Grab a ticket to AKA with DJ Seinfeld 

Over the last seven years, Brighton has seen hundreds of promoters come and go. It is the harsh nature of the events industry; it is fleeting, temporal, and, above all, ruthless. One organisation, however, has not only stood the test of the time, but has done so in exorbitant style. In fact, their Brighton parties impressed so much that today founding member Paul Gibson is bookings manager at Patterns (and we all know how that's going).

With well over 150 events to their name, including acts like SBTRKT, Joy Orbison, and Ben UFO, seven year veterans AKA AKA ROAR are Brighton's undisputed dance music champions. They've featured artists of every electronic ilk. From James Blake to Jackmaster, Mala to Midland, Deadboy to Dusky, nobody has thrown a more consistent and eclectic chain of parties than AKA. Their artist history reads more like a 2017 Dekmantel poster, with each artist plucked from obscurity several years before becoming a known quantity in the electronic scene.

 

Take this 2012 poster for example, featuring a semi-known Martyn, an unknown Midland (his discography consisted of a whopping three EPs), and AKA's very own Leon Vynehall on support duties. Nearly five years later, Midland's track Final Credits was deemed track of 2016 by Mixmag. In short - keep an eye on who AKA are booking these days, because you'll likely never be able to see them that cheap again.

Over the years, AKA have booked Anthony Naples, Avalon Emerson, Blawan, Bondax, Dense & Pika, George Fitzgerald, Julio Bashmore, Kornel Kovacs, Machinedrum, Mele, Objekt, Pangaea, Paul Woolford, Theo Parrish and Will Saul. To name a few. Even more impressively, a rough estimate puts about a fifth of their bookings as Brighton debuts. We asked the AKA crew if they had ever tried to book a DJ and failed. The answer was no.

AKA has done its thing in many venues since its birth. Initially it's home was LIFE, a dearly beloved student haunt on the seafront (now the Tempest Inn), but they've also partied at Riki Tiks (now the Deadwax Social), Green Door Store (still the Green Door Store) and even taken their expertise abroad to Echo Festival and Dimensions in Croatia.

The main players behind the night are Neil Ellis, Ollie Terrey and Paul Gibson, but AKA's reach is almost limitless. Described as more of a community than a promoter, AKA has shaped Brighton's nightlife in a remarkable fashion, and continues to do so. Zallogut, Fix, First Floor, they all owe something to AKA. Even newer promoters like Discojuice and Jabba are intertwined with the AKA family - so much so, in fact, that you'll regularly find Discojuice co-founder Alex Ramos DJing b2b with Ollie Terrey upstairs at Patterns.

Paul Gibson, the bookings maestro, made a brief cameo during our time on the Patterns terrace with Neil and Ollie. He was around just long enough for us to ask about the name. If anyone could explain such a mouthful it would be this man:

"Well," he says, "a girl that worked for me was drawing a robot and the robot was saying AKAKAROAR. And, basically, everything else we thought of was shit".

There you have it. In truth, there's a groundedness to that story which really demonstrates what AKA are all about. No pretence, no arrogance, just good DJs and great parties. It's an ethos that is serving them well.

Speaking of great parties, the next event is fast approaching. On Saturday April 15th, AKA invite DJ Seinfeld, a Swedish selector who gained notoriety on the Identification of Music Group and beyond for his mellow house cut Flyin' Thru Sunrise. For upwards of twelve months this track bamboozled DJs and heads alike on dancefloors across the world until its release last February - which also outed DJ Seinfeld as the mastermind behind the tune. Seinfeld is a leftfield booking for AKA (and we mean that in every sense of the word) but AKA's bookings speak more to a path of experimentalism and risk-taking than they do to playing it safe - and it's only worked out well for them in the past.

"It's important to branch off... to diversify the bookings, to try new sounds"

Alongside their seemingly flawless booking process (which also involves taking every artist to Shogun Ramen in the laines), AKA have a diverse and talented roster of resident DJs including Brighton heavyweights Donga, Lorca and Markings. Donga, the guest mixer for this week, is the man behind Well Rounded Records, a vinyl vendor and record label that has released music from the likes of Deadboy, Hackman, XXXY, South London Ordnance, Julio Bashmore, Leon Vynehall, Hodge and more.

"Plans for the future? We're just gonna keep having parties."

After taking a brief hiatus in 2015, we couldn't be more pleased to have Brighton's most influential dance music promoter back in the game and, even better, in the mix for Native. Donga's guest mix is a 45 minute, bass-heavy excursion through a seemingly fathomless record bag. Listen: