Elliot Adamson's thunderous house is making an Impact - Impact - Mixmag
Impact

Elliot Adamson's thunderous house is making an Impact

The 21-year-old is enjoying an explosive run of form

  • Funster
  • 10 March 2017

Impact is a series that's dedicated to profiling new artists who are about to turn dance music on its head. Next up: Elliot Adamson

These days, the way artists promote themselves and their music is key and the digital age can be pretty unforgiving if they don't do things right. Elliot Adamson is someone who seems to have found the perfect formula in terms of his profile and his music. The 21-year-old has been rumbling away for a few years now but the last 12 months has been somewhat explosive for the outspoken young gun.

His SoundCloud is a treasure trove of bumping house that comes with a sense of rowdiness coursing through its veins and popular remixes of 'Strings Hoe' by Dizzee Rascal and 'Enfants' by Ricardo Villalobos have caught a lot of attention. His edit of 'Weak Become Heroes' has amassed over 110,000 plays but that's no big deal for Adamson. His tactic seems to be to drop something wild on socials and SoundCloud, stir up a certain amount of buzz and just when people are getting really excited, he takes the tracks down and moves onto his next club weapon.

After catching the attention of Patrick Topping, Jackmaster and Eats Everything, three artists who he's now collaborated with in one form or another, his popularity has risen beyond the scores of SoundCloud listens that he commands. His sets are high-octane exercises in thunderous tech-house, techno and, of course, a light sprinkling of classics.

One look at his Facebook reveals two things. One, that he has an outrageous amount of life-affirming gigs coming up, including a support slot for Sven Väth, appearances at Parklife and Defected in Croatia and more headline gigs than ever before. The second thing you notice is that he really doesn't give a fuck. His opinions run riot, they mock the seriousness of the music game and they portray a young artist who's thriving with the spotlight shone on him. Much like his associates Eats and Jackmaster, his online and real life persona is just as loud as his music.

With over 18 hours of unreleased music in his locker, an arsenal of releases coming via Edible and Me Me Me and more ambition than you can shake a stick at, it's only a matter of time before Adamson reaches the dizzy heights of the artists that are whole-heartedly backing him.

You grew up super close to Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham – what was it like musically?

I'm actually from a town called Houghton-le-Spring in the middle of them all so I'm actually a bit of a mutt. Houghton is kind of a void in terms of music culture, unless you count the sounds of MC Tazo & MC Ace blasting from car stereos, which you shouldn't, but some groups of people are now getting into house music which is wicked to see. I haven't been out in Sunderland in a while, but it was very small town 'Avicii, with a bit of MK and lots of three trebles for a fiver offers' which is what I'm actually into so I think it's great.

The Haze lads over there are doing bits, but most of the time when I'm out in Sunderland I get dragged to a Wetherspoons by my friends from school and get unfathomably drunk to make the music more enjoyable. Not trying to send shots at 'spoons here since it is actually mint but: Brexit. Durham has beer pong - better than it sounds even though I'm shit at it. Newcastle is great, it's kind of the small city with big legs, it feels like home. I feel like it's about the party in Newcastle though, we went to parties with stacked line-ups loads of times and just ended up in the least busy room chatting shit and cracking on.

We used to go to Loop every week until licensing cracked on to it and now the weekends are a bit less structured, I've had them coming out to shows round the country which usually winds up with everyone real pissed and a group of radge Geordies making sure the booth is boxed off from people trying to charge their phones. I actually thought Newcastle was a bit crap until I moved away from it but that's what it's usually like with families I reckon.

When did you start going raving? What were your first clubbing experiences, from sneaking into raves and consuming live music.

Oh I'm actually not too sure, I think I was DJing before I was raving which is quite a strange one. I was holding down a room two residency at a monthly event at Digital when I was 17, no idea if the promoter knew how old I was but I'd always get to the club before the door staff were there and sneak in through the smoking area so they didn't stop me playing.

I went to see Boddika and Joy O when I was 16 with the local shopkeeper who I worked with doing a paper round, which is a bit mental in hindsight, but I think he thought he was going to a bottle service club and not into a proper techno rave – which it was, obviously.

 
 
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