He says he hasn’t graced a barber shop since 1998, but Yumla owner Dan F assures Oliver Clasper he has been hard at work setting up a new record label

Taking shelter from the black rain outside and settled into his favourite corner of Yumla, an establishment that seems to emerge from the side of the building it occupies like a Hobbit’s dwelling, Dan F is in high spirits. And as the week draws to a steady close discussion turns to the man’s latest mission to set up a Hong Kong record label dedicated solely to locally-produced techno.

His arrival at this current place and time is really no surprise. Born in England sometime in the mid-70s, he dabbled in civil engineering in the oil industry for a few years before moving to Hong Kong moments before the new millennium – and that’s where the music side of his life really began. He set up a recording studio (where he now writes music for feature films) and started a breakbeat label, Disuye Records, which saw him produce myriad tracks and play out under the same name (as well as his own, Dan F) before taking over an old wine bar in 2003 with his wife. That place became what is now Yumla.

The bar was essentially the blueprint for what was to follow, and it didn’t take long for Yumla to become “just a home where people can play what they want to play, listen to what they want to listen to without any of that commercial compromise. All the DJs we have just love their music, and having a fucking wine bar manager telling them what to play it’s like, ‘you know how to make cocktails so stay away from the decks, you know how to manage accounts so stay away from the fucking decks.’”

Dan F readily admits that it was motivated, in part, by purely selfish reasons. With a wry smile he says he set up the bar to bring in some of the best DJs in town to play the darkest, funkiest and most progressive techno because “as a music lover, and someone who writes music, I felt Hong Kong was missing a venue like this. It wasn’t a business thing, and I didn’t give a shit whether anyone else enjoyed it. I just wanted it.” But through that personal desire some of the city’s most respected and loved electronic artists have come to fruition or have been given the residencies that have endeared them to a whole generation. From Basil Tam to Wendy Wenn, from Ocean Lam to Imai Fukutaro, and from Frankie Lam to Kerri Monk, these DJs know how to move a crowd. And while Dan is at pains to bring over top European DJs, he stresses that “the funny thing about the international DJs I book here is that it takes them half an hour or more to get into the crowd. There’s just nothing better than a local DJ playing for a local crowd of people.”

And it was off the back of this, and as a producer himself, that the idea to start Yumla Records began. It was simply a no-brainer to get these DJs to put some records out, to gain more prominence, and to become more well-rounded artists. But with a dose of realism he admits, sadly, that “there’s nothing here in Hong Kong for our DJs to build up to. This record label is a vehicle for that and I’m hoping it grows from this.” Not only that, but in an age where so much music is downloaded for free  and shared digitally and virally, could it not be conceived as something of a major risk to start a label now? “You’re right. There’s never a good time to set up a record label, especially now as nobody buys music anymore. But we’re not trying to sell it. I mean, they’re available to buy, but we’re not trying to finance the label.”

Despite being younger than some of the artists on the new label he is very much a father-figure, and under his patient stewardship they can come to him and ask him for advice on everything from the mastering to the production to the sound itself. Resident DJ Basil Tam concurs: “Dan is kind enough to be our mentor, and he is a technical guru in sound engineering.”

To date there have been four releases, all sold digitally on Beatport, and Dan F is hoping to release at least one track a week well into August and beyond. Thus far, Basil Tam and Frankie Lam have produced The Deranged, alongside Bebe Rebozo’s Hellbound, Disuye’s own The Omega and Dan F and Frederik's acid, f*cker!. And the label isn’t restricted to just Yumla residents. “The worst thing to do with a record label is have rules,” he says, before stating: “I’m hoping to find some undiscovered, underground gem in a bedroom somewhere in Kowloon Bay making wicked techno. I’m sure there’s got to be someone out there. Don’t tell me they all sit at home on their Casios making Cantopop.”

Only time will tell, but the success of the bar, and the nurturing of the musical talent within it, has worked. And with a burgeoning local scene it appears that the black rains will soon blow over so that the future of techno here can thrive.

Head down to Yumla on Oct 27 to celebrate its seventh birthday. Free drinks between 7pm-10pm and tunes from Dan F and friends.