Bunker
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Bunker

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Melbourne collective Bunker is based on a love affair, a love affair between three young men – Adrian Bell, Jake McDonald and Andy Muscat – and techno. Having started in the tiny backroom at the recently defunct Liberty Social, Bunker has grown to become one of Melbourne’s most admired dance music brands; throwing their own very successful parties, holding down residencies at Dance Technique and Power Station and touring international DJs such as Mary Velo and Developer.

On Friday May 8 Bunker is hosting their second birthday party, aptly entitled 730 Days Of Techno. While their first birthday party 365 Days Of Techno was considered Bunker’s first real standalone event, I wondered if the success of the party instigated a somewhat ‘honeymoon period’ for the trio.

“After [the success] of our first birthday I wouldn’t describe it as a ‘honeymoon period’, we just kept going with what we were doing. We booked another event in July and November of 2014 and then went out to open airs this January, February and March. so I guess the honeymoon period was really this year,” explains Bell.
“I guess there may have been a perceived honeymoon period but a lot of those parties, especially in the early part of this year took a lot of preparation so we never really had the chance to step back,” adds Muscat.

“We didn’t know if the first birthday was a fluke because it was really busy or if we were really gaining momentum. Then when we had our July event when we had more people we knew we on to something good,” contends a jubilant Bell.

Bell, Muscat and McDonald generally DJ their own events with Muscat also producing live as techno duo Tercat alongside Jonathon Tercato.  McDonald’s journey to being a Bunker founder is an interesting one – he essentially started off as punter and through passion and hard-work become a vital member of the crew as well as a formidable DJ.

“I was there from the beginning when it wasn’t even called Bunker, just the cool room at The Liberty Social. Adrian got offered to take the reigns of the bookings of the back room fully and from there I got more involved,” notes McDonald.

“Seeing [his] musical ability grow quite rapidly has been amazing,” notes Bell of his experience watching McDonald from the sidelines. “His first set he ever did for us was a little but shonky but that is to be expected when you have only been playing for three months. He then played again maybe a month or so after and there as a stark difference. Technically he was very good and his musical reach had expanded rapidly. What I like the most about his sets are that you can always count on them being relentless and unforgiving.”

With Bell as the most experienced DJ in the Bunker crew McDonald reveals what the most important thing is that he has learned from Bell about techno DJing, “I started off closely watching his technique and how I could apply it to my own DJing. The most valuable technique, I found, in becoming a better DJ was just sitting down and searching through tracks until I found exactly what I was looking for.”

“I remember from this January’s open air that’s it just really an energetic set that really got the whole crowd,” notes McDonalds of Muscat’s Tercat project. “Meaning that they had the crowd in the palm of their hands the whole time.”

Sydney’s Sebastian Bayne from IF? Records is set to headline their upcoming second birthday.  “IF? Records that was originally a Melbourne label but Seb inherited that some time ago from the founders,” notes Bell. “I just really like what Sebastian plays, he is a very influential guy in both Melbourne and Sydney’s techno scene.”

BY DAN WATT

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