Be About It with Toby Tobias & Nick Williams

Nick Williams [aka Free-Care] (Meda Fury / Phonica)

In 2013 Nick was asked to join the A&R team at leg­endary Bel­gian tech­no label R&S records, after some time he was offered the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate and run a new sub-label for them: Meda Fury.

Now 27 releas­es deep — Meda Fury caters to exot­ic strains of house music from all over the globe. Releas­es so far include DJ Sein­feld, Hazy­lu­jah, Takuya Mat­sumo­to, Damon Bell, OL, D‑Ribeiro, Pearl Riv­er Sound, Ryota OPP, Lady Black­tron­i­ka, Rim­bau­di­an, Sad City, Plet­nev, Alleged Witch­es, Eliphi­no and Silvestre.

In his day job Nick is Assis­tant Manager/​running the counter and shop floor at Phon­i­ca Records in Soho Lon­don for 10 years, reg­u­lar­ly serv­ing up new releas­es to some of the busiest work­ing DJ’s, every­one from Seth Trox­ler to Andrew Weather­all, Josey Rebelle to Trevor Jack­son, Float­ing Points, Erol Alkan, Hon­ey Dijon, Four Tet and Moodymann…

Not feel­ing restric­tions in his DJ sets Nick likes to draw on every­thing from pro­to-house to UK acid, mod­ern deep­ness and Afro influ­ences to bass heavy hybrids, dis­coid weirdies and elec­tro to lo-fi abstractions…

Nick­’s affin­i­ty with DJ’ing start­ed when attend­ing the first out­door incar­na­tions of Trib­al Gath­er­ing fes­ti­val, as well as ille­gal par­ties in Lon­don. Going to Ibiza in 1997 was a turn­ing point, espe­cial­ly after unex­pect­ed­ly play­ing a set when invit­ed back to the infa­mous Man­u­mis­sion Motel.

After liv­ing in Aus­tralia for a year Nick returned to the UK to base him­self in Lon­don, this saw him make music his career — work­ing in vinyl press­ing plants, dis­trib­u­tors and record shops. 

Final­ly land­ing in Phon­i­ca, Nick has played warm-up duties for Moody­mann, Joy O, Four Tet, Dinos Chap­man, Shack­le­ton, Carl Craig, Mid­land and Omar‑S.

Whilst also pro­mot­ing his own club nights in these ear­ly years (solo and with col­lab­o­ra­tors) he pro­vid­ed UK debut per­for­mances for Vaku­la, Ron Morel­li, Maxmil­lion Dun­bar, Beau­ti­ful Swim­mers, and Ital. These par­ties also saw him book­ing Paul White, Bul­lion, Mag­ic Moun­tain High, Kyle Hall, Mau­rice Ful­ton, DMX Krew, Funk­in­even and Com­put­er Jay.

In the last decade he has DJ’ed all over the world and at Lon­don venues such as Cor­si­ca Stu­dios, Plas­tic Peo­ple, Vil­lage Under­ground, Great Suf­folk St, Min­istry Of Sound and Fire. 

2013 he played both Room 1 and Room 3 at Fabric.

2014 Nick played DJ sup­port in Lon­don for Kassem Mosse, Rick Wil­hite, and Der­rick Carter. And in Sheffield sup­port­ed Carl Craig and Midland.

2015 has also seen him play abroad in Berlin, Munich, Venice, Bel­gium and sup­port for Nick Hopp­n­er in Croa­t­ia, sup­port­ing Nina Krav­iz in Sheffield and going b2b with Space Dimen­sion Con­troller at an R&S par­ty in Antwerp.

2016 was the busiest year yet for inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic gigs. Sup­port­ing Dego and Ter­rence Park­er in Peck­ham and Pub­lic Pos­ses­sion in Hack­ney Wick, he played in Italy twice (Milan and Puglia), also in Berlin sup­port­ing Rouge Mecanique, a boat par­ty with Delano Smith in Greece at the fes­ti­val Odyysia, and back again to Croa­t­ia — this time for his Dimen­sions Fes­ti­val debut, also play­ing out­side at Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val, a debut gig in Paris and two debut dates in Tokyo with Ryota OPP! 

2017 brought return gigs in Lon­don, Sheffield, Berlin and Milan, and debuts in Copen­hagen, Farr Fes­ti­val UK and Locus Fes­ti­val in Italy. 

