OC & Verde

OC & Verde aka Ben O’Connor and Jon Verde play this year’s Noisily festival from 7th – 10th July 2022 alongside plenty of other great headliners such as John Digweed, Eats Everything, Frida Darko and many more. This acclaimed UK house and techno duo will bring razor sharp sounds and chunky drums to their set, they are often in the Top 10 on Beatport and release on labels like Odd One Out, Kraftek and Truesoul. So here DMCWORLD speak to them about all this and more ahead of their show…

How are you, what’s good and bad in your world?

Hey, we’re alright thanks. What’s good in our world is that we’ve just discovered Kirin Ichiban Japanese lager, it’s quality stuff, we’ve just filled the studio fridge with it. What’s bad in our world is the algorithm on Instagram only gets you reach if your teeth are veneered to a brightness that glow in the dark which is a shame if you like coffee and fags.

When did you first meet, why did you decide to work together?

We met in a field in Ibiza high on mushrooms, under a tree that we named Stan. We discovered we both had a love for the musical Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat and our relationship just blossomed from there.

Who did what, did you each take care of certain parts of the music?

Production wise there’s no science to it really we just mess about with synths, sounds and ideas in the studio until we like something. Sometimes magic happens and we stick it in the bag and sometimes it doesn’t and we try again another day.

And when djing do you do one each or back to back or how does it work?

We’re always listening to new music so we build up our own playlists individually day by day, week by week, then before a gig we have a day or 2 in the studio putting our playlists together to make our final gig selection lists and bang them on a USB then when we play it’s pretty much back 2 back for the whole set really, we just mess about and have fun and that seems to work.

Tell us about your Ampersand label – what the musical vibe, the outlook?

AMPERS&ND is our baby really, first of all we wanted an outlet for putting out our own music as and when we wanted, because you can have tracks sat with labels for months sometimes before they decide on what’s happening with them so we wanted to bypass having to do that with every track at this point in our career.

But mainly we just get sent tons of new music that people purposely make for us because they like our sound and think we will play their tracks which we do, so we had to start a label to get this music out there.

We have some amazing music coming from Kakura, Two Alone, Horisone, Deciduous and Argy Kay.

The sound for the label is obviously melodic because we’re known for that but also the tracks have to have groove. Groove is getting a bit lost in the melodic/Progressive genres and for anything upcoming that we’re going to be signing it has to have a groove!

And the parties – are they all about showcasing the sound of the label? how do you pick where and when to do them?

Yeah the parties are about showcasing artists from the label and artist that we really like from other labels. The first party is in Manchester on the 25th of March, obviously we had to kick it off in our neck of the woods. We’re just gonna be working with promotors we’ve already played for and bring our vibe and tribe to their nights.

What should people expect from you at Noisily festival?

They should expect to hear an endless stream of face melters.

Do you play differently at a festival than in a club, does the setting, time of day etc impact your selections?

Yes, time of day or night is a massive factor on how we play along with who’s on before us can be a factor too. I would say we probably take more risks in a club than at a festival as festival sets are normally shorter. But it all depends on each venue, we never know until we get there and absorb the vibe of the place.

What is your best, worst or wildest festival memory?

Hmmm…. Probably can’t say, there’s been a few moments though. We did end up on stage with Bez from the Happy Mondays at Beatherder festival a few years back with maracas and a ukulele.

What else have you got coming up?

We have festivals in Brazil and Munich, some club gigs across Europe and the UK. Also we have releases on our Label AMPERS&ND the first one being a track by us called Anomaly which is out on the 24th of March. Then we have a collab coming with Space Motion and Artche in April.

Noisily Festival 2022