I have been producing and DJing under the artist name Channel 11 for over 10 years. I started making music in 2015 and took up DJing the year after.
Music always played a big part in my life. Top of the Pops was my favourite TV show as a very young child in the UK and I was exposed to my parents’ record collections of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, François Hardy and classical music growing up but it was after my family moved from rural Canada to Ireland when I was 9 years old that I discovered electronic music on the local pirate radio stations and a whole new world opened up. The Orb, Orbital, Opus III, The Prodigy and Jam & Spoon were just some of the artists who took over the soundtrack of my childhood. I used to drift off to sleep listening to these alien-sounding otherworldly transmissions on my little white ghetto blaster and had visions of playing such music to rooms full of dancing people. Little did I know this was a thing called djing, something I would take up later in life.
While I liked all genres of music growing up (if I had to choose one, I would still say that The Smashing Pumpkins is my favourite band in the world), I was hooked on electronic music and my teens and twenties were spent going to all-night raves, chasing electronic events and making summer pilgrimages to Sónar. I was blessed with many friends while at university in Dublin who were as obsessed with music as I was. Some of my friends started running events and bringing international DJs to Dublin. There were also weekend-long parties at a house we called Hang Tough and another place I won’t name (if you know you know) and some of the guys who played marathon sets at these unofficial places later moved to Berlin and became well-respected names on the international circuit.
When I moved to London to study fashion, there was not so much time for clubbing. It was 2003, I was living in Hackney and there was a music scene in the East End beginning to blossom. One Friday night, I was out with one of my college friends on Hoxton Square and this guy came up to us with some flyers and he tried to convince us to come to a night he was playing at a little club called Plastic People on Curtain Road. I asked him what kind of music he’d be playing and he told us it would be a mish-mash of house, disco, electro, techno… He spoke very quickly and named some other genres that I’d never heard of and certainly can’t remember now. How was he going to pull all that off? I wondered. We had project deadlines and knew we shouldn’t stay out much later but he was so enthusiastic and convincing, we agreed to go along for an hour… The problem was that the music was so good, we couldn’t leave that basement until it stopped at around 4am. No wonder, because that guy with the flyers on Hoxton Square was actually Erol Alkan and I have him to thank for the introduction to what was to become one of my favourite clubs in London and the concept that there are no rules in a dj set. I had never heard so many genres mixed together - 80s pop, electro, disco… He made it work and the atmosphere on the dancefloor was nothing but magic. It is still probably one of my most memorable nights out.
Introduction
Over the following years, I was blessed to see some of the best artists in the world play live in London, Dublin and Barcelona… James Holden, Laurent Garnier, Jeff Mills, Black Strobe, Sasha, Vitalic, Black Devil Disco Club, Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, Larry Heard, The Idjut Boys to name a few… It was such a magical period in dance music and I am so grateful to everyone who led me to these artists and events… And it wasn’t just the larger events. There were warehouse raves and house parties where the sets were just as mesmerising as the ones played by the international mainstage wizards.
Many of my friends from that time are still some of my dearest friends today, even though we are all scattered around the world now. It was all the music and magical journeys I was exposed to during those years between the 90s and 2008 that have formed much of the montage of influences and catalogue I draw from when I make and play music today.
The Music Production Journey
I never considered myself especially musical but my uncle in L.A. taught me how to play some tunes on the piano when I was four years old. Even then, I wondered how he could play so well without the music sheets I had seen on other pianos in other houses. “Oh, you don’t need music sheets to play a piano, that’s nonsense!” he claimed, and to my amazement, he told me that he just played by ear and memory. It was true. He was a gifted piano player and he could play almost anything by ear. This opened my mind to that concept and so I started playing things by ear on pianos I came across whenever I could and I found that I could… Although not with both hands to bring in the harmonies like my uncle did! That came later when my classically trained cousin taught me how to play Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1 one afternoon and when I put my mind to it, I can still play that one piece… By ear and by memory.
