LOVELY, Hong Kong based DJ and Label Manager of TOO MUCH has recently launched an event night and we get to sit down with him to find out more.

hkclubbing.com: You have a new house and garage event at Acquasala Italian Restaurant, can you tell us more about that?

Lovely: The Too Much daytime jam at Acquasala is a laid back event series that puts feel good house and garage music in the heart of Central Hong Kong. The aim is to set a vibe in the street with the DJ booth right by the door of the bar and people jamming around to good music, having a couple drinks. I got the idea from a block party event I DJed at for Sauce Barber. I remember looking around at one point and the inside was empty because everyone was outside laughing and drinking. I quickly realized there should be more of this on a regular basis and so I started making it happen.

hkclubbing.com: We saw two dates for the month of June (the next one on the 17th). Are you planning to have this monthly and also at the same location?

Lovely: It runs twice a month in the middle of the day because I wanted to make it as regular as possible so there's no pressure on it. If you miss one, all good, we'll be there every 2 weeks and it's all streamed online anyway. In terms of growth and impact on Hong Kong's music scene, this was part of a bigger plan to launch Too Much as a record label and I needed a base to get it off the ground. Too Much is the first house, garage and UK bass music record label in Hong Kong and we have some real good music to release once the label officially launches in July so everyone better get ready!

hkclubbing.com: How would you describe your music style and where can we see you on a regular basis each month?

Lovely: I was born and raised in London where I was DJing garage and grime music on pirate radio when I was 15 years old, so my style is heavily influenced by the real deal London sounds from back then. As I grew up and started producing, I changed my focus to drum & bass but after topping the charts several times with tracks I produced for Settledown's record label, Guidance Music, I started to focus on house, uk garage and grime because it's more accessible and the vibes are better for more environments. For this project I wanted to avoid loud, dark rooms at 3am so instead you can catch me playing uk garage and house music at the Acquasala daytime jam twice a month.

hkclubbing.com: Have you been in Hong Kong a long time and how do you find the local electronic music scene?

Lovely: I've been in Hong Kong for 7 years and it has changed a lot. I remember when I got here in 2016 there were quite a lot of drum and bass events going on and hardly any UK garage events. By 2018 the scenes had died down massively and there was pretty much nothing going on so I started my own UK garage and drum & bass event which eventually became one of the most popular underground dance music events in the city, Wonton Bass. That event really revived the UK dance music scene in Hong Kong and it was a lot of fun building it up over the years. Towards the end of 2022 I wanted to leave that event because the other people in the team prioritised "business" over everything else. Eventually they deleted the group's Instagram which forced it to an end. Around the same time I had the idea to refocus on production because I'm one of the only dance music producers in Hong Kong and I think the city needs a more locally produced music output to truly cultivate the scene here. I think that Hong Kong has too many DJ's and not enough artists. The team I'm putting together for Too Much is strictly producers, people who are actively contributing to the scene with creative work. There aren't really any active dance music record labels in Hong Kong and Too Much is here to change that. There are a handful of event promoters in Hong Kong that I have a lot of respect for. Yeti Out have been bridging the gap between East and West for 10 years and they release music through their Silk Road Sounds record label. The Yeti style is more eclectic but I vibe with a lot of it and the team are good people making undeniable moves in the game. Magnetic Soul have been active for 18 years and also release original drum & bass music. Other event promoters to follow are Omni, Sunken, Lamma Sounds, Pitch and Shi Fu Miz. These guys are the ones doing it properly.

hkclubbing.com: What is your favourite bar/ club in Hong Kong that you regularly visit?

Lovely: My favorite spots in Hong Kong change all the time, especially now that I’m stepping away from the night event game. I go to Elgin Street a lot because my boy Bomber runs Sauce Barber over there and Acquasala is a few doors up from that. Bobby's Rabble is a good spot and I want to reach out to them about an idea I had. Recently I've been avoiding going out every weekend so I can focus on producing more music and preparing to launch the label so if I am out, it's usually for low key drinks outside bars in Soho.

hkclubbing.com: You also are the label Manager of TOO MUCH and Independent Record Label, has this been recently launched too? How are things going with developing this business? What kind of music and releases are you planning in the near future?

Lovely: Nice one! The plan with Too Much is to produce and release original music from producers, singers, rappers and MC's from around the world. To kick start the label we will use a handful of my own productions with features from well established vocalists, then we will move towards varying the artists after the second release. I've already signed more tracks from three international artists so it's all falling into place. Once the releases start in July, it will be non stop original music coming straight out of Hong Kong. We will mostly focus on the house and garage side of UK bass music but we will cover any genre that has a good vibe to it so you can expect a bit of drum & bass, jungle, dubstep, funky house and anything that falls into the Too Much sound.

hkclubbing.com: We saw you on the stage at Clockenflap 2022, what other special events have you DJed at and what plans have you got over this Summer?

Lovely: Haha thanks, yea Clockenflap was mad! Around the same time I started to refocus on production, I was inspired to create a live set rather than just DJ because it feels like pretty much everyone's a DJ now and I wanted to do something that nobody else could do. I had the idea to breakdown tracks I produced to play them live on a Native Instruments Machine and started to get the live show together. It's funny because at that time, I told everyone I could see myself doing it at Clockenflap and a month later I got a call to be on the line up. I said yes, finished preparing the live set and practiced it every day for 5 weeks. First time performing it outside of my studio was in front of a sold out Clockenflap stage so that was definitely something I'll never forget! I got a lot of good feedback from that and I think it was perfect for that environment. It's weird though, I'm not sure why but it really feels like it's time to start planning Lovely Live 2!

Check out his latest mix below,

(image source: Lovely provided)