There were also return gigs at Dimen­sions Fes­ti­val, and Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val — this time Nick and his part­ner organ­ised an all day into evening Meda Fury and friends out­door par­ty fea­tur­ing: Diesel, Pho­tonz, Vio­let, The Maghre­ban, Alexan­der Nut, D‑Ribeiro and DJ Seinfeld/​Rimbaudian.

2018 brought more gigs in Berlin, Paris, Lon­don (sup­port­ing Juan Atkins at Oval Space, and Omar‑S at Egg), Birm­ing­ham (sup­port­ing DJ Sein­feld and Project Pablo), fes­ti­val sets at Alfres­co, Farr, Dimen­sions in Croa­t­ia and Sparks in Italy. 

2019 was the busiest year yet! bring­ing great gigs sup­port­ing Pho­tonz in Lon­don and Seth Trox­ler in Birm­ing­ham, B2B’s with Axel Boman in Bil­bao and Dauwd in Berlin. 

Lat­er in the year saw a return to All Points East fes­ti­val in Lon­don, with an after­par­ty set sup­port­ing Jon Hop­kins and Josey Rebelle. 

He also gained a few impor­tant debut gigs; Frank­furt and Darm­stadt in Ger­many – play­ing with the Work­shop crew (Even Tuell/​Kassem Mosse/​Mix Mup), Spir­it­land in Lon­don, Palo­ma Bar in Berlin with Lady Black­tron­i­ka, Lis­bon with Sil­vestre, and also Pikes in Ibiza – play­ing in Freddie’s for Secret­sun­daze, with a bit of B2B with James Priest­ley at the end. The year also brought impor­tant return gigs: African Acid Is The Future in Berlin (his 4^th set in 4 years con­sec­u­tive­ly), two sets at the final Dimen­sions fes­ti­val in Pula, and a 5 date tour of Japan with Ryota OPP, 3 gigs in Tokyo, 1 in Osa­ka and 1 in Kyoto!

2020 has so far gen­er­at­ed impor­tant and unex­pect­ed gigs. On the 1^st of Feb­ru­ary Nick was asked to sup­port two of his all time heroes in Lon­don – Square­push­er and Plaid! 

Lat­er in Feb­ru­ary he played Room 1 at Cor­si­ca Stu­dios along­side Antho­ny Naples, Huerco‑S and Simo Cell.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly due to the glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic the forth­com­ing dates are either in doubt, can­celled or postponed: 

March — Milan Apophis 

March – Lon­don Can­vas w/S.O.N.S

March – Lon­don EartH w/​808 State live

March – Lon­don Spiritland

April – Berlin Zur Klappe 

May – Not­ting­ham Wigflex Festival

May – Lon­don All Points East Festival

June – Darm­stadt 806QM 

June – Glas­ton­bury Festival

DJ set record­ings (Live/​club, Magazine/​commissioned and Radio):

https://​www​.mix​cloud​.com/​f​r​e​e​care/

Pho­to gallery:

https://​www​.drop​box​.com/​s​h​/​e​5​3​p​j​f​n​r​m​s​s​j​x​5​m​/​A​A​C​Q​1​q​2​u​u​T​a​Q​U​J​K​U​x​Y​r​E​0​O​P​o​a​?dl=0

Insta­gram:

https://​www​.insta​gram​.com/​m​e​d​a​f​u​r​y​r​e​c​ords/

Face­book:

https://​www​.face​book​.com/​n​i​c​k​.​w​i​l​l​i​a​m​s​.​3​36333

Sound­cloud:

https://​sound​cloud​.com/​m​e​d​a​-fury

Discogs:

https://​www​.discogs​.com/​l​a​b​e​l​/​6​2​7​0​2​6​-​M​e​d​a​-Fury

B2B’s – Past to present:

Axel Bomen (Pam­pa, Stu­dio Barnhus)
Space Dimen­sion Con­troller (R&S)
Dauwd (Nin­ja Tune)

Bradley Zero (Rhythm Section)
Danielle
Nyra (Canoe)
Toby Tobias (ESP Insti­tute, Rekids)
James Priest­ley (Secret­sun­daze)
Ryota Opp
House Of Traps (Fire­crack­er)
Silvestre 
Bri­an Not Bri­an (Going Good)
Bryce Hack­ford (Youth, Prah)
Chug­gy (Emo­tion­al Response/​Rescue)
Zoo Look