Talking to: The Moylan Family Soundclash
The Moylan Family Soundclash are Paul and Hannah, a father and daughter DJ duo from the depths of Easton in Bristol. If you are in Bristol and want to find out what the Bristol music and party scene is really like, you could do a lot worse than heading to Easton, where a lot of Bristol music, both underground and more mainstream, has taken root and flourished over the years. The epicentre of the Easton scene is the legendary pub and music venue The Plough, where Paul has a monthly residency. Paul has been on the Bristol music scene for years, both playing and creating, and has passed his love of dance music and DJ know-how on to his daughter Hannah, who has taken the baton and hit the ground running as DJ Hannza, recently joining ranks with the all-femxle DJ collective Booty Bass. Both get out there and play individually, but when they come together as The Moylan Family Soundclash alchemy happens, and beats are born that span generations.
Hannah and Paul are going to be streaming live on our Instagram Channel at 8.30pm on Friday 27th November and you should definitely be there; it’s going to be a slice of sweaty, late, proper Brizzle night out pumped directly into the comfort of your living room.
Tell us about the different DJing projects you are both involved in at the moment and what you do together.
Paul: Obviously at the moment fuck all! Well, that’s not true for Hannah, but personally (before lock down) I had a residency at The Plough, The Gumbo Show; I have been playing there since 2004 I reckon. And also playing festivals, I was booked in for Shindig, Shambala and Glastonbury. That’s my general thing, then different nights sometimes in Bristol mostly. Hannah’s been busy in lock down even, with Booty Bass.
Hannah: Booty Bass have been doing live streams, and then when it wasn’t lockdown in the summer we played at Lakota gardens on their carnival celebration days, and Trinity Centre as well, but obviously it is different now, everyone has to sit down.
P: Yeah, I went to Trinity to see Hannah play, it was only a couple of weeks ago, and it was so good to be in front of a full rig again, it was really amazing, they rocked it!
P: We started playing together last September at Shambala festival. Me and one of my DJ partners Simon, and Hannah, we did Barrio Afrika (Shambala’s much-loved late night music venue) together, that was your first set, wasn’t it Hannah? And then she got drafted in for New Year at The Plough with me last minute, so she met loads of other DJs there, and it was a wicked night and she got two gigs off the back of that, including starting work with Booty Bass.
H: Yeah, so all of the residents were doing the gig, and I knew Ngaio from Booty Bass anyway, and she said ‘ah, I didn’t know you mixed!’
I would say that father & daughter DJ duos are quite unusual, so how is that working for you?
H: he taught me how to mix, using all of his records… drum n bass, old school dubstep….
P: On these decks here! They are the same age as Hannah, I got them when she was one.
H: He likes good music, so it’s fine!
P: It's really cool, because up until last year I was only playing vinyl, and I kept meaning to go digital, but now we are playing together we are both buying tunes and getting twice the music. It is definitely a good rapport because we are finding stuff that each other likes that we may not have found before.
My favourite way to play is with someone else, one deck each, so to do it with Hannah is fucking amazing, it really is! We did a gig just before lockdown for The Easton Cowfolk, in aid of Palestine, and we did a 2 hour set, so that was our first proper just-the-two-of-us gig. It is really so much fun, there are so many different levels of suffering and things that people missed out on over lock down, and DJing is not that important in a way, but in our little world we had these gigs lined up like Shindig, Glastonbury and Shambala and they haven't happened so we have had to put them to one side. But they will happen!
Hannah playing with Booty Bass at the Trinity Centre © Khali Ackford 2020
H: Even if I hadn’t started DJing before this happened, and I am glad I did, it is kind of shit for everyone, because they can’t go out and dance; I am missing dancing so much, but also missing playing to people. But the fact that everyone is just doing what they can, doing streaming or whatever they can, so people can chill rather than working all of the time; it’s important for people’s health and to stay happy.
Are you two living together?
H: No, I live on the next road up!
P: She hasn’t moved far! She lives on the road behind backing onto my house, about three doors down, so we can almost shout at each other from our gardens! In fact we have!
Were you living together during lockdown?
P: No, but we were in a bubble together.