I liked singing but was never much of a singer and sadly, I didn’t get into my school’s choir in secondary school. It frequently won national competitions so the standard was very high, in fairness. I did take up the flute though, and eventually joined the school orchestra… I had terrible dyslexia but hid the fact that I struggled to read the music notes by turning the pages when others turned them and I played my parts by ear. My favourite piece was Berceuse Op. 57 by Chopin. He wrote that for the piano and it is not often you hear an orchestral version but our teacher had us play it and I found it positively transportive. (There is an orchestral version on YouTube here).
My lack of musical theory knowledge went masked and undetected in school and apart from doing a deep research dive into the history and musical theory of jazz for a dissertation on Toni Morrison’s Jazz for my English degree at university, herein lies the end of my formal musical training and development. Therefore, it came as a great surprise to me, and others, that I started making music when I was 33 years old. Never in a million years would my 18-year-old self have imagined that one day I would make a track, let alone release an album but that’s what happened…
After completing my studies in fashion design in London, I worked mostly in and around fashion, design and PR during the following years but my love for music never stopped and I continued going out to techno events and various indie gigs whenever I could.
When I was 29, I embarked on a path of spiritual learning and started “doing the work” but it wasn’t until I was 33 that the real spiritual awakening came. A childhood friend of mine, who also lived in London, sent me a guided meditation on “Self Love” by Sarah Hall and urged me to listen to it. I dismissed it, thinking it was something I didn’t need, but she kept asking me had I listened to it yet… It was coming up to the Easter weekend and we had plans to go to an all-night John Talabot event in Brixton on Holy Thursday with some other friends. It was only because of that and I knew I would be seeing her the next evening that I listened to the meditation as I was falling asleep on the Wednesday night. Only so this time I could say “yes, I’ve listened to it now” and that would be that. But that wasn’t that… The following day, three different people randomly reached out from around the world with sudden messages of thought and love. Old friends, some of whom I hadn’t been in touch with for years. And my boss was nice to me that day… Normally, he wasn’t. Something had shifted, I could tell but that was only the beginning.
I stayed out all night on Holy Thursday because the music was amazing (it was John Talabot on the decks after all). I didn’t get home until around 9.30 am and I didn’t wake up until about 3.30 pm on Good Friday but when I did, something rather unexpected happened. I heard this music in the air… Sometimes a tune you’ve heard the night before can linger but I knew this wasn’t that… This was new. Music I had never heard before… And I wanted to capture it. I remembered seeing on an Apple ad on TV that there was a piano somewhere in my iPad and so, I grabbed it and managed to find it in an app called GarageBand. It was pretty intuitive. I played out the tune I heard in the air by ear and recorded it. Now I had it. And then a voice from the same place where the music was coming from told me to add a beat. It guided me to the drums and showed me how… Within 20 minutes, I had the bones of a track. I couldn’t believe it. This track would later become “My Love”, the first track on my debut album but in that same afternoon, I also laid down the foundation for three other tracks - later to become “Waves”, “Hear the Call” and “Disco Tree”. I couldn’t believe how quickly this music was coming through. It was as if it had just been waiting in the air for me to tune into and transmit… I believe it had taken the meditation to open me up to the guidance above and reach its frequency.
After the music began to come through on that Good Friday afternoon in 2015, I continued to tune in and capture what I was hearing in the air. It was a meditative process and I frequently stayed up until the early hours channelling and shaping tracks.
This was a very unexpected journey. Most of my friends were settling down and having babies around that time and here was I making electronic music in my attic bedroom like a teenager but it felt like I was also giving birth to something… A deep love I had carried within for decades but perhaps had never fully felt, processed or expressed. I soon knew that I had enough material for an album and that the album would be called “Disco Tree”. In fact, long before the music came through, the words for “Disco Tree” came to me as a sort of poem or chant. As soon as I heard the music, I knew that’s where they belonged.
The album was quickly unfolding through this experimental nocturnal process but anybody who has ever undergone a similar journey knows that it’s that last 10-20% of a creative project can be as much work, if not more than the initial part. Finishing the whole album felt a long way off, and so I decided to release an EP that September.
