NEON BRIGHT

After being voted #9 nationally on In The Mix 2008 Top 50 DJs, and having already played at numerous big music festivals such as Summafieldayze, Future Music and Godskitchen, DJ Chardy is in his prime right now.

But it’s his latest work with Australia’s hottest new dance label Neon which is set to raise the stakes for this talented DJ from Melbourne.

Set to rival some of Australia’s biggest clubbing brands, ‘Neon Records’ label is a brand new project for Warner Music. Chardy steps up to the plate and teams up with double ARIA winners TV Rock to re-mix and produce the debut compilation from Neon called ‘Essential’. “I did this mix as I’ve been playing my gigs recently, so I got to pick a few of my favourite artists and a couple of their new tracks that are coming out, so I sorta pushed them out through the label.”

While you would think there would be a bit of pressure on the shoulders of Chardy to deliver the goods - being that it’s Neon’s debut album and everything - he goes on to say, “The label gave me heaps of freedom,” and directs most of the pressure to Smiles, as Chardy affectionately calls one half of TV Rock’s, Grant Smillie. “It’s hard where the sound is at the moment. It’s all the underground sounds that are really coming out in the main rooms down there (referring to Melbourne), especially with the European stuff.”

But when asked what it was like working with TV Rock there was no hesitation in Chardy’s voice, “Ivan Gough (the other half of TV Rock) is an amazing engineer. He’s unbelievable mate, how he can get the sound that he does out of the sound he’s working with. It was really a bit of an eye opener working with those guys, they really know their stuff.”

Chardy has delivered his renown electro-disco, dub-tech house sound to the second disc to deliver a darker, tougher feel to the album. Something that newbie Neon seems to be aiming towards. As Chardy explains. “For any young punks who wanna get their stuff out, you know, bedroom DJs, whatever, that’s more what Neon are actually looking for at the moment. A lot of the people that they’ve been signing are a bit more underground, they’re not even out playing, they’re sorta just at home writing tunes. Neon’s going for a different style instead of just trying to get all the big guns. Create artists in a sense.”

‘Neon Essential Volume One’ is available now on Warner Music.