GARY IRWIN (THE VENDETTA SUITE)
Initially inspired by acid house, Andrew Weatherall and The Orb, Gary Irwin from Newtownards started producing electronic music in 1992. He was the in-house engineer at David Holmes’ Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio in the mid-nineties, engineering some of Holmes’ more experimental techno remixes and pre-production (making sounds and sampling) for some of his album tracks, Minus 61 in Detroit for example. Gary also released three of his own EPs on EPI as CPU and Synthetic Science.
After a 10 year hiatus he was enticed back to the world of dance music, again by listening to DJ mixes by Weatherall and his ALFOS project with Sean Johnston, 2011 saw a prolific year in production, but apart from a 12” on Above Machine Records in 2012, most of the music sat on his SoundCloud page until 2017 when Marco Gallerani from Italian Balearic label Hell Yeah sent him a message asking him if he’d like to release on an Italian Balearic label, Hell Yeah indeed! Marco then plundered Gary’s archive, beginning with the 6 track Solar Lodge 23 EP. A 3 track digital Christmas release, The Wheel Turns, followed. Then The Kempe Stone Portal album released in 2021, featuring a mix of new tracks and others from Gary’s archive, inspired by 80s synth pop, acid house, dub, Air, Suicide, yacht rock and post-punk.
Gary also got the chance to explore the darker side of his music collection, providing the music for a night of archive local film and news clips from BBCNI and UTV of haunted graveyards, Devil worshippers, witches and folklore at St Joe’s Church in Sailortown – The Weird and the Eerie – for the Belfast Film Festival in 2022.
While not a regular DJ, he’s always happy to turn up and play some music if asked. Gary’s Mixcloud page contains mixes for all occasions, featuring weird and wonderful oddities for Summer, Autumn, Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, a beach or a disco.
Releases continue on Hell Yeah and Mystic Arts.
Youtube link below.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLpTU8uRqkZ1iVUOcw0eNT7HMgYoLH7d5
