Calibre
Jet Li
Kodie

The Good Bits Main Room, Store St., Dublin

13th February 2010

€10 Door tax

Calibre

Calibre, birth name Dominick Martin, is a Drum and Bass, and Liquid Funk, music producer and DJ hailing from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He originally started producing at a young age and has spent many years refining his sound. He is a classically trained musician playing a variety of musical instruments eventually becoming a self-taught music producer. Martin started producing Drum and Bass in 1995 and his first signed release was credited under the now defunct Quadrophonic label owned by U2.

In addition to impressing some of the biggest names in the business, he soon came to the attention of drum and bass DJ Fabio, who signed Calibre to his influential Creative Source label. While studying Fine Arts at the University of Ulster in Belfast, he became interested in the music of John Cage whose work was influential in entitling Martin’s first album release Musique Concrète in 2001.

Since his initial releases in 2001, Martin has been known for his consistent signature style and sound, which is highly sought after for remixes, by both major labels and independent recording artists.

In 2003, Martin decided to launch his own record label, Signature Records, which became his primary vehicle for launching singles and full-length releases in both vinyl and digital media format. Martin states, “Signature has been set up as an outlet primarily for my own work and collaborations. There won’t be any other artists on the label for the foreseeable future”. For a few years the label’s website ran of the back of Soul:R, the record label he ran alongside Marcus Intalex. With the Soul:R website receiving very few updates since 2006, Calibre has published most of his work and news through his own MySpace Page.

Jet Li

Jet li hails from a small island off the south coast of Ireland called Valentia and first started getting into music at an early age when he heard a tune called Pass the Dutchie by Musical Youth. After that he moved to Manchester in 1991 and found his love for jungle where he stayed for almost 2 years.

On return to his native Island he started running events and djing in local pubs and clubs trying to spread the sound using hip-hop and reggae as a crutch to get jungle heard.   He started the first Drum and Bass event to be held in County Kerry called Manga Nights, which ran for a year or so before he moved to the USA in 1995 where he continued the night called Manga Nights, with a crew called Urban Assault, well known around the San José area and also DJing in many clubs State-side and returning in 1998.

Since then Valentia has become a very well respected home to Drum and Bass and where the infamous Jungle Republic, (brainchild of Jet Li and ran by Phase2 and Bassbin) was run for three years. This is known as the best event ever to hit the Irish shores for the movement of Drum and Bass in Ireland.  It is just one of the many events that Jet Li has been involved in throughout the years both in Ireland and America.

To date Jet Li is found in Cork still pushing the Drum and Bass sound through his studio and promoting through Phase2 (which was set up by Jet Li and DJ Source in 2000) which has brought the likes of Simon Bassline Smith, Total Science, Marcus Intalex, A-Sides, Caliber along with many others to the unexpecting public.

Jet li and Phase2 has had a massive impact on Drum and Bass in Ireland and now with the setting up of phase2recordings, distributed by Nu Urban Music, surely more is to follow