House Proud

Matt Caseli may be winding down a 15-year residency at Pacha Ibiza, but he's beginning a new life in Australia, playing the club's launch at Ivy in Sydney alongside Martin Solveig and Laidback Luke. The Brit DJ, real name Matthew Orr, moved to Cairns to be with his fiancée some months ago. They'll wed in January.

Orr is evidently happy – and settled. He jokes about the influx of (psy-trance) DJs and “ferals” into Northern Queensland for the eclipse while planning an Indian dinner. He has cultivated his own mystique in underground house circles but voluntarily deconstructs it today. For one, he's not Swiss. Until lately, Orr's base was Zurich, Berlin's clubbing twin, hence the confusion. “I'm from England, but I moved to Ibiza in '97 – that's when I started at Pacha,” the chatty Orr explains. “I lived on the island in the winters, but the winters get so boring – you don't get many tourists there. The Zurich thing came up. They wanted me to do a club in Zurich, which was similar to Pacha, and I ended up moving to Switzerland. So I spent winters [in] Zurich, summers Ibiza – perfect!”

Before Pacha, Orr was active in the UK's hardcore scene. An in-house producer at London Records, he worked with the rave outfit Baby D, best known for 1994's crossover hit Let Me Be Your Fantasy. “That was a good run – we had fun with that.” But Orr grew disillusioned with the increasingly “dark” and “moody” drum'n'bass. In 1996 he switched to house. Orr developed a label, Hard Boiled Recordings, and journeyed to the White Isle to hand out promos to DJs. This networking led him to Pacha, where he was offered a fortuitous DJ spot. “I just bagged that residency at Pacha. I did a guest slot one night and they loved it. They fired the guy who was playing – the resident – and I got the job.” Soon Orr was touring as Pacha's global ambassador, the club franchise having originated in Spain's countercultural Sitges during the '60s. He was even resident at Pacha Moscow and played the debut of Pacha London. Along the way, he adopted an alternative DJ surname, Caseli. “I thought, Ooh, something a bit Italian sounds good,” he chuckles. Orr also amped up his production output. He'd release music on the US Soulfuric Recordings as well as Mousse T's Peppermint Jam.  

In recent times Orr has found a powerful ally in the Swedish House Mafia's Axwell, who signed his 2010 Sign Your Name, a remake of Terence Trent D'Arby's '80s soul hit, with Danny Freakazoid to Axtone Records. They initially hoped to have D'Arby, now living in Italy, feature on it. “Terence wanted 20 grand for his original voice and we said, 'Are you joking?' Then he said, 'I changed my name to Sananda Francesco Maitreya and Terence is dead.' I said, 'Okay, so you don't want the money, then? You don't need the money if he's dead!' He goes, 'No, I still want the money'.” Ax, as Orr calls him, shrewdly commissioned a replay of the vocals for “only two grand” (Maitreya gets royalties). Orr's Melbourne mates Feenixpawl remixed it (incidentally, they crashed his engagement party in Cairns).

It transpires that Orr hasn't officially quit Pacha Ibiza – yet. “I'm not sure if I'll go back next summer,” he divulges. “I mean, I've done 15 summers, it's a lot, and then I play five nights a week – it's pretty crazy. I'm nearly 40, so I've really had a good run over there. I might go back. I've still got to weigh it up yet, see how it goes here.” He speaks nostalgically of the club and its role in house's explosion. “When we started back in the '90s, we were playing a lot of New York house music – really US house, like Latin house, all this sort of funky, groovy stuff – which you just can't play anymore in Ibiza.” He'll occasionally “squeeze” an old classic into his DJ sets. Orr recollects, too, the odd celebrity hanging out at Pacha – among them a member of the purist rock band Oasis. Orr's friend had requested Here Comes The Sun be dropped so he could propose to his girlfriend on the dancefloor. “Noel Gallagher's at the bar laughing his socks off.” He has other stories. “Jamiroquai [Jay Kay] was always there hanging out with us,” Orr says. “Probably one of the highlights of Pacha for us is when Jamiroquai came in with a 12-inch vinyl of Feels So Good and just gave me the vinyl and sung it in the DJ booth while I played it. That was just insane. I didn't stop talking about that for months.” Nevertheless, Orr is aware that dance music is transient. He's adeptly reinvented himself, if not simply evolved. Orr welcomed the arrival of Swedish House Mafia at Pacha Ibiza. “People sort of go, Pacha's not SHM – but, I tell ya, they worked so well. They've still got that house touch, even though it's bangin'. It's not ugly on the ears.”

In 2012 Orr is intrigued that the post-dubstep crowd are unearthing US house. “It was funny – my cousin's only about 21 and he suddenly discovered all this old '90s Kerri Chandler NY stuff. He's like, 'Oh yeah, this is coming a bit around now and we're mixing it with dubstep.' I went, really? Jesus, that's cool.” But, despite his jungle roots, Orr isn't a dubstep fan. “I honestly hate it, I'm sorry to say,” he laughs freely. “I don't wanna speak ill of any music, but it's just one sound where the people look stupid when they're dancing to it – it's like a headbangers' rock'n'roll dance sound... I like a lot of stuff, I even like psy-trance, but that I don't like.”

At any rate, Orr hopes to become a regular presence at Pacha Sydney, letting slip that he'll next appear in January. “For me, moving to Australia and getting married, this is perfect for me to be able to maybe play there once a month and still keep in with the Pacha brand. That's just really great timing.” Orr doesn't typically DJ in Cairns – it's so ultra-commercial – but he is travelling around Australia and Asia (Singapore and emerging hotspot Hong Kong). He's thrown himself into production, although much of his studio gear remains in Zurich. It's surprisingly easy to collaborate online, Orr notes. As such, he has two singles due on OneLove – the first, The Longest Road, again with Danny Freakazoid (and vocalist Joel Edwards) out the week following his Pacha gig. There's also the prospect of a third single on Axtone. “I've actually done more this year than ever by skipping Ibiza a little bit and really concentrating on the production for a change.”

Orr is chuffed to be DJing after Laidback Luke in the main room at Pacha Sydney's opening. He promises “an Axwell-style set” in sync with his Axtone and other productions of late. “I'll be playing big vocal house, progressive, nothing too electro – no electro [laughs] – so just a good main-room house sound.”