A Conversaton with DOTT – Wonderfruit Festival

Revolutionising the festival landscape with a celebration of art, music, food and ideas that positions it as one of the world’s most unique musical experiences, Thailand’s sustainable utopia Wonderfruit returns for its sixth edition on 12th-16th December 2019 at The Fields At Siam Country Club, Pattaya. DJ/producer/record label owner DOTT is featuring at the event, and we had the chance to talk about his career, tourist tips, and Wonderfruit itself, check it out below…

Hey DOTT, welcome to Dance Rebels, how are you? Please also introduce yourself too; where are you from and how long have you been working in the music industry for? I am great thank you! My name is Pakarapol or DOTT as alias for producer, and DJ I’m from Bangkok. I got into electronic music around 7 years ago and got into DJing around a year after that.  

What sacrifices have you had to make to enable you to pursue your career in the music industry too? What’s the biggest challenge you have experienced to date too? Hahaha so many things lack of sleep, eating, back pain overall as a health, Time most of my time I putting into music I think a lot and a lot of time its about music and when you have time you just either make music or something related. The biggest challenge this for me would be the Europe trip this past summer where I had to play at this great private festival called Secret Pit with the LCDB crew, because most of the name in the line up is like artists that I look up to for instance Thomas Melchior, The Perlons people, labels like Rotate, Mini Bar etc. The line up was 6am in the morning on Sunday Morning I havnt really slept since arrived on Friday and I was very very nervous because of lack of sleep plus the vibes the people they are true music lovers and dancers, but luckily everything went well than expected and I just grew a lot from this 

What’s the nightlife like in Bangkok? Are there any top night clubs people should experience when visiting? Also, what is the current most popular genre-wise there too? Nightlife in Bangkok is not so bad if it’s the time where there are a lot of tourists etc, and because of early closing times sometimes people just goes to after party straight away. There’s a few underground ones here; Safe Room and Glow are nice for underground touch. 12×12 is also intimate and always a good party, Mustache also has lots of people every night and Trex Bar for a later closing time. I think Bangkok has a diverse genre of music from Disco, Italo to Electro, Minimal Experimental, but I would say I see more numbers of people and DJs are going more towards Progressive Tech House thing.

You’re also set to perform at Thailand’s ‘Wonderfruit Festival’, how would you describe your DJ style? Also, I noticed you run your own label with 2 partners entitled ‘More Rice’ could we expect a vinyl-only set? My set usually have a strong foundation of grooves and a bit towards minimal, but during the set it can go from Deep House to Electro or Disco and Acid Jazz at some point, depends on how long is the set, where, time, people etc. Also, yeah, me, Sarayu, and Mikail (From Manila) running this label together trying to connect Asian artists together with other artists around the world by releasing music. It will be both digital and vinyl during the set, I’m more comfortable with organizing stuff digitally, but then I will also play some of my favourite records as well. 

Speaking of Wonderfruit Festival, why should people worldwide attend this event? What do you think makes it such a unique experience for attendees? Sell it to me! Haha! I mean I’ve been to Wonderfruit since the beginning and every year, it’s like the time where all your friends are gathering and have a great few days together. The vibe is just so great there, so much effort in everything, happy faces everywhere, and it’s not only about music it’s everything that goes around us, it’s everything in one festival.  I can say it’s one of the best; well-balanced festival’s that I’ve been too, but you can also go very hardcore depends on yourself as well. 

Outside of the Wonderfruit Festival, when in Thailand what other things should attendees experience from a tourist point of view? Any top suggestions? I would say go to the different Islands for sure, there are touristy ones and more local ones, depends on what you like. The most important thing is the food though, there is so much for you to try. Try the famous weekend market JJ market, MBK are always nice as well, a lot of my DJs friend go there every time they visit.  

The line-up for Wonderfruit Festival also features Four Tet, Craig Richards, Floating Points and many more, how important is it for festival line-ups to be diverse and creative nowadays? It’s a very good thing that Craig came to curate some of the music at Wonderfruit, because people here have different taste. Like this year Craig brought a lot of hard hitters, but yet there’s also line up like Acid Pauli, Be Svendsen and Viken Arman whp would be preferred by the people that like Burning Man kind of music. There also local and even different artists on other stages as well, and you can always find something new there as well, throughout the day. 

Finally, if you could invite any artist you look up to for inspiration to perform at Wonderfruit Festival, who would it be, and why? What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received musically too? I would choose Zip for a long set hahaha. I got to see him first time at Epizode Festival last year, but I’ve been listening to his sets or music as Dimbiman before and he just blew my mind. One of my good friend name Andrei used to say “Good Music Always Lives”.

Phase 2 full pass tickets are 6,900 THB and available here: www.wonderfruit.co/tickets