Urban Syndication's staff have produced two labels of the highest quality: Sumsonic and Mechanism. Chris Gaines, Mark O'Brien, Paul Rogers and Gerry O'Rourke. Their musical output has been picked up by every progressive DJ on the circuit due the technical ability these guys can produce.. full in-depth profile and excellent interview inside!....

HISTORY

Sumsonic was formed in November 1999 by the four partners with the acquisition of the Studio premises in Battersea, London.
With their combined resources, extensive experience and proven
backgrounds in Club and Dj event work (UK & international),
recording projects and promotional activities.

Underground, Deep Progressive House is the core formula for Studio projects
with all original material being written and produced by Sumsonic artists.

Sumsonic the record label was launched in June 2000.
Critical acclaim and support from the world's top progressive Dj's has been there from the first release. International Licensing requests from Hungary
to USA has seen the labels profile grow all other the world.

Sumsonic artists address alternative music styles for various projects and have produced Deep House, Tech House, New School Breaks & Downtempo tracks
for compilations and multimedia.

With expanding horizons and ongoing ambitions, the second label: 'Mechanism'
was launched in February 2001 as an outlet for more varied forms
of Tech, Deep and Progressive House.

Other alternative interests are being currently enacted, multimedia projects and a clubnight are on the near horizon, whilst Sumsonic artists are promoting
the labels by developing their Dj careers with gigs and tours both
in the UK and abroad.


Darko: Mark O'Brien London, UK Personal Music Policy: Deep and Tech House Music.
"a founder member of sumsonic has always followed the underground progressive sound, having first tuned into pirate radio back in 1990. drawing influence from the pioneering sounds of the likes of 'orbit' & 'the end crew' and more recently nights like 'Tyrant' and 'Bedrock'

Guest Plays:Club UK, The Cross, Soundshaft ect

Recent Plays: Alderaan @ Lemon Lounge-Liverpool, Acetate @ Liquid Rooms-Edinburgh, Fever @The Kitchen-Dublin-Eire.

Forthcoming Plays: Sumsonic Tour in USA, Europe, Scandinavia & Australia & Baroque Records Tour dates, Prologue @ the cross, London

Paul Rogers: London, UK Deep and Tech House Music

"Having always been obsessed with music Paul soon found himself working in the thick of the dance music industry. At jackpot he was involved in A&R and DJ management working with the likes of Sasha, Carl Cox and John Digweed. Following that a stint with Ministry Of Sound and Ibiza superclub Pacha before becoming a part of Sumsonic.

Previous Residencies: Subterrania, International Tour DJ for Ministry Of Sound

Guest Plays: Minstry Of Sound, The End, Soundshaft ect

Recent Plays: Pulse @ Austin, Texas, USA, Mad Club Mykanos- Greece, Fever@ The Kitchen, Dubline Eire

Forthcoming Plays:
Sumsonic Tour in The USA, Europe, Scandanavia & Australia & Baroque records Tour dates, Prologue @ The Cross, London

Gerry O'Rourke: South West London : Nu-Fusion/ Future Funk n Bossa/ Deep/ Tech House Music

"owner and head of A&R for 'Foundation Music' specialising in a series of international compilations named ' State of the Art' working with artists and DJ's.

Guest Plays: Cobden Club, Infinity, Dogstar, The Strong Rooms

Forthcoming plays: Foundation Music Series launch tour in UK, Europe, Far East

Radio: Co-Host of 'Higher Ground' radio show broadcast on Solar Radio via Sky Satellite and syndicated to Power FM, Dublin, Belgrade 94.9, womb.com-Miami and Manila, Philippines via Incus International.


Chris Gainer: Name: Chris Gaines : North London, UK Personal Music Policy: Deep and Tech House Music

"Having got his first set of technics back in 1986, Chris is no stranger behind the turntables, with a background of Hip Hop and 80's electronic music the switch to the house scene occurred around 1995. As one of the founders of Sumsonic and responsible for A&R, Chris has been at the forefront of pushing Deep Tech sound with the label and more recently through the sister label Mechanism. Plans to expand the business and 'push the sound' are well afoot as the labels establish themselves at the forefront of their scene.