The name for the EP was easy, Sun + Moon. But what about my name? I never really considered the music was by me so using my name didn’t feel right. I would need an artist name and I was guided to use the name, Channel 11. Channel because the music is channelled from above and the number 11 symbolises alignment, harmony and the connection between the Source and the earth plane and Channel 11 represents what can happen when you tune into these frequencies. I kept getting visions of a native American eagle during meditations around that time and the geometric eagle symbol came from that. The eagle also represents the connection between the heavens and earth.
I still maintain that the music I produce isn’t really by me - it comes through, not from… But I do hear the influences that it takes on through the filter that is me and how the sounds are shaped through my own tastes and leanings in this lifetime. Early 90s hip hop, electro, minimal techno, disco… They are all there! I often start with a hip hop beat but later take a track in a techno direction… Disco Tree is, overall, a journey in experimental electronica.
Over a year passed between the stages of Disco Tree being nearly finished and actually getting released. I just felt terrified of finishing it when I knew it could be better. It was my wise friend Marc’s words that gave me the encouragement to finally release it in the end. “Just send it out into the world so you can move on to the next thing. There comes a point with these things when you have to say, it is what it is.” Little does he know that his words became my mantra for every creative project since: “It is what it is.” And when I listen back to the “Disco Tree” album, yes, of course, I still hear the imperfections and off-kilter timing in places but I also hear the rawness and the sense of novel exploration and those are things that I will never be able to capture again and there is something special about that. You can only make a first album once.
Channel 11 and Disco Tree
Disco Tree Lyrics:
Come with me to the disco tree where everyone dances wild and free to a beat in the breeze they cannot see.
Listen to the sound of the woodwind tune that channels a message from the moon
For the blades of grass to stand up tall,
Arise from your slumber, hear the call!
Raise your hands to the silver sky that holds a spell for you and I.
“Catch the magic!” hear it cry.
Now we feel it, soon we’ll fly!
And those who hear from near and far will cross land and sea to get where we are.
This is the call of the disco tree.
It’s where I am. It’s where I’ll be.
Channel 11 Catalogue
Merging influences from organ music and the Latin choruses of church choirs in Ireland that Channel 11 was exposed to growing up with her deep love of minimal techno, the EP consists of two vocal variations of the same track, along with the instrumental version. Heartsong I (Love) is more experimental and raw, consisting of a Latin refrain, "Cor vult quod cor vult" (the heart wants what the heart wants), layered over industrial beats and a melodic synth. Heartsong II (Strength) is a softer version in which a second Latin refrain, "Vires vobiscum" (strength be with you) is sung in a simpler melody against the same techno backdrop. The contrast of influences is both jarring and dreamy, ultimately inviting listeners to surrender to the dualities of the heart, where darkness and light can co-exist and dance together.
Release Date: 23.08.24
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Rising from the depths of the shadowy period between 2020-2022, Pulse is the new EP from Channel 11. Embracing darkness and light, it is comprised of two tracks, "Pulse" and "For Those Who Feel Their Feelings Are Never Seen".
Pulse is an EP inspired by and reflective of the emotional climate of our times. Both tracks are unashamedly uncertain and off-kilter while carrying hints of magic, hope and a sense of spiritual connection to be savoured in the present moment.
Release Date: 16.12.22
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Composed of dreamy melodies, playful riffs and spacey grooves, “The Love That Could” presents a journey through a shimmering soundscape of warm retro synths that melt into each other against an ambient backdrop of reverberating beats, distant bells and dark murmuring basslines. Honouring waves of 80s nostalgia while taking an experimental approach to explore new and uncertain areas of emotional terrain, the journey is full of twists and turns, wavering between melancholy and joy, shadows and light as it descends towards and arises from an off-kilter celebration of indie dance and deep electronic disco.
Release Date: 01.08.19
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“For Icarus” is a melodic, upbeat electronic trilogy, composed in reflection and honour of the great Greek myth and its ambitious central figure. The flight of Icarus encompasses so many things; a quest for a higher place, the wisdom gathered along the way and the optimism and light that ultimately arises from the darkness at the bottom of even the most extreme downfalls.
