In today’s music world, it’s good to be a multi-hyphenate. Just ask James Barrett.
Alongside his partner, Marie Celeste, he runs HAVEN, an Ōtautahi Christchurch-based record label that puts on some of the best raves in the city. (As this recent feature notes, techno is thriving down in Christchurch.)
He’s also the producing wizard behind Keepsakes, a genre-blending project that has taken him to some of the best electronic music cities in the world.
Barrett quickly took Keepsakes from his Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland living room to warehouse raves in Paris, playing in front of thousands of techno superfans, and Berling’s truly legendary Tresor club, which still likes to host him to this day.
Into his second decade of doing this, the British-New Zealand producer is a music purist (complimentary): the reason he keeps pumping out stellar releases while concurrently running a label and party series is out of a sincere love of independent music.
The latest Keepsakes EP, Dystopian Euphoria, dropped recently, which Barrett describes as “an exploration of more alien and experimental sound design.”
“I always start my music making with at least a month or so of pure sound experimentation before I get too committed to writing the tracks, and this time I found myself playing around a lot with what I could get out of vocoders and resonators,” he explains.
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“The A1 track ‘Vocoding Your Nan Out of Existence’ was the first track that directly resulted from that when I started running cut-up vocal patterns through some of the FX racks I’d come up with.
“The B-side follows a lot more of the techno machine-funk you might’ve heard in my other recent EPs – ‘Ready2BeginWot?’ combines loopy vocals and short delayed congas, ‘Hollow and Suited’ gets those tribalistic drums rolling alongside a heavily resonated vocal line.
“The final track ‘Corvid House’ is a lot more euphoric – an emotion I’ve always loved in dance music – with its big pads and swinging drums. I also sampled a bunch of crow sounds from old video games in that track to inject something just a lil bit silly in there too.
“It’s important not to always take dance music too seriously sometimes, I think.”
Next up for HAVEN is a mid-winter event this Saturday (July 25th), featuring three of Aotearoa’s “finest tekno selectors” at Christchurch’s Galaxy Bar.
Tickets are available here.
We caught up with Keepsakes as part of our Up-And-Coming Aotearoa Artists series to find out more about his career journey, his work with HAVEN, his thoughts on electronic music, and more.
Keepsakes’ Dystopian Euphoria is out now.
Rolling Stone AU/NZ: How much did music influence you in your early life?
Keepsakes: It was an essential part of life growing up around rural England in the ’90s with a father who was a big music fan across a lot of genres of music – everything from punk, to reggae, to dance music, to hip-hop was simply the soundtrack to daily life. As quaint as the English countryside is, as a young person you’re always looking for a break from the drudgery and conservatism of it all – and with very few decent venues or quality nightlife in the area, one of the few escapes for me was in listening to and making music.
I initially was a drummer in punk bands when I first started getting involved with creating music, but then got kicked out of the last band I was in for not being straight-edge – I have ultimately been a degenerate for a long time and won’t let anything take that from me.
Dance and electronic music had always been there in the background growing up, with our parents even taking my sister and I to the occasional festival when we were kids. I had played around with cracked copies of music-making software since around the age of 13, and then getting kicked out of that band convinced me to start making music by myself and I’ve never looked back. That whole sequence of events has led me to where I am now with my music.
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What artists influenced you growing up?
It was getting turned on to early UK dubstep in my teens that really what sparked my initial interest in dance music – early Kode 9 (especially the album with Spaceape) and Hyperdub records, Skream, Benga, those early Burial records are all what encouraged me to take a further interest in producing music myself. I was also listening to a lot of hip-hop at this time – I loved MF Doom and Madlib in particular.
As dubstep slowly morphed in to the EDMified version, and a lot of those artists moved away from it, I slowly got exposed to more and more music that sat closer to techno in that post-dubstep era – Joy Orbison, Pearson Sound, Swamp81 artists even stuff from the Night Slugs camp (especially Jam City). From there I slowly got more and more introduced to techno as producers like Blawan, Joy O, Boddika, Randomer started moving their sound in that direction.
Eventually I met my partner who put me on to those harder edged ’90s techno from the likes of Jeff Mills, Surgeon, Regis, early Drumcode records – and from there I haven’t looked back.
What are some career highlights so far?
