Sauce

Exploding Romanians? Burning Men? It could be another entry into the Hostel series of films, but it’s actually more a day in the life of. Dave Williams spoke to a very balanced Lee Burridge…

So what’s foremost in the life of Lee Burridge at the moment?
I’ll tell you what’s next on the horizon… it’s breakfast. I’m starving! But the Balance CD, thank you for asking! I’m about to embark on a punishing and grueling tour of the world, where groupies will carry me to my room, and I’ll play lots of bad records in nightclubs.

So, more of the same?
Yeah, exactly. More of the same. [Laughs] Maybe I’m going to get off my arse and start studying… before I go deaf.

Balance compilation versus a Fabric compilation, versus a Ministry Of Sound compilation – is there any difference, really? Or is it just, like, a different label, and what you’re doing now?
Um… I don’t know. It depends what comes along with the brand name, I suppose. I mean, a Renaissance compilation conjures up a certain image of musical taste, and I think Balance does as well. And Fabric… They’ve all got their ideals, haven’t they? There’s definitely some difference within what the companies are trying to say. But at the end of the day, it’s down to the taste in music of the specific DJ they choose.

Are you comfortable with a tag – “Oh, Lee Burridge, he’s a so-and-so DJ”? Are you comfortable with that? And what tag would you like to “stick in” or “insert here”?
Ooh, that’s sounds painful! I have never really been down with pigeonholing me, because I don’t even really know what I play myself. I was thinking about it recently, and I think I play the gap in between tech-house; I play the gap in between tech and house… And minimal techno? I’m there in that gap again… It comes in useful for certain people who go out. If you’re into techno, you go and see a techno DJ, and you’re not going to end up seeing Boris-The-Funky-House-DJ. I don’t know… I’ve asked various people in different countries what I play, and I get varying replies. It’s only ever somebody else’s opinion… But yeah – I play the gaps in between the words, for sure.

And where have you been playing recently? Where strikes your memory as “wow, that was really fun”, or “wow, that was really, really hard”?
You know what? I’m really lucky – I haven’t had a gig where I’ve been standing there going, “woah, this is really, really hard”. Actually Dublin last weekend, when the sound system and CDJs and record players shut down three minutes into my first record, that was pretty hard. But the good stuff? Definitely Romania, which is, for me, the most amazing country in the world to play in right now … Beautiful girls, amazing clubs, fantastic sound systems, no real sort of “end” to the party – you’re not having to turn off at five in the morning. And the Burning Man Festival, which I’m going to in a couple of weeks in the U.S., was really something else last year. I’ve never seen anything like it. Best outdoor event ever.

In terms of organisation? The vibe? The numbers of people? What was it that made it so good?
Just the attitude, and the fact that it’s not a music festival; it’s a festival with music at it. It has so much to offer, you can just lose yourself wandering around, seeing the fantastic and awful art that’s been created. People spend a whole year making stuff for the next year. And everybody’s friendly, and it’s really a collection of people in the U.S. that get a bad rap by the rest of the U.S. …You conjure up all the bad images of what’s happening with the U.S. right now, and hear people complaining about Americans, but these other people are just wonderful human beings… they have the right attitude, and they’re aware of everything that goes on in the rest of the world. And it’s just in an amazing place – forty thousand people are dwarfed by this prehistoric dried-out lakebed and mountain. It’s wicked.

You should hook up with the tourism people, because you’ve sold me!
[Laughs] Exactly! I’ll come up with a slogan or something!

Yep – “Dry lakebed – be there!”
Yeah, exactly. It’s just like the beach without the sea… it’s amazing.

ONLINE: Lee talks about the explosion of the Romanian scene.

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