Release Date: 24.10.2018
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Rising from a ground rich in influences, encompassing old-school hip-hop, 70s electronic disco, trance and minimal techno, the disco tree transmits transcendent sonic signals and faraway reverberating sounds on unfamiliar frequencies. It is the shining beacon of a musical journey, first revealed in meditation, explored and channelled to the earth plain through a dreamy assemblage of melodic synths, poetic lyrics, elevating beats and dark bewitching basslines.
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Released on the autumn equinox, September 23rd 2015, Sun and Moon is the debut EP from London-based electronic artist Channel 11.
Combining minimal beats with dreamy melodic tunes, Sun and Moon is a journey that is both light and dark, earthly and unearthly, guided by forces shining from above.
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The DJing Journey
I started djing nearly a year after I started making music in 2015. One of my friends in music told me that I had done things back to front and that I couldn’t be a music producer without being a DJ… That I’d better get my act together soon! I knew it because shortly after I released my first EP, Sun + Moon, I sent it to one of the founders of a melodic techno night that was gaining momentum in the London underground scene. He told me he really liked it and asked if I “play out”. Play out? Me? That was a terrifying concept! I was honest and told him no, I didn’t and I think he found that strange… Oh what a missed opportunity!
A music producer friend of a friend happened to be clearing out his recording studio in Brick Lane before moving to the country that autumn and he kindly offered me an old Vestax VCI-100 DJ midi-controller. It wasn’t the most reliable piece of equipment but it got me started and I was very grateful. Finally, I could blend tracks and it was surprisingly easy. And addictive. I later migrated to the Traktor and Pioneer systems and started getting invited to “play out” at events in London and Ireland. Now, I could say yes and so, I played at parties and fashion events and bars. Whenever and wherever the occasion arose.
It was during the summer of 2017 that I began to have a vision of starting my own night in London. I missed the electronic scene of the 00s. The gritty venues… The darkness… The gatherings of people who were genuinely there for the music and not much else… I missed places like Plastic People, The End… The warehouse labyrinths of Kings Cross… Stripped back spaces with amazing sound systems.
That summer, I was at Wilderness, a festival in Oxfordshire, when I ran into an old friend, Marc Ibanez. Marc was in my extended music gang in Ireland and the brother of one of my best friends from fashion college in London (it being the small world that it is). Whenever Marc led us to some underground techno event while we were studying, you knew you were in for something good and he is an absolutely amazing DJ himself. He used to play at events in Dublin and Barcelona and had he gone to Berlin with some of the others in our early 20s, he too would have made it onto the international circuit, I am quite sure. Had he wanted to… Instead, he pursued a career in engineering but he has that mathematical brain that lends itself to techno so well and he is still the kind of DJ that blows people away when he steps up to the decks.
I told him about my idea to start a new night in London and asked him if he’d like to be involved. He was totally on for it and I said, great, I’ll find a venue and will be in touch when I do! And that is how the seeds for SOURCE were planted…
It was during that same conversation at Wilderness that Marc called me out on my excuses, pointing out that I had been telling him the Disco Tree album was 90% finished for over a year now and it was time to just release it into the world and say “it is what it is”. The wise words of a wise man. I promised him it would be finished by the time I saw him at his sister’s birthday party two weeks later. As uncomfortable as it was at the time, it was his push that got me to bring it over the line and I am forever grateful.
SOURCE
Following my conversation with Marc at Wilderness, I set about finding a space to launch our night. No easy feat in a city that had allowed developers to gobble up dancefloors for over a decade. A friend brought me along to a birthday party in a little basement space in Dalston one night that autumn. It was a bit run-down, the bar staff unsmiling and there was a sign on the wall that said: “Firearms will not be tolerated.” Well, that was good to know, but what kind of place needed a sign like that? I wondered. It felt slightly unnerving but I soon learnt that the sound system was amazing and I realised that this was just the place I was looking for. A suitably murky minimalist space where only the music mattered. The kind of small blank canvas space that had become so rare… I got in touch with the lovely soul, Chris Lewis who ran the place. It turned out we had friends in common and he believed in our concept and kindly gave us a chance to launch SOURCE in March 2018.
