This Friday – 25th August, Lift Your Feet join us for their first party at The Imaginarium. We spoke to the heads behind this night about their inspiration and plans…
Imaginarium: What Inspired Lift Your Feet?
Harry Rook: I feel all three of us align around our taste in music, which is incredibly eclectic, but meets at a parallel love for soul and jazz flavours. We wanted to start a club night with this at the core – playing the offspring of these genres, anything from disco and funk to UK garage and broken beat.
Upside Your Mind: Yeah with Harry on that – we have been part of some real festival and dancefloor moments that lit up our imaginations, really memorable moments such as the Jazz room at the Hydra for a Ninja Tune Birthday, We Out Here Festival, Another Sunday Afternoon at Dingwalls, Cosmic Slop, these great collectives and more pushing absolute joy out of the speakers.
Imaginarium: Why Did you choose The Imaginarium as a venue?
Prawn Posture: We chose Imaginarium as a venue because we love the cosy communal & friendly feel to the space – it’s almost like being at a house party! It’s great to have the space downstairs as well to make the event more dynamic, which we’re making use of for the pre party.
Imaginarium: Tell us a bit about the DJs playing at this party…
Upside Your Mind: The vibe at Lift Your Feet is very much about celebrating the family tree and all the branches of Soul and Jazz that connect – so we have picked out spinners who really know and cherish this side of music and want to play with lots of love and have fun with the possibilities of throwing all the variations into the mix.
Myself, Harry and Natasha (Prawn Posture) are the residents/promoters, our guest Ben Hauke is a real hero to us and we decided really quickly on trying to secure him for our first Leeds party. He is a proper mainstay of the London scene and has a crazy range (check his bandcamp) and you will see the breadth of his capabilities and skill as a producer. Everything though from the smoothest beats to the grittiest UKG and DNB flavours has a signature tone and his sampling from Soul and Jazz originals is absolutely shit hot. He’s had releases on Far Out, Touching Bass, YAM, Coop and tons more, plus he runs his own imprint ‘Woop’. Ben is a Rinse resident and his Club Cute Show takes you on a total ride every month with some mega guests. This Friday Ben is playing a DJ set however check his insta to see him rattling floors with live MPC1000 sets and routines!
We are also being treated to sets at Plant and Deck from 7-10 with Hattie MS and Alilou, Hattie is Leeds side and Ali is repping York strong and has done for many years, the vibe there is setting the tone for proceedings with some exceptional selections from the archives, warming up the bar for the night ahead! You can visit our insta page for the DJ picks we have posted, get a feeling for the breadth and tone of where we are all collectively coming from.
Imaginarium: Are there any other projects you’ve been working on recently?
Prawn Posture: I recently helped organise a fundraiser at the Imaginarium for local station Alto Radio which showcased some of our residents. We’re hoping that there’ll be a second “dream team” event so keep your eyes peeled!
Harry: I’m continuing my radio work, which I have been doing seriously now for 3 years, currently with LDC Radio every Saturday morning 7am-9am…although the slot will be moving soon. I also hosted a talk panel at this year’s Leeds Jazz Festival, speaking with local jazz musicians…and something I will be rolling over into next year’s festival. Other than that, you can find me DJing around the city – at places like Eat Your Greens, Belgrave/Headrow, Fearns…and more!
Upside Your Mind: I have a residency on Voices Radio which celebrates Ambient, experimental, free Jazz and field recordings, its called Be More Well and gives me great peace to do as its an important side of my musical make up and a real monthly therapy!
I also run a global sounds party called ¡TROPICA! (Harry is a resident) together with a York legend Dave Atkin (Drummie Dave) which moves around venues and outdoor spaces in the city. We have the support of the mega Crescent Community Venue who have us support touring bands, so we get to see some beautiful musicians from around the world! We have new residencies at The Micklegate Social and Rise in York, very different but ace spaces – through this project I get to really explore musicality from afar and very different perspectives from the western attitudes to musical form, so it’s a super uplifting party and rewarding experience – we will be 7 this year!
I also have a great residency on my local road at a beautiful little spot called Angel on The Green, run by absolute heroes and a boss bar team with Bella at the helm. This is a chance to catch up with pals from round the way and have heads come down and spin a few records, super chill but an essential make up of the musical excursions. They have a sick Italian chef Alessandro, who runs Spaghetti Junction which adjoins there- and a magic bagel pop up at weekends in the morning with Bobbins Bagels – it’s a right vibe. This year I am feeling blessed to play 4 festivals, Musicport, Beatherder, Deershed and Leeds Jazz with Harry, its been a treat!
Imaginarium: Any plans for the future?
Harry: We are gonna keep expanding…inviting some of our favourite DJs to Leeds, and holding down our parties in York, held in The Den (the basement of The Micklegate Social). Here we let the residents play longer and have some Leeds friends come over to show York what they have in the crates. We want to alternate the parties between both cities and add our little bit to the conversation of the scene! We are also exploring events outside of club nights. Follow us on our Instagram @lift_your_feet for all the hot news happening with us. Thanks for listening, and hope to meet you soon!
Tickets available from Resident Advisor
Interview – R Brehl