Mike Surreal has more than earned his tech house stripes. Not only does he manage top London vinyl emporium Eukatech (that’s him selecting the hot wax behind the counter for the past three years), he’s also been quietly running one of London’s most consistent tech-house labels, Surreal since early 1996.

Right now, he’s busy setting a brand new label, Deeper London, with long-time cohort Timmy S, shooting around the globe DJing, and considering resurrecting long lost Space Bunny?

Jane Fitz caught up with Mike to find out the scoop...

Jane Fitz: When did you start djing?

Mike Parsons: I first got the taste back in the early 90's and was a keen bedroom dj until asked to help out at a friends night in a bar in 1992. This turned out to be my first residency which lasted about two-and-a- half years. Since then i have played all over the UK at numerous clubs and parties such as Wiggle, Renaissance, Eukatech @ The End & AKA and I've had several long-running residencies at clubs and nights in Brighton (Optical, Positive Sound System, Fluid Groove & Downloaded).

Over the last four years I've also been djing abroad in the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Israel, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Holland and Thailand.

Jane: What are your plans for the coming year?

Mike: To carry on with it all at Eukatech, there's lots of work to be done
there. We have plans to refit the shop in the near future, the records (which were in the basement) will be moved upstairs and the freed up space will be used for a studio and an office. We also have to get a proper web site sorted for the shop (finally!!).

Me & Timmy S want to get our Deeper London project off the ground so we'll be working on music for that and i'll continue to keep the releases coming on Surreal.

Jane: What will be the sounds on Deeper London?

Mike: At present we are just planning to release our own productions. I had thought of putting it all out on Surreal but as i am continuing to license tracks from other people there is a bit of a queue and we would have had to wait a while as the release schedule was so full, so we decided to start a separate label.

With Deeper London we are trying to save as much money as possible (and with sales being as fickle as they are right now we want to minimise the risk), so we are just going to be releasing white labels (no finished copies, artwork or fancy sleeves) and we will only do a run of 500 copies. I don't yet know who will be distributing the label but we plan to deal direct with any interested parties and to keep it all under our control.

Jane: The Surreal label seems pretty busy... any goodies lined up?

Mike: There are several things in the pipeline at the moment, the new Surreal release 'Sellout' and some projects that Dave and Andy (Spincycle) and Kev (Metta & JT Love) are working on independently which should get an airing later this year. There will also be a couple of Surreal samplers released at some stage with a collection of some of the more sought after tracks from the back catalogue.

Jane: What's happened to Space Bunny?

Mike: Space Bunny was me, Laurent Webb, Dave Coker & Justin Bailey. It was an experiment and a bit of fun. We tried combining various different styles of music with a theme, and generally tried to emulate the type of music we played in the 'Strange Room' at Wiggle.

That was 1995 - 1997, Strange Weather Studios was a busy place at the time and in addition to Space Bunny the guys were working with Nathan Coles and Terry Francis together as Housey Doingz and a host of others including Get Fucked. Everybody got busier doing stuff and it was difficult finding time when everybody could get together. Laurent and I have spoken about resurrecting Space Bunny though, so who knows...

Jane: Who else do you work with?

Mike: In the past I've worked with all the guys from Strange Weather studios (Laurent Webb, Justin Bailey & Dave Coker) but more recently its just been me and Tim in the studio.

Jane: Anyone you'd like to work with?

Mike: Anyone who's willing to teach me a thing or two really who's got plenty of patience. I'm no great studio whiz and while i'm good with ideas, sounds, loops, arrangements and the like I wouldn't get very far programming or engineering on my own.

Jane: Are you in the studio much these days?

Mike: Not anything like as often as i'd like...maybe 1 or 2 days a month.

Jane: You're in the shop so you get to see and hear a lot of music...what are your impressions of the scene at the moment?

Mike: If you look at the overall picture I think less people are going out these days.....the rave generation is getting a bit older, having kids and staying in. This is a huge generalisation but I'm sure anyone would tell you that things have not been as busy as they were.

The music for me though has continued to get better and better - production standards have increased dramatically and there are new producers and new labels popping up all the time. It just seems a shame that there don't seem to be as many people enjoying the music.

Jane: How hard is it for shops to survive right now?

Mike: Its a very difficult time now with sales being a little lower. I wouldn't recommend opening a shop right now (not if you want to make any money anyway!) but I think an established company should be able to weather the storm. The last year has seen lots of dance labels, magazines and shops bite the dust and I'm sure there will be a few more before too long.

Jane: How do you see the scene progressing over the next year?

Mike: After the last year I don't think too much will change, but I think everybody is going to be a little more cautious. A&R guys will be offering points or percentages......no advances, bigger promoters will move away from doing massive events and concentrate on smaller more regular nights and Ibiza will be a little less busy. It should be a good time for the underground shops and independent labels though (fingers crossed) as a lot of the majors have had their fingers burnt.

Jane: And any new tips for this year?

There has been lots of wicked new music around from fairly fresh faces who I think will go a lot further and there are some interesting new projects & labels happening. And of course we can expect a lot of good things from some of the more established artists. But look out for Affected Music, Harold Heath, a new production team of Nathan Coles, Nils Hess & Eric Lee (a new Get Fucked??) and Hallucination Records

Mikes Jan/Feb Top 5:

Terry Francis - Freedom Ep - Hallucination
Nathan Coles & Smithmonger - Wiggle
Erich Lee & Francis Harris - Sellout - Surreal
Primary Sequence ft Tempo O'Neil - Total Control - Visitor
Morgan Page ft Collette (Halo Varga Remixes) - All I Need - Nordic Trax

Many thanks to Mr Parsons for taking the time out to update us on his projects... keep an eye on Surreal!

Deeper London 001, "Fancy a Shag?" by the Mingers, is out now... check it at your local vinyl emporium.