Introducing: Shanti Celeste

Involved in a lot of things, Shanti Celeste is a name that’s been slowly rippling out of the South West more and more recently. Her two appearances on London based radio stations, Moxie’s show on NTS Live and Hypercolour’s show on Rinse have revealed a house loving selector with a unique style and considering her involvement behind the tills at Idle Hands and behind the books at the vowel-less brstl label and the Housework clubnight, it feels like she’s someone that people are only now, just beginning to scratch the surface of. So with her appearance at the Idle Hands takeover of Room Three this Friday night, we thought it time to introduce her proper, embedding her recent guest spots on radio as we did it. First things first - Please can you quickly introduce yourself and tell us what you’ve been up to the past few months…. My name is Shanti Celeste and these last few months I haven't really been up to much, except going to the gym and spending countless hours in my studio, and the odd DJ gig here and there. I guess it would be good to know when, where and how did you get into music production and DJing? I first had a go at DJing when I was 17. A good friend of mine had some turntables and a good record collection, he taught me how to beat match and that summer i got a job and saved up the money to buy my first set of decks and a mixer. I lived in a small village up north (Windermere, The Lake District) and it was really boring up there, there used to be a lot of illegal raves in the local quarries and the music I would hear at these raves was speed garage, jungle etc. All this as well as a love of music I already had, influenced me to start DJing. It was through DJing that I first realised that I wanted to start making music. I quite often would be playing other peoples’ records and would see people dancing and losing their shit, and it would make me wonder what it would feel like if that was my record! This spurred me on to picking up a cracked copy of Logic, I had several friends teach me the odd thing every now and again until I decided to do a short intensive course to speed things up and become more motivated. You’ve got a forthcoming release on Idle Hands – how did that all come about? I know you’ve been working with those guys for a while now so was the release quite a long process or did it happen quite naturally? It wasn't a very long process but there was a fair bit of back and forth with label manager Chris Farrell. My studio is very close to the shop and I walk past Idle Hands record shop on my way home each day, so every time I would leave the studio with something I had finished I would stop by the shop and give it to Chris to have a listen and that’s how it happened really! I had also by that point been working in the shop for two years so had established a good friendship with Chris. As Idle Hands have been such a pivotal part of Bristol’s music scene; you must feel such a huge sense of achievement being part of the crew. Do you think you’ll be working with them in the future? Definitely, it’s where I started and I think it’s an amazing label/shop plus it feels like family to me. Also, Chris and me are now running the brstl label together so there will always be links between us... Besides the music production, you’ve curated a number of underground techno/house nights in Bristol. Can you tell us a little more about that? They must have been a great platform for yourself and other artists… I co run a night called Housework with some very good friends, previous guests have included Jane Fitz, Anthony Naples, Kassem Mosse and many more. This has been a great platform for me, I love playing in Bristol to my friends. There is no better atmosphere. And what about Bristol right now, who are feeling right now in terms of DJs/producers? Well let’s see… everyone is doing very exciting things! There is Gramrcy he's a wicked producer and has a forthcoming release on Tessela's Polly Kicks imprint. Andy Mac and Jay L are sounding amazing and expecting more vibes from them! Outboxx of course and their beautiful vocalist Naomi Jeremy, Hodge, Facta (his forthcoming release on Idle Hands is killer) also all of the Happy Skull stuff is wicked, Samuel with his debut release coming soon on brstl. Rhythmic Theory is making some banging tunes too. Livity Sound, always love seeing their live shows and there is probably more that I have forgotten. Finally, you are playing for us at FABRICLIVE with Idle Hands this month – what can we expect from that? Well as I'm doing the warm up I’ll be getting everyone in the mood so some happy melodic vibes to start the night off with…