DEEP DOWN UNDERGROUND: CALReK (UK)

Undoubtedly one of Plymouth’s most established and skilled Techno DJs, Oorpi Techno’s creator and patriarch Calrek has been a prominent feature of the local underground music scene for over a decade. Combining his love of quality music and technical knowledge, he has brought true underground techno to Plymouth. Realising the need to stay one step ahead of the game, Calrek felt that producing his own tracks was a natural progression. ‘Oorpi 1’ and ‘Oorpi 2’ were soon cut on vinyl and in ‘97, the djs The Instructor and Pathogen premiered them at Oorpi Techno at The Cooperage in Plymouth to the regulars, becoming instant classics.

Oorpi Techno were the pioneers in the Plymouth scene for integrating computer visuals as well as broadcasting live audio and visuals to the globe via Calrek’s Video Chat room, software which he purposely built for this task.

The Oorpi techno events made a positive and lasting impression by incorporating the very best in Opus sound reinforcement systems available at the time. Oorpi later coined the term “Technologically Advanced” as the theme for their events, which has both inspired and set the standard.

Driven by his passion, in his spare time he studied piles of programming manuals. The result was Plymouth’s first internet radio station in 2001 built entirely from scratch. This was a perfect showcase of Calrek’s lifelong philosophy “Do More Things”, and the station was named DMT Net Radio and was a global success!

Always keen to contribute to the University where he works for ICT, Calrek set up Club DMT and brought Oorpi quality to the Student’s Union dancefloor. Calrek’s current internet radio station playmoretechno.net sees him teaming up with Anna Sonic to continue to promote quality music to an even wider audience.

Despite his technical skills, Calrek is a strong believer in maintaining the human element, and if the occasional mix drifts a little, so what? In an age of locked grooves and digital perfection, his presence behind the decks leaves the listener in no doubt that his sets are live and unplanned, spinning with unrivalled finesse.

Having celebrated Oorpi’s tenth anniversary in October ‘05 Calrek has topped the bill at numerous festivals and club events overseas, such as the massive Kazantip techno festival in Crimea in ‘05, ’06, ‘07 and again will be headlining in ’08. Despite his huge popularity in Europe, Calrek remains committed to bringing the best artists to Plymouth, and further collaborations and events are in the pipeline for ‘08 with his new project ETULOSBA.

April ‘08 saw Calrek have his second mainstream television interview, this time for the very popular DJ’s Life show which is broadcast on Star TV based in Odessa, Ukraine.

REMEMBER DMT: DO MORE THINGS!