Previous residencies:
Hanover Grand, Imperial gardens, Circa, Sloanes

Guest Plays: The Cross, The End, Soundshaft ect

Recent Plays: Sweat@ Henrys, Cork-Ireland, Fever@Kitchen-Dublin-Ireland , We are you @ Scala, London, Alderaan @ Lemon Lounge, Liverpool, Acetate @ Liquid Rooms-Edinburgh plus.. Sumsonic tours on Europe and the USA.

Forthcoming Plays: Sumsonic Tour in USA, Europe, Scandanavia and Australia. Radio: Monthly 'Sumsonic' radio show syndicated to Belgrade 94.9 in Yugoslavia and Manila in Philippines via Incus International. The show is set to be expanded in to other territories in the near future and plans are afoot to expand the format and content of the show over the coming months."

INTERVIEW

When the label first began back in June, 2000, what were your aims at that time for the label? and how did the first release fair in terms of success to what you thought?

The aim of the label was simple, for us to release our own material and try to get established within the scene, the first release faired much better than we expected,
getting a couple of licenses and selling reasonably well, apparently Sasha was playing 'Scream' not bad for an opening release!

The releases to date have been quite varied, from nu skool breaks, tech house, deep house ect. Do you feel this is of key importance and has it further bolstered your
reputation as one of the most respected labels?

Generally there is a formula for Sumsonic, a certain style but this has inevitably evolved as have we as artists, the breaks thing is an idea we intend to exploit more,
when we have a release which needs extra remixes we will be going for breaks, some of our best friends do breaks and we really respect this music. Tech House has
always been a big influence to us, we are based in South West London which is a bit of a Tech House hot bed.

To further implement an eclectic sound, Mechanism began back in february 2001. Again can you describe what the main plan was in terms of direction for this sister
label?

Originally Mechanism was setup to release some of the great tracks that we were getting sent whilst Sumsonic was for our own projects. However in recent times this
has changed and we say feel that Sumsonic has a certain style, whilst Mechanism is used for everything else.

Can you give us a brief description of the individual jobs you have for the label?

I run the A&R for the labels along with a host of other jobs around the office, sometimes I even get to go into the Studio!!

Apart from the main Sumsonic/Mechanism artists, can you tell us a little more about the producers who have been signed to the labels?

We have signed tracks from people in various countries including Switzerland, USA and Hungary, we try to find artists that have not been heard of before, the excitement
of discovering a talented artist that no one has heard before is great. Currently we have a couple of very young producers we are working quite closely with, it is great
to be able to help people who have little knowledge of our business, it is so easy for people to get ripped off, it is cool to be able to offer a bit of protection and it is a
real bonus to be able to meet so many cool people in the process.

Who do you think will become more of an emerging talent in the future?

Such a vast far reaching question, there is some great talent out there at the moment, I can see a big future for Australian Luke Chable, he is working with some great
people and the productions are awesome, Austin Leeds from Florida is making waves right now as is a young artist from Hungary called Julez. On the Breakz front watch
out for Klaus…….I like the way he is trying to bridge the divide between Breaks and Deep Progressive.

YOU CHRIS GAINES: + the rest of the SUMSONIC DJ'S (MARK,GERRY,PAUL)

*As we hear so often, back in the 80's the scene of electronic music influenced so many, was it the same for you? What made you move into 'house' music?

C) I was going through school in the 80's and was definitely heavily influenced by all the music at the time, as soon as I left school I locked into Hip Hop culture and from
there with the advent of the Rave scene I was soon getting interested in this new phenomena.

P) I listened to a lot of Pink Floyd during the 80's. It helped me to understand and relate to how deep music can be, always inspiring.

M) My influences were drawn from all sorts of places. My parents are involved in music so I have always had it around me.

*From there, in your early DJ career, who would you say were the major influences on you for what you were aspiring to achieve?

C)Everyone was an influence, I have to say I was just very interested in everything that was happening, over the past 6 years or so as the scene has got more and more
fragmented and specialized main influences have been Digweed, Tyrant etc.

