Play was an early recording moniker of Sydney producer Philip McGarva. Philip’s track ‘Hawaiian” was a strong inclusion on the 1992 Volition compilation “High (A Dance Compilation). “Hawaiian” is a dreamy house instrumental with elements of classic techno, and would still sit well in any Italo or Balearic DJ set.
“My friends and I were always into music and dancing. We went to Sydney clubs such as the Hip Hop club, Site, Spago, the Talofa Club, Patches, and a tiny space behind the Carrington Hotel in Bourke St, Surrey Hills, with a DJ on Saturday nights. The music was funk, disco and some hip pop acts like ABC and Yello.
Around 1987 house and techno records appeared and I started shopping at Disco City and Central Station. [Editor’s note: Disco City and Central Station were record stores specialising in dance music and DJ equipment] I liked lots of the early house records (‘Love Can’t Turn Around’ was pretty much everywhere) but the techno records from Detroit made a bigger impression on me. I already loved Kraftwerk, YMO and early hip hop and I was attracted to music that was inventive, abstract, funky and mysterious. KMS, Transmat and Planet E were my labels of choice.
I started making my own music with a Juno-60 synthesiser and a TR-808 drum machine. After a couple of years making crude rubbish that sounded like Black Box knock-offs I managed to complete a few tracks I was happy with. I read about a group from Brisbane called Boxcar and their label Volition so I sent the label a few tracks and visited their office in East Sydney. Andrew (Penhallow) was friendly and helpful and usually had time to chat about music or whatever.
Around this time Boxcar had moved to Sydney and I became friendly with David Smith and their producer Robert Racic – both of whom were generous and encouraging. Andrew told me he was putting together a compilation of new local material and was thinking he might include one of my tracks. He had two shortlisted and I’m glad he chose what he did because people still seem to enjoy it.
When I listen to it now I imagine I can hear traces of my favourites at the time, such as Carl Craig, Deee-lite and Nervous Records, although it’s perhaps just my memories of that period of my life.
The gritty synthesiser sound at 2:33 was sampled
from a ravetastic 1992 12” by an Australian pop icon who’s still the greatest.”
Since his early 90s recordings as Play, Philip has produced some amazing techno, mainly under his Microworld moniker.
“I moved from Sydney to Canberra and was able to devote more time to music, which changed as I listened to more techno and house and saw DJs including Derrick Carter, Kevin Saunderson, Ian Pooley, Mark Farina, The Hacker and Derrick May.”
In 1999 Detroit Techno god Derrick May’s Transmat label released the Microworld vinyl 12″ Signals / Smile (Transmat MS-22), which later appeared on mix CDs by Danny Tenaglia and Roger Sanchez, as well as the ‘Time: Space’ and ‘Beyond the Dance – Transmat 4’ compilations. The release was remastered and reissued on coloured vinyl by Belgian label Curle Recordings (Petite 1.5) in 2016.
Microworld’s self titled album was released on Catalog Japan / Transmat in 2004.
Since then, Philip has had releases on labels in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, and his tracks have found their way into sets by DJ/producers such as Sven Väth, M.A.N.D.Y. and Seth Troxler.
“I was pleasantly stunned to see Seth Troxler play the track Ism as the opener to his 2019 set for Cercle at the beautiful Château d’Apigné in Rennes, France.”
In 2019 Philip launched his own imprint, Cachet Recordings, with the first release, the “Audiogenic EP” (CR 01), under his own name.
At the time of writing Philip had finished a remix for Irish label Xistence’s ‘Movement’ EP and was working on new original material.
VOLT 2023: A Volition Archive 