The Welsh-born electronic music DJ, Benjamin Damage, kept the dance floor at Dublin, popular discotheque at the Sheraton Park Hotels and Towers, busy last Friday as he took his place behind the console and belted out some groovy numbers.
Leaving out the cities that have attracted well-known international DJs in the past, Benjamin Damage is playing in cities such as Kolkata, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad as part of the tour organised by Red Bull Music Academy. The mission, he says, is to spread awareness about electronic music in cities with a rich tradition of music.
After he began making music as a young teen, Benjamin reveals that that there was no particular time in his life when he thought he wanted to become an artist.
Talking about his early influences, “I grew up listening to Jungle and Rave, which are quite dated today. But they have influenced my music,” says Benjamin.
Speaking just before he took centrestage, Benjamin spoke of how he approaches gigs where he knows that people might not be aware of electronic music. “I don’t work with plans and constantly experiment.”
He was in a way preaching to the choir as electronic music lovers filled the dance floor. He presented tunes that could be called a hybrid of electronic and house music. Originally hailing from Swansea, Wales, Benjamin has been quite surprised with the level of popularity that electronic music enjoys in pockets of urban India. “I have been listening to some of the work produced by Indian artists and I am quite impressed,” he says.
Through-out his close to two-hour performance that started around midnight, Benjamin didn’t let the tempo drop, always constantly mixing and matching. “It is about creating an atmosphere and playing with it. I take cues from those on the dance floor and improvise,” he says.