I am a bit of a hermit and I spent a lot of my time in lock down in the studio. Not playing out and going to festivals has kind of had a positive effect because it takes out a lot of time from focusing. I am writing a lot of music, not going to festivals over the summer saved so much time because there is the time you are away from home and also the time it takes to recover!
Moving on to the music that you play…. What sort of things do you really like playing separately and together?
H: I don’t know where to start! I guess I am not really zoned in on one particular genre or artist. I bought one recently by Bryte and The Busy Twist; kind of like dirty afrobeat, and kind of funky and garage-y. That’s 136bpm, very dancey.
P: There’s so much wicked music at the moment! Randall’s got a new EP out which I love at the moment. What I would say about what we play, I always hark back to DJ Die, he is like a hero of mine; his label, Gutterfunk, have this tag; ‘it's not a genre it’s a vibe’. To me that really sums it up; dance music has become a lot less genre-defined, if you see what I mean. Before, for years, genres were quite clearly defined, and now they are getting mixed up.
BPM (beats per minute) wise, the speed of the tunes we play, we will play a set and it will go from 80bpm up to 170, Hannah has done a 4.5 hour mix recently, she’s obsessed, but it is so good, and has so much different stuff in it! So we are playing loads of stuff from steppas, 80bpm stuff, to old school house; I am really digging into the old DIY house stuff from the early 90s at the moment. But then there is a new genre, for want of a better word, called 160, so there are loads of tunes we are playing at 160bpm; they have elements of happy hardcore, jungle, house, but are very much of themselves.
I have been playing since 1995 and it just gets more and more exciting, because the amount and variety of tunes, and the quality of production is so good, and we are dipping into all of that. I suppose it would depend on where we play,
H: It depends more on the vibe of where we are playing. Sometimes we will play r&b, but bassy r&b.
P: I used to play a lot of jungle and we are both still really into that. But stuff I am into at the moment, like I said, Die and Gutterfunk, there is loads of groundbreaking stuff on that label. Astrophonica and Fracture as well.
When we play the livestream, doing an hour might be quite difficult, we may have to do two! Basically there are just sooo many tunes, it’s a shame we can’t play out. But we are grateful for this opportunity to play.
Have either of you done any other livestreams?
H We did one for the Plough with DJ Dad in the last lockdown.
P: Yeah, that was fun.
H: Every Sunday he was doing a livestream from his kitchen, he had us on his last one towards the end of the first lockdown, he was in his kitchen and we were here in Dad’s house, all on Zoom, so that was fun because you could see everyone.
P: What was really fun, my mate Dotty was in Guernsey or Jersey, one of the two, and our mate Tomas was in Iceland, not the one down the road but the country, and they were both on the screen dancing in time, and it just seemed pretty mental. And Tomas went out for a walk as far as he could before his wifi cut out, and was dancing to our mix up a mountain in Iceland.
So, they will never replace playing live, but you have enjoyed doing them for different reasons?
P: Yeah, and also just playing is really fun, I don’t get around to it enough. You play a lot at home don’t you Hannah?
Once all this changes, what do you want to happen next with your DJing and music?
H: I am hoping to go and play with Dad and Booty Bass at all the festivals we missed!
P: I am not even sure that is going to be next year.
H: Let’s hope for the best and plan for the worst!
P: I am trying to hold all of that to one side because I don’t want to get too excited and then too disappointed, but there are some healthy signs like a potential vaccine. I am the same as Hannah, I want to go and play at festivals. I am also writing a film soundtrack, that is what I am really focusing on, that is why lock down has been really good, because I can focus on that. It’s a really interesting project, it’s a documentary in the poetic mode, by a poet from Liverpool. It is like a moving painting, so I am putting music and soundscape to that. Also, we are making stuff together.
H: I have not been making music for a long time, but I am getting my studio sorted, I am still working, and also DJing loads, but it is good to have music to make.
P: Hannah will come over and I will be like ‘Let’s make a beat’ and she is all ‘No! Let’s mix some tunes!’
H: I have all this technical stuff to learn because I have a new studio. It can be a barrier, especially when you are like ‘I want to make music now!’ So mixing is more immediate, you can just get your tunes out and go ‘let’s do some mixing!’ Making music is great though... I did music technology at uni but I moved away from it. I was looking for jobs, but I have a job now and I can put more time into it now that I have my studio set up and ready to go.
