There are a many ways to experience the world of electronic dance music – DJ, producer, promoter, punter. Brisbane all-rounder Leo Hede comfortably straddles all of these four elements, equally at home spinning tunes to 5pm or 3am dancefloors as he is working on his studio tan, watching the floor go wild at the renegade Kana outdoor parties he co-hosts or hugging a mate under a festival tent in the middle of an Underworld-inspired live dance music epiphany.

Leo’s musical journey began with the obligatory (and short-lived) childhood piano lessons to the obligatory early-90s stint playing bass in a high school grunge band. The sound of electronica first caught his ear when Nine Inch Nails and The Prodigy exploded out of the underground in the mid-90s, but he wasn’t fully consumed until an older brother’s housemate initiated him into clubland with a visit to seminal Brisbane nightclub The Tube in 1998. A love of techno and clubbing was born, but DJing was still far away on the horizon.

The aforementioned Underworld moment happened at the Gold Coast Big Day Out in 2003 – two years later, Leo and Dennis Gascoigne (the other hugger) found themselves rocking the very same Boiler Room stage under their Statler & Waldorf guise. The project which had begun as a heavily sample-based and hip hop influenced affair for Dennis and Cam Hales was reshaped dramatically with the addition of Leo (Cam eventually departing for family life in 2003). The evidence comes with the evolution of their sound from the largely downtempo 2004 EP Collusions (featuring Triple J staple Bass Buffer with Blue MC on vocals) to the fierce prog-tech sounds of 2006 long-player Andronovavirus (highlighted by the Sarah Blasko sampling Way With Words) – both released through the Freefall Records imprint which read like a who’s who of early noughties Brisbane beatsmiths. The sounds of the latter saw them become a regular fixture on Queensland club and festival stages, adding Parklife and Earthcore to their performance resume while playing alongside the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Infected Mushroom and Infusion along the way. At the same time, Leo was also exploring the realms of trip hop and downtempo grooves when he and Dennis teamed up with Australian Idol contestants Chanel Cole and Daniel Belle to form Spook, releasing the album The Dusk Sessions.

As those projects were winding up another was beginning, Segue seeing Leo join forces with fellow Brisbane production and live performance stalwart Dave Dri to take S&W’s dancefloor smashing feats to even greater heights. Building their reputation on energetic live shows and a sound for which “relentless” was a barely adequate descriptor, Segue rolled like a juggernaut through Brisbane’s clubs in support of King Unique, Jaytech and Steve Porter, staged a hit-and-run mission on Melbourne’s Smashbang club night (the label arm of which ultimately released the Reset/Forever digitial single release) and saw Leo step on to the Big Day Out stage for a second time in 2008.

It was in the middle of Segue’s lifespan that Leo began to dabble in spinning other people’s music, using his well-honed live performance skills with a rig of laptop and Ableton Live to share his love of techno, minimal and progressive house sounds in a new way. In 2012, Leo freely admits that he’s “fallen back in love with the basslines” of deeper house music, the evidence of which can be heard at his regular club sets at Brisbane’s bastion of the underground Barsoma and sporadic outdoor sets at the Kana events that since humble beginnings in 2008 have become a Brisbane institution. Since joining founder Elliot Clarke at the helm, Leo has co-hosted Kana parties in parks, on and under bridges and in abandoned warehouse spaces, the locations themselves only available by dialing in a pre-recorded mobile phone message on the day in honour of dance music’s original acid house revolutionaries.

Whether DJing, promoting or again dabbling with production (which sits near the top of his to-do list), chances are you’ll see him by your side as a punter sooner rather than later.

contact:: leohede@gmail.com