‘Bass driven Deep Progressive Driving Emotive House & Techno with Funk and Groove’

Born in New Zealand Greig returned from the maternity hospital on the first day of his life and was greeted with the sound of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos that had been pre-arranged by his parents to be playing when he first entered the family home and to be his first exposure to music. It is perhaps from this beginning that a love of music was embedded in his psyche and certainly it was nurtured by his parent’s love of music and all things creative, as both were full time artists. 

Alex graduated to playing records in his room from age five and this led to playing guitar as a child and a private musical journey of purchasing and listening to music extending from the rock legends of the 70’s such as Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Santana and the birth of electronic music from Kraftwerk and Mike Oldfield. 

Considering its over Forty years he’s been devoted to discovering and playing music Alex has dedicated spending as much time to the ‘pursuit of the pleasure of music’ often as those who derive income from it. 

His early love of techno covers the complete evolution of the genre including the early beginnings of trance from the German techno producers such as Sven Vath. Along the way Alex’s influences have been wide and all encompassing from early metal, particularly Motorhead and southern rock – ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, through the acid house revolution and UK pioneers such as Slam, Underworld and Primal Scream in the mid eighties. The development of Trip Hop and particularly James Lavelle’s early Mo Wax label and then the release of Sasha & Digweed’s CD mix album Renaissance The Mix Collection changed his life forever. 

Always drawn to a love of bass that has taken him from the jazz of Miles Davis and the music of Mark King, Marcus Miller, and Stanley Clark, or straight out funk of The Infectious Grooves and onto deep electronic bass lines. 

He found himself entranced by Deep house and early tech house from the likes of Craig Richards, Terry Francis and Terry Lee Brown Junior and labels such as Glasgow Underground and Mushroom Jazz.

In the nineties Greig introduced electronic music into Rip it Up, New Zealand’s original music magazine by writing CD and gig reviews.  Bucking the established house scene at the time in Auckland New Zealand, which he thought had become too commercial and predictable. He used what became a regular column as a voice to stir up the scene at the time and promote more underground sounding DJ’ s and music at the time such as NZ’s techno pioneer Greg Churchill and overseas visitors playing a more progressive sound. 

From a conscious decision as an entrepreneur whilst building companies Greig has never dedicated a lot of time to DJing preferring to keep digging for the sounds to be shared with friends many being DJ’s, which often influenced by the sounds he shares. 

The advent of Digital music and indeed this Soundcloud page provide yet another platform from which to share the sounds that are moving him along with a vehicle to showcase local and new DJ’s from New Zealand such as Tom McGuinness and La Sonique which are already represented on his profile.

Sharing a love of well crafted sets and quality production If his current music preference could be put into a box it would be along the line of ‘Bass driven Deep Progressive Driving Emotive Techno with Funk and Groove’.

Enjoy


As a DJ, Stoffa has made his mark on the Wellington dance scene, playing Wellington bars and clubs and parties in strange places since the early 2000’s.

He was a founding member of The Matrix Crew putting on their own multi room parties at The Phoenix night club. They also ran a monthly club night “Twisted?”

His genre bending track selection combined with an immediate connection with the crowd made him a middle room favourite.

Stoffa has supported International Djs such as Anthony Pappa, Sander Kleinenberg, Lee Burridge and played gigs at Studio 9, Sandwiches, Phoenix, The Gathering and many more.

After a 10 year hiatus he’s been back playing The Taniwhas Den and Sinphonic Events parties in Wellington and armed with all new Melodic Techno and Deep Tech and is bringing back that old school Wellington Prog Sound

The Poison Control Centre is a Young Astronauts Club-related project.

Young Astronauts Club is a stadium rock group featuring singer / songwriter / guitarist / multi-instrumentalist / producer Mic (Michael James Macintosh), singer / songwriter / keyboardist / multi-instrumentalist / producer Krs (Crystal Dawn Macintosh) and a continuously active, rotating cast of musicians, vocalists, producers, sonic / visual artists and remixers. As primogenitures of post rock, their collective mission is to continue to bring music forward, into the 21st century and beyond.

Followers of Desarae