Wednesday, 2 July 2014

Flying High - Magazine Work



Joanne Philpott catches up with Jonna Ilife, one of City Fly Records founding fathers


If you’re into house music, then there is no doubt that you would have come across City Fly.

Starting off as a night, City Fly has now built into its own record label. Originally the brainchild of three school friends, Ashley Stevenson, Dale Tonks and Jonna Ilife, City Fly later welcomed Darran Pownall and James Sheerin on board.

“Although we were all doing a few nights around the city, we decided to step things up a gear by starting a bigger event, with high profile guests we were into at the time,” Jonna tells me.

He continued: “We booked Inland Knights and Phil Weeks for the first cou­ple of events. Luckily both events were a success as we had no money to cover costs if they flopped.”

Before City Fly started, Leicester was a very different place music-wise, and the sound of the City Fly that Jonna, Ashley and Dale brought to Leicester was what made it such a success. Even now, City Fly is something which no other nights in Leicester have.

“Nowadays the more generic ‘Deep House’ seems to be the ‘in’ thing but you can always expect to hear something different at a City Fly night that you wouldn’t anywhere else in the City,” Jonna said.

The summer of 2011 was when the five piece decided to make a big step - they started City Fly records. The label incor­porates what they are about - firstly their music, and secondly (and most impor­tantly) their passion, respect and love for the music and artists that they release on their label.

Telling me more about the label, Jonna said “The label is run from the heart. We don’t look to follow any sort of musical trends and we never put out music that we don’t 100 per cent agree on. Quality over quantity!”

The label releases a variety of artists - ranging from well established individuals, to some that aren’t so well-known. City Fly Records look beyond those who do not have a name, and instead they listen to their ears for something which catches their attention.

A few of the artists on the label include Andres, DJ Nature, Red Rack’em, Fred P, Medlar. Not only are they released on City Fly’s label, but also on some of the World’s best labels, which resides in City Fly being a big part of that. Creative Swing Alliance and Kez YM, who are also both released on the label have been the most successful taking into consideration of feed­back, exposure and sales.

Every release sees City Fly Records grow stronger and stronger. More and more options are created due to the label gaining more exposure, which means for the crew that they can approach more artists they are interested in. “We’ve even managed to invest in some nice remixes too and we keep pushing everything for­ward,” Jonna tells me with delight.

But it’s not all easy going for the label. Understandably, being in a group of five when making such decisions involving the label means that it’s a difficult task. The biggest obstacle is deciding on what should and shouldn’t be released. Howev­er, it’s not a complete downside, as Jonna explains that it means higher quality control with ‘more heads involved.’
But for the rest of it, everything is an enjoyable experience for the City Fly Records crew. Jonna loves exposing great music to the World. “One of my City Fly partners Darran came across a few of our releases in LA on a recent visit.” Now that must be amazing to hear that,
considering City Fly hails from the small city of Leicester.

Not only was that enjoyable for Jonna, but the continuous feedback, as well as the selling numbers of the records that are released on the label from people also brings him delight, and worth keeping City Fly records going. “We’ve made so many friends along the way and we always make an effort to invite them to come and play on our events no matter where they might be based in the World. It’s a real family vibe!”

It seems like there is only one for City Fly records, and that way is up.

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