P) A few people inspired me though I would have to say Sasha was the one who really grabbed my attention. There was something about his music and his mixing that stood out from all the others.

M) Kenny Hawkes and Girls FM were huge early influences for me, bacxk then I just wanted to own all the records I was hearing.

*You have since played globally, Ireland, America, Hungary, UK ect, what have been the most memerable moments?

C)So many great moments but I will pick one out, I recently played this Boat Party at Lake Balaton in Hungary, it was insane two ferries each with 500 odd people on met in the middle of the Lake for 6 hours of crazy partying!!

P) For me it was Venezuala about 4 years ago, an outdoor stage right next to a lake. Big, big production and a huge crowd. Also Home-Budapest, it rocks!!

M) All gigs have been shite for me recently but Sing, Sing in Southern Hungary is always a wicked club to play.

*How does the scene vary from country to country? and what do you think of the current state of the UK scene?

C) Each country is very different in my experience, differences are often affected by social circumstances and by how long the people have been getting exposed to this music. The UK scene is a little tired right now I think Dance music in general has been very popular in the UK for many years now, more than anywhere else in the World
and the new generation of kids coming through are not quite as excited about Dance music as there predecessors.

P) State of the UK scene….where do you start? You could talk about this forever. It is a whole number of reasons, people just need to get interested again, everyone has got a little bored. The music needs a little more identity again and the press need to be more supportive. It would not go a miss if the Dj's played in the UK more often and they didn't have such high fees. People are just a little tired I think.

M) I think Radio 1 and all the major companies have fucked dance music in the UK, this is not yet the case abroad though, in most other countries you find the people choose what they want to listen to rather than having shit music rammed down their throats by the PR and advertising gurus, as is the case here.

*Where can we catch up with you in the near future?

There are Sumsonic dates coming up throughout the Summer, in various locations, Lithuania and Belgium will be visited in August along with Bristol nad the Cross in
London UK whilst the highlight of the Summer will be the Budapest Parade on the August bank holiday.

CHRIS>I read that there are 'plans to expand the business' from your personal piont of view, can you let us into the secrets behind this?

No big secrets really, we are looking to get both labels releasing regularly and smoothly which will give us time to try some different projects and look at maybe offering
ourselves out as management services to other labels and artists. Various interesting projects are currently under way in the Studio working with singers and bands and
on collaborations with artists from around the globe.We do do quite a lot of work in Hungary and often have mixes showcased on the radio there but we don't have our own radio show there.
Radio is something we may explore more in the future we may put together our own show at some point.

SUMSONIC TRACKS:
SS001: Motion Blue: In Motion/ Scream
SS002: Sleepfreaks: Get Down/ Dub
SS003: Sleepfreaks: transport
SS004: Paul Rogers: Spaces/ Rhythm Import
SS005: Sleepfreaks: Fusion/ P.H.B
SS006: Darko:Rotor/Search
SS007: Seconds Out: Twisted Logic/ Vanishing Point
SS008: Sleepfreaks: Crash/Distant Mellow
SS009: Gainer-Moral Dilema/ Triton Trauma
SS010: Sleepfreaks: Chemical Shift (Original and Killahurtz mix)
SS011: Paul Rogers: Switch/Lazy Monday
SS012: Darko: Code of the Toad/Elapse

MECHANISM TRACKS:
Mech01: Sub Structure- Electronic / Jazz
Mech02: Darko- Quickfinn/Velocity
Mech03: Fever- Running Late/ Distorted Horizon
Mech04: Darko-Blue 3/Overhead
Mech05: Greed Feat Lesley- Promises (sleepfreask/flight attendants mixes)
Mech06: Dan Morris & Shylock-Cherokee (original and Darko + Gainer Mix)
Mech07: Chonga- The Quantum Gospel (original + sleepfreaks mix)
Mech08: Jondi and Spesh with Brian Stillwater- The Griptape Ep (inc Big Air/Backside tailside)
Mech09: Source Of Gravity-Fusion /Cydonia

CDS: Directions and Directional…more to come very soon.

More at www.sumsonic.com