With dance music trends and scenester DJs seemingly coming and going at a more rapid rate of knots as the years go past, Brisbane scene veteran Jason Morley is something of an anomaly. Where some of his peers have held on to the sound that made them popular and disappeared into a vortex of irrelevance, Morley’s ability to sniff the winds of change on the horizon and absorb the sound of now into his own musical palette has kept him at the forefront of house music trendsetters in his home city.
Morley has been part of Brisbane’s underground dance scene since he was first exposed to the joys of house music in the early 1990s, happily sharing the love as a punter before he made the inevitable step into the DJ booth in 1999. From that vantage point he’s watched the local scene emerge from the underground and into the mainstream, eventually working his way into a weekly residency at seminal Brisbane house club The Empire Hotel in 2000. In that time he also guested at more underground events and dropped mellower house sounds at Press Club, before being offered the biggest opportunity of his career – a main room Saturday residency at Family.
He’s stepped into the booth at Brisbane’s biggest weekly house night every weekend since 2002, and still relishes the challenge of rocking a heaving dancefloor hungry for a party on a weekly basis. “I am and have always been about pushing not only what’s new and fresh but whatever inspires me,” Morley explains, and it’s this ethos which has seen him support a list of international house acts which includes Erick Morillo, Dave Seaman, X-Press 2, Trentemoller, Angello & Ingrosso, DJ T, Mark Farina….the list goes on.</p>
<p>And that list gives you some idea of the spectrum of Morley’s sound and how his willingness to adapt has kept him at the head of the Brisbane pack. From the funky house sounds he initially favoured, Morley has learnt to effortlessly bring elements of electro, tech house, minimal and even slightly progressive sounds into the mix, always keeping it varied and never losing sight of the groove. That versatility even stretches as far as the burgeoning Nu Rave movement, with Morley guesting at Monastery’s Coo Coo Kachoo electro slamfest and Empire’s new Friday night Brand Spank’d to equally warm response from fluro ravers and indie kids alike.
“I’m lucky,” Morley muses on a career which has taken him to festival stages from Summafieldayze to Goodvibrations and interstate guest slots at Chinese Laundry and Moulin Rouge. “I get the best of both worlds and in the end each venue and gig kind of feed off each other, which keeps it fresh for me and for the punters.” This freshness should see Morley pushing his sound to dancefloors in Brisbane and beyond for some time to come, taking people who share his love of house on a journey while opening their eyes and ears to something new at the same time.
