The 2003 Australian Dance Music Awards named Melbourne’s Phil K as Best DJ, as well as honoured him with a lifetime achievement award. Cheeky, with a sense of humour and an overwhelming passion, Phil continues to storm into 2004.

Not content with touring worldwide last year and having the world sing his praises, Phil has returned to Australia and knuckled down to two months worth of production with Luke Chable, as they record under the guise Lo-Step. The project is an artist album for the respected Global Underground organisation, following on their brilliant ‘The Roots’ single on GU’s Quad Communications label. The album will be made for the dancefloor, Phil mentions, and touches upon the gritty and melodic sides of the LoStep work.

This latest production session continues Phil’s hot run: recording as Dark Alley with Ivan Gough and Luke Chable, Phil has remixed Nu Breed, GT (2002 Best Remix at the DMA’s) and more, and has sensationally re-worked Led Zeppelin alongside mates Nu Breed. When you add his ‘Balance 004’ mix CD into the process, 2003 has been Phil’s year, although he isn’t happy yet. “I just have so many ideas, it always puts me on the back foot and I just feel there’s never enough time in the day to do everything I really want to do. It’s all involving sounds and music and writing and DJing and everything like that but there’s too much going on upstairs and not enough hours of being able to actually do it. In the past it’s kind of depressed me at times and kind of puts you in this state where you want to do so much but your brain’s overworking so you can’t really focus on one thing more than an hour and then you end up doing nothing. You feel like you’re doing things, but at the end of the day because you haven’t made a big step forward in any direction, you just kind of feel like you’re not doing anything.” Nowadays Phil seems to have made peace with his overactive creative side. “Now, if I feel like I’ve learnt something I can feel comfortable.

The aim for the end of February is to have six more tracks done, and while doing that, trying to develop his DJing more in terms of taking a laptop to his gigs. “I’ve always tried taking DJing to the next level; a couple of years ago I took a sampler in, and then physically doing it seemed a lot harder as what I envisioned it, whereas now I’ve got Ableton Live software and I reckon this is the one; this is the one that’s going to let me interface between what I do as a DJ and what I do in the studio and streamline the whole thing and make it so that I don’t spend three quarters of my time trying to cue up a loop. We all know that I can mix records, I know I can cue a beat to the next beat so I don’t’ think that’s an issue. Now, this Ableton stuff, I’ve slowly been getting into it for the last two months. You can put your whole tracks in there and you don’t have to worry about the records not mixing or going out of beat.”

This is in accordance with Phil’s primary philosophy as a DJ: “I don’t want to play records as they are. In the computer, I can not only change them around but I can add to them very very quickly and very very easily according to what files I’ve made during the week, or some random shit on the hard drive, or parts of my songs that I want to add to them.”

This leaves Phil free to unleash perhaps his greatest talent: his ability to innately vibe off the crowd, work out what pushes their musical buttons and deliver something in his style, tailored for their needs. The performance becomes a unique live experience that is a one-off spontaneous experience for the moment. “It’s not breakbeat, and it’s not house and it’s not techno, it’s bits of everything and the way those bits are made up is by taking stupid loops off sections of records, altering basslines, sampling techno and breakbeat and then, over the top, Missy Elliot comes in!” Continuing with passion, Phil states: “That’s what makes a good DJ – someone who goes somewhere and says ‘yeah, this is what I’m into, and these are the records in my box, but I’m going to make it work for you tonight’. The trick is trying to work out how to make it work for that crowd.”

Playing to a Melbourne home crowd allows greater creative licence, however when traveling Phil sometimes has a hard time and has to ease people in to what he is doing. “For instance, in America, these people are giving me rotary mixers to mix with, it’s feels like you’re cooking pasta rather than mixing records, so now I need to overcome those problems of technique. This is where the computer comes in; I need to stand out from everybody else, I’ve got an ability to remix and re-edit music the way I play.”

One of the many projects upcoming for Phil is a mixed CD through Renaissance in the UK. Mixed together with Dave Seaman, ‘Therapy Sessions’ has four to the floor tunes plus melodic and nasty breaks. “It’s got no party breaks!” exclaims Phil vehemently. “There’s too much party breaks going on in Australia, so I’ll let everyone else deal with that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind playing a party breaks record or two in a two or three hour set to take the view somewhere else, but to base a whole set around old school James Brown samples or old school Prince samples – just play the original! To base a whole set around that, it’s not for me. All the better that these people are doing it because it means I don’t have to do it!”

Phil’s many projects and increased international acclaim point to an awesome 2004 for one of the most deserving and passionate people in dance music.

You can catch Phil K, along with fellow Melbourne-ites Nubreed and Gab Olivier, at Domestic Bliss at Space on Sunday January 25. For more info and to buy tickets click HERE.