STREAMING AUDIO INTERVIEW

Melbourne’s Future Entertainment can take credit for being one of the driving forces in Australian dance music, alongside its other big players like Fuzzy, Hardware and Sounds, and founder/owner Mark James is also sitting pretty as one of the industry’s most recognisable identities. He’s consistently shown that he’s got his finger on the pulse, both as a DJ as well as with the cutting-edge lineups he’s assembled for his parties over the years, and the flagship event among these is of course the national Future Music Festival tour that kicks off this weekend.

“It always has been our plan to build it into a larger show, which has worked really well for us, and to keep the lineup diverse, different and new,” Mark told ITM. “And I think we’ve achieved that with the lineup we’ve got this year.” The defining thing about this year’s tour is the heavier presence of popular live acts like N.E.R.D., Basement Jaxx and CSS. “It is a strategic sort of thing, it’s the way Future Music Festival is going to move in the next five years. Hence us moving to Flemington in Melbourne… It was the way we really wanted to go with this festival, to incorporate a lot more live entertainment and larger areas basically.”

The Future Music Festival has been a winner among ITM audiences since made its debut in Sydney back in 2006, and this year it looks set to be bigger than ever. To mark its return in 2009, ITM talks to Mark James about this year’s tour, the release of the CD alongside the festival as what the future holds for Future Entertainment.

The Future Music Festival CD, compiled by Mark James with Dan Mangan, is out now through Stomp. The tour kicks off around the country this weekend…

Sat 28th Feb – Future Music Festival Sydney
Sun 1st Mar – Future Music Festival, Perth
Sat 7th Mar – Future Music Festival, Brisbane
Sun 8th Mar – Future Music Festival, Melbourne
Mon 9th Mar – Future Music Festival, Adelaide

Keep your eyes on our Festival Page for absolutely everything Future Music Festival, and stay tuned for comprehensive post-event coverage on ITM over the coming weeks.