Published by Desi Soto from LA Trance Scene Blog on January 30, 2021
No stranger to our blog but Ganesh is a legend that always will have our support. With the uncertainty of the the music industry hanging in the balance creativity and goals have risen. We have noticed one major thing that happened last year.. Djs started record labels.. created the most amazing tracks… and brought sets to streaming channels. Ganesh was no exception. Portland’s own has accomplished a lot in his 26 year Dj career but that alone is an accomplishment. We sat down with our friend Ganesh to talk about his label HQ Records, his new techno label and much more.
Thank you so much for talking with us Ganesh … not a stranger to our blog… your record label HQ Records which is a harder side of trance really has made noise… How did the label come about?
It’s absolutely my pleasure! Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you again. As for the label it just kind of happened. My now partner Peter Miskelly, a.k.a. Pete Delete reached out to be regarding my release on FSOE Clandestine, “Emergent” and we got to talking. We both had an interest in the “harder side of trance”, if you will, and how it was an underrepresented style. Not really Tech or Hard Trance, but a driving and energetic, “hands-in-the-air” style that reminded us of that classic era in the early ‘00s, but modernized. Once we had the Idea, we needed an image, a brand, and that’s where Amanda Vanderheyden, got involved. She is the hardest working of us. HQ wouldn’t be what it is without her.
You have had that label for a substantial time … but what would you like to accomplish with the record label in the future?
Really, to just survive COVID! We just did full rebranding for 2021 across all of our media platforms and we are going to reduce our output a bit, as well. Now that we have, sort of, established ourselves, we want to try to really focus on quality over quantity.
So we hear you will be launching a techno label… which we think techno is becoming more appealing to fans … tell us about the label?
Who told you! Well, this will be the first mention of it publicly but it’s still very much in the early stages. It will be a “techno” label but still very heavily trance influenced. The inspiration is coming from the sounds of The Yellowheads’, label “Reload” and the “Hard Rave” sound of T78’s “Autektone”. That’s all I’m willing to divulge, at the moment!
It’s so hard especially in these crazy times we are currently living in to keep the music going …. how do you feel streaming channels like TWITCH are reaching another audience?
It’s been, to use such an overused term, unprecedented. No one could have imagined what has happened to our scene. As surreal as it has been, services like Twitch have been like a savior, of sorts. Allowing us, as DJs and ravers, to still have a place we can meet and interact and still keep our family ties, close. Lots of artists have soared on live streams and I really feel that it may be the only way many of us will feel safe to get together until we have a real handle on this horrific virus.
After the pandemic is over … and events hopefully coming back… what are you looking forward to when it comes to your labels or your Dj sets?
Honestly, I just want them to still exist. We have lost so much. If we can just find a way to get back to it. To have our community back and reignite our scene, that is all anyone should hope for. I pray that we can have, even a fraction of what we once had. That is what I am looking forward to.