Local brothers Sam Moffat and Caleb Brown recently launched the first episode of their bi-monthly one-hour live electronic music show, Naturalist Radio.
Moffat, 24 and Brown, 25 were born and raised in Fernie, and are excited to bring a steady flow of electronic music to the people of Fernie and the surrounding areas.
Brown started mixing six years ago, and Moffat soon after this. Both brothers perform live as DJ’s under the stage names, Mr. Moffat and Flatspin.
Moffat has always been a musician, playing the guitar growing up and dabbling on his father’s drum kit.
“When I found electronic music, I kind of went off on that tangent and found a new love for music and performing as well,” he said.
For Brown, he only discovered a talent in music once he found the electronic genre. It was in 2010 that he tried out his first set of turntables.
From 2014 to 2016, Moffat was in Vancouver studying audio engineering and music production. After expanding his knowledge in what he loved, Moffat came running back to the mountain town after discovering the city was not for him.
Brown and Moffat were inspired to create this podcast for the side of Fernie that doesn’t find satisfaction in the music on the radio.
“The radio here doesn’t appeal to a lot of our age group, and the other side of the music industry that Fernie is, and that is electronic music,” said Brown.
“I started to dream, and I dreamt big,” he added.
Brown envisioned he and his brother appearing on the radio for an hour everyday, playing tunes that they like. However many restrictions come into play when broadcasting on Canadian radio, which in part include the obligation to play a certain amount of Canadian music. As well, it’s hard to fund radio which brings in the requirement of ads. The brothers had no desire to play ads during their one-hour set, so they resorted to online live-streaming.
Contrary to what the DJ’s traditionally play at night in front of people, the goal for Naturalist Radio is to create a set of mellow tunes which could be played throughout the day. Another goal is to introduce people to new music.
“It all depends on the atmosphere,” said Moffat. “I love getting down to some rowdy [music] at a festival or a bush party or at the bar. But it’s not [techno] all the time.”
Both admit that performing live on the internet is more stressful than performing in front of a crowd. However, the brothers say there is a huge freedom in being able to play what they want, say what they want and play up to three hours a day. Asked if they are doing this for the money, the two shook theirs heads and said they’re just doing it because they love music.
In the future, the brothers hope to not only feature the music they love, but eventually some guest mixes from DJ’s both locally and from out of town. At the moment the two each have 650 followers on Soundcloud, but hope to see this rise as more people find out about their new show.
The next episode of Naturalist Radio is set to go live on May 26 at 8:00 p.m. MDT.
Catch it at Spreaker.com/show/naturalist-radio.