We ran a series of events throughout the year and hosted some seriously talented artists, including one of my favourite producers, Nhar. When he headlined our “New Moon Party” that July, his partner, Irene (also a very talented DJ from Milan) turned to me and said, “Wow, I really love what you guys are creating here… It kind of reminds me of this place I used to go to with my friends when I lived in London years ago… Did you ever go to Plastic People?” This was the biggest compliment I could have wished for and I told her that it was precisely because I missed Plastic People that I wanted to launch a new night because there was nothing really like it in London anymore… It was so encouraging to hear her make that connection and it confirmed that we were doing something right.
We always did our best to create a welcoming space at SOURCE, juxtaposing the darkness of the venue with fairy lights, balloons and light projections. Some people commented that it felt more like a house party than a club. Others told me that they found our events very healing and comforting to come to - even though that is not how we were presenting them and that is not what they expected. The space was unapologetically underground and the music was often dark and experimental but a special community was beginning to form. Sadly, BAR A BAR had licensing issues the following year and we didn’t find a suitable alternative space to continue running the events regularly. Then the lockdowns hit and I moved to Portugal as soon as the world opened up again so SOURCE has been on a bit of an extended pause. But we may resurrect it one day…
Thank you to our notable guests and all who Came to Dance
Mike Redina
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Nhar
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Dave McDonagh + Coolhandloop
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Raji Rags + Maximum Haze
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Mike Redina ✶ Nhar ✶ Dave McDonagh + Coolhandloop ✶ Raji Rags + Maximum Haze ✶
What and
Where I Play…
Energy before everything because everything is energy.
I take an adaptable approach to djing and always put the energy of the time and place before everything else. While there is always some preparation involved, I will often tune into the occasion and crowd in advance when planning a DJ set, leaving some leeway for improvisation or different directions. I will also take the moon cycle and other astrological influences into account.
I play a wide mix of genres - everything from organic and Latin house to jazz, disco and techno… I adapt to the time of day, the venue etc. I can keep things chilled for daytime and lounge situations but there is nothing I love more than to bring people on a beautiful dark techno journey through the darkest hours and into the light.
Some of my favourite artists include Aphex Twin, Daniel Bortz, Nhar, Nicolas Jaar (and his alias Against All Logic), Baikal, Skatebård, Aki Latvamaki, Demuja, Nick Holder, Acid Pauli, Bedouin, Dominik Eulberg, Innellea, Steve Bodzin, Marc Rombay, John Talabot, Axel Bowman, Oliver Schories, Mind Against, Anja Schneider, Riccardo Villalobos, Ten Walls, Guy J, Lauer, Lindstrom, Prins Thomas, Lake People… This is by no means an exhaustive or exclusive list! These are just some of the names that make repeat appearances in my sets.
I play in a range of places - clubs, rooftops, bars and restaurants… In London, I played at BAR A BAR, Beaufort House, Looking Glass and various events for London Fashion Week and private parties. Since moving to Lisbon, I’ve played at Go A Lisboa, Lusophonica, Nassau, Rossio on the Altis Avenida rooftop, Taqueria Paloma and at private events in Ireland, Italy, Spain and Denmark.
DJ Mixes
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DJ Mixes ☾✹✶
Latest Mix
This is a fairly chilled upbeat mix of jazz, soul and house.
Listen by Genre/Mood/Time and Place…
- 00s
- 90s
- Afro House
- Ambient
- Chilled
- Dark
- Dark Techno
- Daytime
- Deep House
- Disco
- Downtempo
- Dreamy
- Electro
- Evening
- Hip-Hop
- House
- Indie
- Jazz
- Latin House
- Melodic Techno
- Minimal Techno
- Mystery
- Mystical
- Nighttime
- Nu Disco
- Organic House
- Poolside
- Progressive House
- Soul
- Soulful
- Space Disco
- Summer
- Sunny
- Tech House
- Techno
- The Early Hours
- Upbeat
- Uplifting
- Warm
Booking Enquiries
If you would like me to play at your event, please get in touch by filling out the form below.
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