"Why We All Love Lottie"

Publication: Manchester Evening News
Date: 11.06.04

IT'S Monday afternoon and still we haven't got its interview with DJ Lottie who's playing at Stylus, a night that is surely becoming the coolest night to hear house music in the north west. Sorry Liverpool, you have to deal with it.

Last time they had the fantastic Heather on and this month they have our first lady of house herself, Charlotte Horne. Nevertheless, we find out that Lottie's on a return flight from a tour of Bali, Singapore and Jakarta, which means chances of getting half an hour for a chat are pretty slim. Meanwhile the deadline looms, when suddenly a call comes in.

"I'm jet-lagged out of my mind," says the remarkably chipper DJ, fresh off the plane, "but I thought it would be rude not to call."

Lottie is one of the few British DJs still really making waves and, with enthusiasm like that, you can see why. With a full DJ schedule both at home and abroad, not to mention having the job of standing in for Pete Tong on Radio One 12 times a year, she's fast becoming something of an ambassador of the dancefloor.

"The smaller clubs are doing really well at the moment," she says. "Which is fine by me because I've always played smaller clubs.

"I'm really looking forward to Stylus this weekend mainly because I know that DJ Heather played there last month and she's one of the greatest DJs around."

Filter

A couple of years back, Lottie was famed for championing the filter disco bass bumping house sound. Now she's evolved somewhat.

"I have to entertain myself when I'm DJing," she says, " or I'll bore myself, which isn't at all good for the crowd. The music's got to be good and edgy with new sounds constantly changing.

"At the moment I'm quite electro-influenced, not electroclash, more labels like Ovum and artists like Tiefschwarz. It's still house but a little leaner and stripped down."

As for doing shows on Radio One, she's still a little amazed that's she doing the job. "I love doing Radio One," she says. "My mum phoned me up last time to tell me that I sound posh on the radio, which was funny.

"The first time I did it someone in the studio told me that we would have had about 2m listeners, which freaked me out. Then someone piped up that there were about 12m online and I nearly... well, we won't go into that. They also archive the shows which means that people can listen to stuff any time."

Which begs the question do you listen to yourself on the internet to see if your mistakes sound that bad?

"Uh... yeah," she laughs. "I did it once and it was excruciating. I just thought: why put myself through that? Anyway, look at John Peel. His whole career is founded on making mistakes. Ha!"

DJ Lottie plays at Stylus at The Music Box, Oxford St on Friday, June 11. Other DJs include Les Croasdaile & Scott Carey (The Liquid Djs), AmbidDEXtrous SoundSystem (Lee Gosnay), Homegrown DJs and Marco Giannini. The night runs from 10pm to 3am and admission is '8/7/6.

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