Holly Lester | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Hamiltonsbawn, County Armagh [1] |
| Genres | House, Techno [2] |
| Occupation(s) | Record producer, Disc Jockey |
| Labels | Terrazzo, Duality Trax [3] |
| Website | www |
Holly Lester is an electronic dance music disc jockey from County Armagh, Northern Ireland, who performs techno live sets. Lester is co-founder of the Free The Night advocacy organisation aimed at boosting the night-time economy in Northern Ireland.
Lester first started to beat-match at age 14, while growing up in Hamiltonsbawn, County Armagh. [1] She first came to prominence working as a disc jockey in dance venues in the north-west of England, has been a regular "homegrown" performer at the AVA Festival in Belfast, and was in the top 50 of the Guardians pick of the best new music for 2019. [2] [4] [5] [6] Lester has gone on to achieve wider recognition, playing sets across Europe, and in Australia and Indonesia. [2] [3] [7]
In 2019 Amy Fielding of DJ Magazine called Lester "one of Northern Irelands' most exciting selectors". [8] She was also nominated for a DJ Mag award in 2021 in the Underground Hero category. [2] Lester has been featured on BBC Radio a number of times, including performing mixes in both 2021 and 2022. [9] [10] Her sound has been described by Resident Advisor as "raw analogue jams" that "rub shoulders with dreamy trance tinged melodies and swirling breakbeats". [2]
Lester set up the Duality Trax record label, which has released music for artists including Abdul Raeva and Tifra. [3] In August 2021 the label released a compilation, "Visions Vol. 1", in aid of Doctors Without Borders, which was described by DJ Magazine as a "globetrotting, genre-hopping affair". [11] In 2023 Duality released the follow-up compilation, "Visions Vol. 2", with all proceeds aiding the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. [12]
Lester, along with Dublin-based Sunil Sharpe, is the founder of Free the Night, a non-profit organisation which started in 2021 with the aim of improving the night-time economy in Northern Ireland, including making it more "safe, progressive and culturally diverse" and campaigning for improved public transport. [1] [13] [14]
Antony de Vit was an English DJ and music producer. He is considered one of the most influential of his generation. He was credited with helping to take the "hard house" and fast "hard NRG" sounds out of the London and Birmingham gay scene into mainstream clubs. His single "Burning Up" reached number 25 on the UK Singles Chart in March 1995, with "To the Limit" making number 44 in September 1995. During that year, he won BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix of the Year Award, as voted by listeners of the show, and Music Week's re-mix of Year Award for Louise's "Naked". He remixed several UK top 40 hits during his career with artists such as Taylor Dayne and East 17. Between 1994 and 1998 his popularity with the clubbing public was rivaled by only Paul Oakenfold and Carl Cox. In September 2010, Mixmag UK announced the nominations of 35 DJs chosen by other big names in the world of dance music as those they considered the best DJs ever. A subsequent 15-month survey, which polled hundreds of thousands of global votes, asked who was the "greatest DJ of all time" and when the result was announced in January 2011, de Vit was ranked number 9.
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The AVA Festival is a Belfast-based recurring event for the audio and visual arts, founded in 2015. AVA events have also been held in Holland, Great Britain, and India.
The pride and adoration are palpable when watching the crowds interact with their homegrown heroes: Holly Lester has the throngs melting through LWS's remix of Bolam's 'Forgot My Brain', jackets being spun through the air as she expertly negotiates between '90s warehouse rave tunes and high energy bleeps and bloops.
The Baltic is stealing the show with three back-to-back sets of undiluted Irish energy from Holly Lester, The Night Institute's Timmy Stewart, and Jordan Nocturne. They're three of the festival's mainstays
Cosigned by fellow Northern Irish dance darlings Bicep, Holly Lester shares their enthusiasm for warm analogue jams over tinny digital tech. Her DJ sets are full of vintage or neo-classical house, either jacking tracks with vogue-worthy claps or deep explorations with sad, watery chords.
