Matthew Belleghem

About me:

As a child, I used to wake my family up every morning by dragging a turntable into the hallway and playing marching band records at full volume. As an adult, not much has changed. Musically, my preference is for music that is melodic and uplifting. Call it IDM, EDM, deep house, trance, electronica, electro, minimal, ambient, progressive, whatever you like - I think genre tags are artificial constructs built and perpetuated by lazy journalists and worse to keep our ears in boxes. To me, music is music.

While living in Australia, I was fortunate enough to play alongside a number of international DJs, including Christopher Lawrence, Kyau & Albert, Steve May, Luke Chable and Martin Roth. During my last year there, my residencies included a weekly (Sundays 6AM-noon) at one of Melbourne's best-kept underground secrets, Bar Altitude. It’s where Steve Porter, Ronski Speed, Adam White, Robert Nickson and John Askew played when they were last through town (Chris Lum even had a residency there for a while!), and when people talk about Melbourne's legendary 24-hour nightclub scene, it's venues like Altitude that they're talking about. Sadly, Altitude has since been sold - but we sure did rock it one last time during the three-day sillyfest that was this past NYE/NYD 2008.

In late 2005 I partnered with Melbourne's rising star Ben Evans to start the Interview parties, which have rapidly revitalised Melbourne's underground melodic dance music scene (more on that story here). Now three years in, Interview has introduced Melbourne to the sounds of England's Andy Moor, Germany's Martin Roth, Canberra's Jaytech and more, as well as providing a regular stomping ground for some of Melbourne's finest up-and-coming melodic beat producers and DJs. Late last year, I was proud as punch to put the Interview logo on an Area709 flyer here in Calgary, as Interview's Andrew Campbell flew into town to show Canada just how big Melbourne's beats can be.

As a DJ, for the past year and a half I've been a resident at Seven on 8th Ave at 5th St SW in Calgary, where I play a four hour set every Saturday night (although I'm off for the month of June). For the past three years I've also held down a monthly residency as part of Area709's Pure.Prog parties with Area709 head honcho Wes Straub and Release/Toes in the Sand recording artist Rob Curtis. Until recently, these parties were at Amsterdam Rhino on 11th Ave and 5th St SW, but as of May 2009 they've moved to Balance Lounge on 16th Ave and 14th St SW. I also occasionally play Calgary venues like Tantra, Habitat and The Whiskey (recent support gigs include Mr. C, Max Graham and Menno De Jong), and at private parties around Calgary and Vancouver on a regular basis. If you'd like to hear my music or read some of my writing, head on over to Area709.