Roller Chats with Telloport

James Anatello aka Telloport only started DJing 3 years ago but he’s already starting to make a name for himself – with a love of all things Liquid and Dancefloor we’re very excited to have him making his first appearance at roller this Easter – the roller lads sat down with him for a chat, read on to find out what he had to say.

Roller:  Hey James, great to have you board for roller this year, you go by the name “Telloport”, can you tell us a bit about how that came about?

Telloport:

Thank you so much for having me!  Well, Telloport is a wordplay with my surname “Anatello” and “teleport”.  I think it is quite fitting as I do like to take people to different places through my sets.  While I was thinking of names, my friends were telling me that it should have some resemblance to my name and this has stuck.

Roller:  You come to us with a reputation for loving the liquid and dancefloor styles of drum & bass, can you tell us what you love about these flavours?   And some of your favourite artists in each style?

Telloport:

You know, the first few times I listened to drum and bass, I was not really a fan! I thankfully pursued it further and started to find what I really enjoyed.  The Liquicity Year mixes by Maduk were my first taste of dance floor drum and bass that I really enjoyed.  The vocals, synths and clean production were really up my alley and I gravitated to it.  From there, artists like Sub Focus, Wilkinson and Friction to name a few became part of my sets.  For the deeper and soulful liquid sounds, I was hooked from the moment I listened to the Sound Territory Mixes on Youtube.  From there, it has been such a vast expanse with the different styles of liquid and soulful tunes that I really enjoy.  My most represented label whose sound I enjoy here is C Recordings. So many great and also lesser-known artists there who have outstanding production.  Liquid to me is such a versatile sound because on one hand, you can lounge to it but the next minute you can be cutting shapes to it too!

Roller:  Can you describe the type of sets you play?  Is it a mix of these styles?

Telloport:

I do enjoy playing a variety of genres but in the drum and bass world, I do tend to play both of these styles, often together as well.  As I am a big fan of vocal tracks too, I ensure that there is plenty of this for a crowd to sing along and groove to.  Telloport sets always love to have emotion as well as a journey, two things I really do believe to be important in set creation.  I also love and appreciate when promoters put set lists to create a journey of music throughout an event as well.

Roller:  You have played quite a few outdoor festivals in the last 12 months, what are some of the highlights of those gigs (and types of gigs) that you’d like to share with us?

Telloport:

This has been quite a special year.  I only learnt to DJ just shy of 3 years ago and I have had some really great opportunities in the last 12 months.  Starting a year ago, BIOMA’s Full Circle festival was the first time I got to play this sound I love the most in that setting.  It was great to have a mainly progressive house crowd grooving along to drum and bass and even had some people come up to me afterwards asking about the style of music and where they could explore it further which was quite special.  It was also such an honour to close the Garden Stage at Blossom Festival on the last night as well.  One for the memory bank was actually at Rain Dance Festival when I had decided to omit a summery track as it was a gloomy day.  As the band after me had some flight delays, I had to extend the set while they set up and I decided to play it.  At the exact moment when the tune dropped “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”, the clouds parted and the sun shone through.  Smiles and cheers were had and it seemed as though mother nature was listening!

Roller: We were excited to hear that you won The Connect DJ competition recently, what was it like taking part in that competition?   Were there different sorts of nerves at play?   Was it a lot of fun?

Telloport:

I had a few people tell me that I should give it a go as they had provided a brief which included liquid drum and bass.  One of the challenges I found was trying to find what I would describe as darker and moodier tracks as I felt that sound best represented the sound they were looking for whilst still keeping it true to the Telloport style of set too.  The greatest hurdle was actually trying to represent a journey that I would normally have over an hour or longer, into a minimix.  In the end, I would say it was very fun, a great learning experience and was of course thrilled to be a winner, considering the number of quality mixes that were submitted.

Roller:  Can you tell us about creating Nezus Productions and what you are looking to bring to the people of Perth with that platform?

Telloport:

I am of course very passionate about the liquid dnb sound, especially the newer tracks and artists coming through.  I have felt that it is quite an underrepresented sound in the Perth drum and bass scene.  The Liquid Ascension event series has been created to share my love for liquid and similar flavours and also give a platform for other DJs to do the same.  I truly felt blessed that the launch event in December sold out and there is another one on March 17th with a great local lineup once again.  Hopefully in the future, it would be great to bring along some of my favourite artists to play here in Perth.

Roller:  What are you looking forward to most about roller this year?

Telloport:

Honestly, Roller has been such a big part of drum and bass in Perth for a very long time and while I have attended a few of them over the years, I am really excited to contribute to them in a different way and share my sound to everyone there.  The lineup has some DJs I really enjoy so will be keen to check out their sets too!

Roller:  Are you able to share a Top 5 with us?

Telloport:

Ooh this is always a tough one because 5 is never enough! But I will say the 5 producers who I really tend to include in most of my sets are Hybrid Minds, Friction, Keeno, Nymoz and Maduk.

You can catch Telloport at our “roller EASTER Thursday” event on Thursday 28th of March from 6pm, for more details see our event listing here:

https://rosemounthotel.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/65c4844f-16ba-4074-b699-b8fef7f60c7c

FB event link:   https://www.facebook.com/events/1099569484680853