Hey Kiera! First of all, tell us about yourselves, and how you started out with Echo.
I’m Kiera, I DJ under the name Chaotiic Good! I generally play a range of hip-house, jersey club, vogue, hip-hop and industrial bass. I also spin a lot of hyper pop and IDM so I’m a little all over the place haha. I also co-produce a Naarm music pod called Miscellaneous Fuzz!
So we all met through The Push which is an organisation that holds free music programs for young people. We all were a part of the Electronic Music Accelerator Course that provides women and gender non conforming people the opportunity to learn to use Ableton and get production mentoring. Through The Push the residency at Small Time Group came to be!
Through many lockdowns Jas, Phoebe and I spent lots of time on zoom brainstorming names and branding. We got the amazing Lotus Ryder West to design our logo, and have so many amazing friends who were keen to play the events.
How did you all get into djing? Does it connect in any way to your other artistic practices?
I am super new to DJ’ing! I’ve only just learnt through using decks at The Push and through uni classes. I produce my own music as well so i'm aiming to start incorporating my own tracks into sets.
Echo Collective seems to come from the heart. Have there been experiences you have encountered as DJs and artists, and were these an inspiration to start your project?
We all really resonated with the purpose behind the Electronic Music Accelerator course, in that it is a really accessible way for young women and gender non conforming artists to feel connected to a community that is incredibly unrepresented in electronic music spaces at the moment. So we really wanted to carry that spirit into our events!
How have you found running your own events? Are you enjoying your time at Small Time Group?
This is our first time running events so we are all learning as we go! But it helps that we work really well together and also have the support of Liz from Small Time Group. She’s been so encouraging and understands how to guide emerging artists through these spaces.
Do you feel that your music and your intentions with Echo Collective has changed in recent times, with the continuous stream of lockdowns in Naarm?
Having our events postponed so many times due to lockdowns and capacity limits (the first night was meant to be in August and got continuously pushed back to December!) definitely makes them a bit more sentimental and special because its like, we FINALLY did it haha.
The music industry has taken so many blows over the last few years, so we’re glad to give emerging artists a platform that's probably needed now more than ever.
Do you have a highlight of running Echo Collective you’d like to share?
During our first event in December, it was definitely exciting to see groups of people walking in! I think we were all holding our breaths a little, so it was such a relief seeing people actually pull up.
Seeing people dancing and hyping up the DJ’s was so memorable, I definitely felt a strong sense of community.
What would you like to see more of in the Naarm industry over the coming year?
More and more diverse representation within electronic music spaces!