Ministry shuffles into the clubs

Ministry shuffles into the clubs

Canberra DJs The Aston Shuffle have made a name for themselves in the Australian dance scene via a slew of high-profile remixes for the likes of Dizzee Rascal and a run of crowd pleasing festival appearances. One leading music website even hailed the duo as the most popular DJs ever to come out of the ACT. Surely that’s damning them with faint praise?

Our population is pretty small, but we’ve got a lot of really good club nights and festivals, said Mikah Freeman, one half of The Aston Shuffle (alongside Vance Musgrove).

When we tell people we’re from Canberra, some of them look at us like, -˜Are you serious?’, but I think there’s some amazing DJs and producers coming through.

Freeman and Musgrove have been good friends for around seven years, and working under the Aston Shuffle moniker for two and a half. Freeman said they valued both their friendship and their working relationship.

We definitely know our limits, as friends and as workmates. We know we need to have time apart to do our own thing.

Working together has its benefits, as the pair find when playing live.

When we play festivals, having both of us there has helped the nerves. I might be getting drunk and hanging out with fans while Vance is DJing, and vice-versa. There’s no set way about how we do our sets, we like to play it by ear.

The pair recently helmed one disc of Ministry of Sound’s Clubber’s Guide To 2009 compilation, along with Bass Kleph and the Stafford Brothers. Theirs is the most indie-orientated of the three sets, with appearances by the likes of Santogold, MGMT and the Kaiser Chiefs.

We’re really happy with the music we got on our disc. Our sound definitely verges on being between indie and dance, Freeman said.

When people hear our records, they know from the start that it’s an Aston Shuffle record – we’ve spent a few years developing our sound.

Buried among the indie hipsters is their remix of Rhys’s Channel 10-flogged Hot Summer. Great though the song is, were the boys at all worried about busting their indie cred with a remix for the guy from So you Think You Can Dance ?

Well, to be quite honest, we didn’t even know who that guy was when we did the remix, Freeman said.

We just knew that the original was produced by Van She Tech, who we really like. We did the remix, and we were really happy with it, then a week later we found out who the guy was.

It would’ve played on our minds a bit, but I still think we would’ve done it had we known. I think we just would’ve asked for more money!

info: Clubbers Guide To 2009 out now. Aston Shuffle tour with Good Vibrations and the Clubber’s Guide throughout February-March. Details: www.myspace.com/theastonshuffle

You May Also Like

Comments are closed.