Collins

"I make dark electronic music using vintage synthesizers, drum machines, sounds from the real world and noise."

Gary Collins is an award-winning DJ (incl. Turnmills and Mixmag), having played extensively on the club circuit across Europe and Brazil since the mid 1990’s. He began experimenting with music production around 2005, as he became increasingly interested in making his own musical mark. This eventually led to a string of well-received releases on a variety of labels, including Giallo Disco, Spun Out Of Control, Dark Leader and Telefuture Records.

Technically speaking, Gary’s creative process combines a digital workstation and analogue hardware, intriguingly crafting soundscapes with a myriad of recorded matter, either from his native Ireland, or further afield:

“I like to create quite a layered mix, some sounds or noise are buried deep, barely perceptible but add to the ambience. I love to use recordings of real places, of real moments in time. On one track for example there’s a sample of me rattling an iron gate in the catacombs of Paris. On another, recorded on the Cliffs Of Moher here in Ireland, there's the sound of an electric fence being struck with a branch whilst the wind whips around me."

“I can take inspiration from anywhere. Can be a turn of phrase, a scene from a movie or even a conversation with a friend that gives me the initial idea for a track or the concept for an album.
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Once hooked with an idea, Gary's methodology seeks out different approaches:

"It can vary, depending on the style of music. For example, the first track I wrote for the album was Willow. I was watching an old black and white movie. There was a scene with a boy singing acapella about lying alone beneath a Willow tree. The voice and lyrics were so haunting and beautiful that they set in motion the whole idea for the album. I remembered one of my friends, who had said to me she wanted to be buried under a Willow tree when she died. We had become estranged by then so I thought I could at least bury our relationship beneath a Willow tree, within this song."

"First I wrote a chord progression over the acapella, then built it up
from there with new melodies, percussion and some whispered vocal samples. The final piece of the puzzle was the video clip I edited, that's where I truly and visibly deliver the message of the song."

Gary is indeed a skilful videographer, and those looking for further clues into the dark corners of his mysterious music would do well to heed his words and check out his Youtube channel.