In the beginning there was Susie, a creative soul with a technical mind and a love for music and dancing. Then there was the analog UK House & Garage vinyl days of Lady DJ Essence which evolved during a decade of living in London where she began playing on many of the original pirate radio stations in the 90's. This later progressed to a digital media education in 2002 and hence she became the artist DJitalEssence until August 2015 when it felt right for an evolutionary alias change to ONLY ESSENCE.
She is an artist who works from the heart with passion and determination.
DJ Lady Essence held regular weekly shows on London's Mission FM, Chicago FM, and guested on various other pirate radio stations that were around in those days such as Freek FM, Passion FM, London Underground and De Ja Vu Fm. She played vinyl on London's Underground House and Garage scene (1995-2002). Never a headline act, more commonly found in Room 2's or more edgy underground after parties.
Essence (as mostly known as then) left London in 2002 and returned home to Scotland where a new chapter began. She decided to further her education and progressed through an HND Multimedia with Web Design (Merited) and continued to a BSc in Audio Technology with Multimedia bringing her skills into the digital domain. Lastly in 2011 she studied a Masters in Music Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
During this formal education path she began experimenting and self learning music production. This was her creative outlet and healing space. A deep emotional inner journey ensued at this stage in her life, music was the place she could express and process her feelings. It was always that friend she found some comfort in, it understood, it gave her an escape and some strength as it always had going right back to childhood bullying experiences at school.
Following a short business start up course in 2009, Essence began to build her vision for the Vital Grooves Label initially as a platform for her own music and multimedia creativity. Towards the end of 2011 she worked hard to polish up her back catalog of tracks and uploaded them to Bandcamp as demo's and examples of her work.
2012 she set up Vital Grooves Label for distribution to online stores and churned out a catalog of tracks. The Label was her baby, a dream fuelled by passion and determination, utilising learnt skills, her creativity and whatever she had to hand.
During those artistic and holistic periods of growth, Essence fought hard to challenge her mind, body and soul to feel better and pursue happiness she struggled to find. She began running with Race for Life 5K in 2008 and continued every year with longer 10K's, then half marathon distances until in 2012 she ran her first full marathon in Edinburgh. 2013 she hit The Great Scottish Run Half Marathon in under 2 hours for the first time. In 2014 due to ill health she couldn't do much running, even walking was painful but thankfully in 2015 after a battle things began to improve enough to get moving again. She managed to get back in the game for annual GSR Half Marathons, her 2nd full Marathon challenge in Edinburgh May 2017 and again in 2022. She continues to find running a great source of balance and strength.
She also enjoys hiking, cycling, swimming, rollerskating and SUP paddleboarding.
In 2016 she began hillwalking with groups venturing out of the hermit studio life existence she had been living. It wasn't long before she was roped into her first Munro "bagging" expedition and has gone on to reach many summits since.
2018/19 became a change of focus with a pause on music to other areas of life. 2020 the pandemic hit and she found a new outlet in art and painting. 2022 sees a new chapter emerging literally...with the start of some writing unfolding...
Only Essence's music productions are a fusion of all sorts of influences and tangents from the roots of house music with glimmers of 80's retro-ness, dub, UKG, broken beats, deepness, soulfulness, electronica, electro, acid, jazz, funk, rave etc. She expressed herself with the instruments she had available to her, the computer, along with a bunch of samples, music software packages, VST's, pluggins, a midi keyboard and a mic.
She also has collaborated and remixing projects with UNITY GAIN RECORDINGS, Doug Gray (New York, USA), COCOARED (Philidelphia) and REBEL (London Producer/MC).
As a completely self producing female artist, Essence had to wear many hats to publish, promote and maintain the progression of Vital Grooves Label. There is no machine working behind her, she has output EVERYTHING connected to the Vital Grooves brand.
...her journey continues...an artist with a dream working independently from a node somewhere on this matrix...
