David Holmes and Timmy Stewart recall their Belfast Art College days on The Vendetta Suite remix EP
The Belfast dance scene owes a lot to DJs and producers David Holmes, Timmy Stewart and Gary Irwin, and now the three have come together to collaborate on a remix EP for Irwin’s The Vendetta Suite project.
Following on from The Vendetta Suite’s debut album, The Kempe Stone Portal, last summer, the forthcoming Remixes EP (released 4 February) on Hell Yeah Recordings features a David Holmes reworking of the track Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise, while Timmy Stewart offers up two remixes of Warehouse Rock, the Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix and Sunrise Reprise.
The collaboration sees a coming together of three artists whose careers have intertwined over the years, and which have their foundations in 1990s Belfast, where clubnights such as those held at Belfast Art College (including Sugar Sweet and Shake Yer Brain) helped spawn a thriving electronic scene in the city.
Drawn to the future-facing sounds played by David Holmes at these nights (which also notably inspired Orbital to create the seminal Belfast), Irwin handed tape after tape to the Let’s Get Killed producer, before he was asked to come on board as the studio engineer at Holmes’ Exploding Plastic Inevitable Studio. During that time, he worked on tracks such as Gritty Shaker, as well as Holmes’ mixes of System 7’s Interstate and Robotman’s (aka Richie Hawtin’s) Do Da Doo.
Timmy Stewart, another longstanding DJ and producer first met Irwin through his connection with Holmes – indeed, his first productions, alongside Glenn McCartney, released in 1995, had Irwin at the controls.
As Stewart puts it, it was Holmes that encouraged him to “make the progression from a DJ to producer in the mid-nineties, by inviting me to experiment in his Exploding Plastic Inevitable recording studio. The deal was generously simple – all I had to do was pay for the engineer’s [Gary Irwin’s] time. The rest, as they say, is history!”
As a result, the three-track EP is somewhat autobiographical, bringing in sounds that the trio would have first-hand experience of during their formative years – David Holmes’ rework of Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise is awash with psychedelic electronics, while Stewart’s version of Warehouse Rock pays homage to the Italian house era of the early 90s.
Never dull, and always with the element of surprise, this is the Belfast old guard showing why the originals are always the best.
The Vendetta Suite – The Kempe Stone Portal Remixes
Tracklist:
A1 – The Vendetta Suite – Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
B1 – The Vendetta Suite – Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart’s Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix)
B2 – The Vendetta Suite – Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart’s Sunrise Reprise)
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