My first vinyl release on Ansome’s South London Analogue Material label back in 2014 was a real stand-out moment for me. I learnt to DJ on vinyl so finally having my own music on that format in my hands felt like a dream come true at that time – let alone getting the opportunity to work with a bigger label for the first time.
Getting to work with some more of my favourite techno labels over the past few years has been a massive highlight. KAOS/OAKS, Perc Trax, and Boys Noize Records have all had such a strong output since I started DJing, and to be included on their discography is a huge honour. Even more surreal for me was releasing on Turbo Recordings last year – their releases from the likes of Clouds, Randomer and JoeFarr were hugely influential on me when I first started taking making techno seriously.
Touring in Europe for the first time in 2016 was also a pretty crazy experience. When I first started releasing my techno tracks internationally there wasn’t a huge scene for techno in Auckland, where I was living at the time, so I went from mostly just mixing records in my living room with my mates to suddenly playing to 3,000 people at warehouse raves in Paris, playing places like Corsica Studios in London. A year later, I also got to play at Berlin’s legendary and foundational Tresor club for the first time – where I’m proud to still play at today.
Launching HAVEN – the record label and party series I run with my partner Marie Celeste – has also been a huge thing in my career to date. We began as a small party in Tāmaki Makaurau in 2015, but then developed in to a vinyl-focused record label in 2018 – going on to release the likes of VTSS, Tommy Holohan, Ryan James Ford, Peder Mannerfelt, WTCHCRFT, and many more. We still operate as an event in Ōtautahi today – running DIY raves out of an old video games arcade on the outskirts of the central city.
What kind of personality traits and values do you believe it takes to succeed in the music industry?
It really depends what kind of artist you want to be. I think a lot of people in dance music go the influencer route these days and don’t really have much of an artistic practice behind them, which frees up that time to focus purely on marketing and social media. Going this route, I think, is a little bit cheap for the overall culture, but can certainly lead to success. I do think it’s kind of a shame that the most financially successful artists in Aotearoa within dance music we see these days tend to fall in to this category rather than real creators.
I think if you want to have a bit more artistic integrity then perseverance with your creative direction is really important – not trying to chase trends too hard and being in your own lane can sometimes be painful, but can make you stand out from a sea of cookie-cutter music releases that I know techno often falls in to. And then working hard on your craft as a music writer/producer and performer is so important – to have anyone engage with your music at all you need to make sure you’re presenting something worthwhile or why should anyone listen at all?
How would you describe your music to a potential fan?
Unhinged basement music for misfits and degenerates.
Where’s your favourite place to play in Aotearoa?
There’s so many!!
First and foremost, I love playing in my current home-base of Ōtautahi. We have such a strong and supportive tight-knit rave community down here and it’s always a pleasure looking out on the dance floor and seeing so many familiar, friendly faces getting down.
I particularly love playing at Galaxy Bar here – where we host the HAVEN events – it’s such a unique space with just the right amount of chaotic energy and friendliness to make for an amazing atmosphere to hold a rave in. The team there have been so supportive of us and so many other party promoters and are such a pleasure to work with.
Pōneke has always been good to me too – it was the first place I ever got booked to play out-of-town around 2014 or 2015. I think it’s the city in Aotearoa that techno seems to resonate in the most – I don’t remember ever playing a dead gig there in over a decade of playing in the city. Nightlife in general seems to be quite strong there, which I think is owed in a big part to both their strong cultural scene and the very walkable layout of the city.
I have to give a shout out to Twisted Frequency Festival too – it’s been my annual NYE pilgrimage for the past five years now, and I genuinely hope they keep operating despite their recent struggles. It’s a very unique event for Aotearoa – bringing together every form of underground music we have in the country in a beautiful environment for 4 night straight. For me, it’s the peak of partying in Aotearoa – combining incredible production along with that kind of natural environment is something that only this country can offer.
What are your goals for 2026 and beyond?
My main goal is really to keep grinding in the studio as much as I can and keep refining my sound design and music making processes. I’ve already been working hard on my next tracks since I arrived back from my last Europe tour in December – but I think a lot more work and refining is going to be necessary before I’m happy with the results. The past few years I’ve made music at a slightly frenetic pace and I’m keen to take a step back and take my time with the next tracks I work on.
