs]. I was studying English and I went to a lot of parties to try and meet people, through going out and socialising I managed to get a party going at AKA at The End.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s impressive! How and when did you start the party?
\n<\/strong>It was only about a year after I moved to London, so 2005. Basically, I met a lot of Japanese people; artists, musicians\u2026 we had a good crew and everyone was into different things but very supportive of what I was doing, so it was a nice creative circle. I also met some DJs. A lot of my Japanese friends were coming to my party, I mean it wasn\u2019t only Japanese people, but they were a large contingent for sure, which really helped. The party got quite big, we had around 2-300 people and I wanted to find somewhere that could accommodate a crowd of that size, somewhere nice, professional with good management. I used to go to AKA on Thursdays, I thought it was good spot, I\u2019d seen some great DJs there so I contacted Stuart Patterson as he was a good friend and an important person within the London scene. I asked him to introduce to the guys from AKA and I started my party there, it became really successful, even though it was on a weekday. Management were quite surprised! [laughs].<\/p>\n

I booked Stuart and Spencer Parker for the first party. We had 300 people every Thursday, once a month!<\/p>\n

Why did you move to London in the first place?
\n<\/strong>I moved to London for music, really.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s quite brave considering your English wasn\u2019t so good. Was it quite scary for you?
\n<\/strong>I guess so! I was young back then, so I just did it, I didn\u2019t think a lot! I was DJing in Osaka already and doing well. I had a party there, we were booking a lot of big guys from the States and I was warming up for them most of the time. So I wasn’t doing too badly, but Osaka is quite small and the scene wasn\u2019t that big. I graduated from uni and I needed to decide whether I was going to go for a normal office job or if I was going to pursue music. Japan is cool, but if you compare it to London there\u2019s not so much opportunity, so I decided to make the move over to the UK.<\/p>\n

So when did the idea for the label come about?
\n<\/strong>I guess it was around four years after the party started. We kept it going at AKA for two years, then it outgrew that space and we moved around a bit. We\u2019d do parties at Caf\u00e9 1001, East Village and a few warehouses around east London. I had the idea to do the label because the party was doing well\u2026 it happened quite organically you know, you think, \u2018Ok, the party is doing well, what\u2019s the next level up?\u2019. I wanted to transmit my musical tastes further afield and a party can only go so far before you need to go to the next level.<\/p>\n

[gallery_bank type=”images” format=”filmstrip” title=”false” desc=”false” img_in_row=”3″ animation_effect=”bounce” image_width=”600″ album_title=”false” album_id=”76″]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How did you find starting up a label, was it difficult or relatively easy?
\n<\/strong>It was quite difficult because I didn\u2019t have any knowledge about starting a label; nothing about distribution, or pressing the vinyl. Luckily, I knew some people who were a bit more experienced, so I asked around and got a lot of good advice. It took about a year to sort everything out, way longer than I thought.<\/p>\n

Who did the first release?
\n<\/strong>Mr. G. That was a strong start for us.<\/p>\n

Tell us about your relationship with Mr. G?
\n<\/strong>Around four years ago I booked him for my party in London, we became friends. After that I took him to Japan to play at my party there. I told him I was thinking about getting my own label started and he gave me the track, it was quite simple!<\/p>\n

Besides the great music, one of the other things we really like about your label is the imagery. The logo is really cool, who designed it?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s by a friend of mine from Japan, Kikiorix, who was living in London. We used to DJ together and he moved back to Japan. He\u2019s actually a resident at Womb in Tokyo and he\u2019s a graphic designer too. I just left it pretty loose and free in terms of the design and he came out with that, which was great.<\/p>\n

How many releases have you put out now?
\n<\/strong>We\u2019re up to 15 on Holic Trax, with the third Bootholic on the way. There has also been Tom Tam Club, the compilation series. I\u2019ve put out two of those so far, with the third due during the summer hopefully.<\/p>\n

So fifteen releases in three years, we guess your policy is to be quite considered with your releases?
\n<\/strong>Kind of, sometimes I do more than one release in a month but it all depends on how much good music I collect really. We don\u2019t have a strict release schedule. The idea with the label was to be quite free in terms of the style. Some labels only release one style of music, which is fine, but I don\u2019t like to stick to the same styles \u2013 it\u2019s the same when I\u2019m DJing, I like to keep it quite varied. I like to have an open mind with music, it\u2019s house of course, which works on the dance floor but is nice to listen to as well. The quality of the vinyl pressing is also very important to me, overall the focus is on quality; the imagery, the physical product and the music. We also do digital though, because not everywhere in the world has access to record shops \u2013 you could be living in a small country where it\u2019s not just that easy to get hold of vinyl, so digital music might be the only way they can access music from my label. It\u2019s important to cater for that market, too.<\/p>\n

Tell us about the sub-label?
\n<\/strong>It\u2019s called Monoklo and it\u2019s geared more around techno and minimal than Holic is. The artwork is by a Japanese friend of mine, with the emphasis on monochrome, black and white designs. It\u2019s very minimal. I wanted to start a more techno side to the operation, it got sent some cool music and it made perfect sense to start up Monoklo for music with that kind of sound. The first release came from Ivan Iacobucci, with the second due after the summer\u2026<\/p>\n

So you moved to Berlin, tell us about that?
\n<\/strong>I moved here two years ago. It\u2019s nice and chilled here, compared to London, but there are still lots of parties and musicians here. I feel like being in Berlin is really good for producers, people here are friendly and easy-going. In London it can be a bit too competitive and slightly unfriendly in that sense. Everyone helps each other here, there are a lot of good studios here and there\u2019s a good, positive level of communication between people here. My studio is easy to get to by bike from where I live, so I\u2019m in there pretty much every day. Again, in comparison with London, studio space is cheap \u2013 even though the cost is going up, it\u2019s still cheaper here. It\u2019s good to have a separate space to make music in, I\u2019m enjoying it here.<\/p>\n

Nice, and what are you working on musically?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019ve produced a few solo bits and I\u2019ve also been working with Tuccillo. We\u2019ve got quite a lot of music finished and we\u2019re looking to put it out through a new label, which will just be called Doublet. A bit like Djebali has done; so it\u2019ll be \u2018Doublet 001\u2019, \u2018Doublet 002\u2019, etc\u2026 Vinyl-only, we already have four EPs ready!<\/p>\n

What does the future hold for Holic Trax?
\n<\/strong>We have a lot of releases from peeps who\u2019ve already put music out with us; Rick Wade. Tuccillo\u2026 and some lesser-known names, too. We\u2019re like a small family, so I keep it quite tight with the roster. Likewise, the release schedule will continue to be pretty fluid, I\u2019ll put out releases as and when I think the time is right\u2026.<\/p>\n

Label Page <\/a><\/span>
\n Soundcloud <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomoki Tamura is the man behind Holic Trax, a label that gained a strong following on the underground thanks to the consistent quality of the music he puts out. From Mr G to Tuccillo, Rick Wade and more, Holic is a go-to label for many DJs within the scene. Tomoki moved here from his hometown, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":20373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3971],"tags":[4392,1472,855,6176,5124],"class_list":["post-20372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","category-interviews-london","tag-holic-trax","tag-mr-g","tag-rick-wade","tag-tomoki-tamura","tag-tuccillo-london","post_format-post-format-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}