UK producer, DJ and all round top fella KORT is forever in pursuit of creating distinctive, quality house music with a good song as he continues to nurture his Tropical Velvet label sound. Teaming up with Elementary and The Voice’s Jade Mayjean Peters, he’s about to unleash his latest big room nugget, ‘Do To Me’. Ratha Gud pops down to South London for a natter.
Hi KORT, welcome to DMCWORLD! Where are you in the world right now?
Hey, its 11.30pm and I’m sitting in my studio in South London as I’ve just finished a session.
What was the first piece of music you heard today?
It was a new track (one of a few) I was working on yesterday. It’s always good to go back the next day and check out what you made with fresh ears.
How would you describe your sound?
House!!!!
You’re just about to release your brilliant new collaboration with Elementary and Jade Mayjean Peters from The Voice on your own label ‘Tropical Velvet’, tell us a bit about the release?
Thank you very much! It’s a big vocal track intended for the main room / peak time. It’s quite dark, but keeps it’s soul with a hint of funk in there.
How did you first get together with Elementary and will there be any more collabs together in the future??
We are actually school friends, we used to play in the same football team as kids. When we left school we never kept in touch, then via Facebook we both saw that we were making music and decided to hook up and see what would happen. We are now working on a few tracks together as we speak, so yeah, there’s more to come!
How did you you manage to hook up with Jade Mayjean Peters, was it a case of seeing her perform on the TV and saying to yourself “I want her!”?
We saw Jade sing on The Voice and really liked her sound. We have a mutual friend who introduced us and luckily we really hit it off with her musically.
Tell us more about Tropical Velvet, your artists and what we can expect to hear from the label?
This year we are really trying to set the standards a lot higher and keep on releasing quality House music. We have a great team here and some great artists we are working with, vocalists, producers and writers, etc. J Paul Getto has just produced another remix for us which has done really well on Traxsource, I’m teaming up with Jessie Matthews again who has an amazing soulful voice and some other well known names, which I can’t mention just yet, but watch this space!
What’s been your biggest achievement so far as a producer?
Probably releasing on Defected Records. I won a producer competition with them a few years back with a track called ‘Tomorrow’, which was received really well by all and scored us our 1st number 1 on the Traxsource main chart. I’ve most likely got every record Defected have ever released, so to work with Simon Dunmore was very inspirational.
How do you set about writing tracks and where do you get your inspiration from?
Most of the time it’s from the drums, I have an obsession with writing drums!…. Each track comes about differently really, either from a vocal or an old sample, then I start writing all the parts. There is so much music around and as a label owner and Dj I have to constantly listen to old and new music, so I suppose that’s where some of the inspiration comes from.
What piece of studio kit is essential to your sound?
Prophet !!!!!
As a producer, DJ and label boss, where do you see yourself moving musically in the future?
For me its all ‘House’, whether is deep, soulful, tech, vocal, funky, minimal, if its something I like and want to play it, I will and will continue to explore the genre. I have the same approach to signing records to the label too.
Who are you current top 5 producers?
Claptone, Purple Disco Machine, Illyus & Barientos, Tensnake and Lee Foss.
We come to your house and raid your record collection, which embarrassing record do you need to chuck out the window as we arrive?
Black Lace ‘Agadoo’ … joke!….
Will there be any Tropical Velvet parties we can look forward to this year?
We made a few label parties last year with our artists performing at the events with live PA’s and musicians. We have more lined up for this year too with our first one at Mcqueen in Shoreditch 29th April, with myself, Famenotmoney and live PA from Jade. Check out Facebook page for details! https://www.facebook.com/TropicalVelvetRecords/
Finally what’s coming next from you?
I’m just putting the finishing touches to a new song with Jessie Matthews, who I’ve worked with for about 10 years. Jessie has an amazing powerhouse Soul voice. Aside of that I’m working on a remix for ‘Let There Be House’, another new track with Jade and also a remix for one of our other artists on Tropical Velvet.
KORT & Elementary Ft Jade Mayjean Peters ‘Do To Me’ is out on Traxsource promo May 12th / Full release on May 26th 2017 on Tropical Velvet.
