5 Facts,5 Tracks: ATFC

Aydin Hasirci, aka ATFC, has been a key player on the house scene since he made his debut on BBE in 1997 with Circus ’97 / Uptown Vigiante. Since then he has carved himself a hugely successful career, penning 3 top 40 UK hits, and numerous Beatport and Traxsource No.1’s, releasing on labels such as Defected, Toolroom, Strictly Rhythm, among many, including his own OnePhatDeeva imprint. This month sees ATFC’s debut release on DJ Spen’s Unquantize label with an explosive House track ‘Das Dope’, along with taking charge of their forthcoming ‘Unquantize My Mind Vol. 12 Compilation’.

Today we welcome ATFC to our 5 Facts, 5 Tracks feature where we find out a bit more about him and what tracks have influenced his career over the last 30 years.

5 Facts

ATFC isn’t an acronym of Another Track For Cash, Aydin The Funki Chicken, Accrington Stanley Football Club or Aydin The Fat C***.
It stands for Aydin The Funki Chile (as in Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’) – Not Chile the country. Confused yet? I gave up 25 years ago!

Between 1997 and 2002, Aydin worked in Uptown Records Soho, which was, arguably, the epicentre of dance music culture at the time and during the hey day of House Music vinyl sales. Fellow colleagues in the shop included Seamus Haji, Tim Deluxe, Spencer Parker, Ronnie Herel, and Paul Farris.

While working in the shop, Aydin made ‘In & Out Of My Life’ which sampled Fat Boy Slim and Adeva – he called the project name ‘Onephatdeeva’. One day, after hearing about the record, Adeva flew from NY to London to find out what kid had sampled her and called her a ‘Phat deeva’. She arrived at Uptown Records unannounced and, after a lot of grovelling, Aydin managed to persuade Adeva to give her blessing to the project.

Alongside Djing and production, Aydin is also a music consultant. He has been playlist producer for World Athletics Championships in the Olympic Stadium London and the NEC Birmingham, a consultant for a winery and a Financial Markets streaming channel.
3 times a year he also produces a children’s dance event at Benidorm Palace.

Although Aydin has lived in Javea, Spain for 12 years he’s still not fluent in Spanish. This is a huge disappointment and embarrassment to his regular collaborator, David Penn. Whenever they meet, David is moved to tears by Aydin’s Spanglish.

5 Tracks

Eric B. & Rakim ‘I Know You Got Soul’

Hip Hop was my first musical love and Eric B & Rakim were in constant rotation on my turntable. I remember seeing them live at Hammersmith Odeon in 1987 with LL Cool J and Public Enemy and it was one of the most intense, thrilling live shows I’ve been to.
Rakim has, of course, become a god-like figure to rappers since and is widely regarded as the GOAT.

Barbara Tucker ‘Beautiful People’

This was the moment I ‘got’ House Music. I was DJing in the funky room of a night called Bump N Hustle in Bournemouth, UK and thought I’d venture into the main room to see what all the fuss was about. 2 hours later I was stood on a speaker stack pumping my fists to this as the lights came on. From that moment on, the four four beat made sense.

Constipated Monkeys ‘Cro-Magnon’

A record that changed the game for me as a producer. It was a tougher but, arguably funkier sound that hadn’t existed before. I remember my production partner at the time, Warren Clarke, and I scratching our heads trying to figure out how Harry and Jose had constructed it. Harry, particularly, has remained a massive source of inspiration.

Nuyorican Soul ‘I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun’

I couldn’t have a list of 5 without something from Masters At Work (although Beautiful People above is a MAW production). The Nuyorican Soul project included so many of my favourite artists, was released on one of my favourite labels, Talkin Loud, and this 4 Hero remix of one of my favourite tunes ever by Rotary Connection, is just heaven.

Stevie Wonder ‘For Once In My Life’

If I was stranded on a desert island with only access to one artist on Spotify, I think I’d choose Stevie Wonder. However, the incredible fact about this record comes from the bass player James Jamerson, who also played on countless other Motown hits. Analysis shows that no 2 bars are the same throughout the whole 3 minutes and that he basically improvised the entire take on the spot.

‘Das Dope’ will be released on Traxsource promo March 13th / Full release March 27th 2020 on Unquantize. You can listen below and grab it from here

‘Unquantize Your Mind Vol. 12 Compilation’ mixed & compiled by ATFC, will be released on March 20th 2020 on Unquantize.